Demonstration Of Power: ten tracks, two of them already spent

The debut album is out October 28 with two of its songs already out and already doing damage. "Spirit Inherited" and "In The Name Of..." are heavy hardcore, commanding and hard-hitting, and both are album versions of tracks that had an earlier life on a promo minidisc. Demonstration Of Power have put their weight behind two songs, and the open question is what stands behind the other eight.

The band are from Glasgow, in the middle of the city's heavy hardcore scene. The release history is short and deliberate: a demo, a two-song single, a few splits. Frontman Shaun Alexander is known for a physical set, and he played Sound And Fury two years ago. In The Name Of... is the first full-length, out on Northern Unrest.

The record was set up in two stages. Earlier this year, two of its songs circulated on a promo minidisc in earlier versions, and the album versions are the ones out now. October 13 brought the announcement and the two singles; October 28 brings the ten titles the tracklist names.

What is audible is a band playing hardcore as physical force. Both songs are loud, heavy and forward, and both are commanding in the plain sense: they take the room and keep it. "Spirit Inherited" names its lineage and then backs the claim with the weight of the playing. "In The Name Of..." is the title track, which means it has to set the record's terms, and on the strength of these two it does.

The rest of the announced tracklist is "Behind The Scenes", "Crimson Reign", "Self Abandons Self", "Left To Wander", "Idol Lies", "Solid Bonds", an "Interlude" and "Power (One For All Mix)". The announcement attaches no audio and no description to any of them. On titles alone, the record is about power and what it costs: idols, bonds, a self that abandons itself, a name invoked. That reading is a reading, and the music will confirm it or flatten it.

This is for the people already inside Glasgow's heavy hardcore scene, the ones who caught the demo and the splits and still have the minidisc. It is also for anyone who wants a hardcore record to arrive at volume and stay there. If your week needs a hook you can hum, start with the two singles, because they are the whole public case.

The flaw is arithmetic. Two of ten tracks are out, and both had a run on the minidisc before that, so anyone near this band reaches the album having already spent a fifth of it. A debut gets one first listen. Spending it on the two songs that were already working leaves October 28 as confirmation for the converted and a blind purchase for everyone else.

What is on the table is heavy, commanding, hard-hitting and brief: two songs that stand up, and a scene that has already decided. That is a 3: a record that works without yet making its case. In The Name Of... has two songs that hit and eight that have to.

Hear it