Liquid Cross's 'Hateful EP' is a Snarling, Big-Hearted Masterpiece of Backyard Punk
Liquid Cross doesn’t sound like a band with anything to prove, which is exactly what makes Hateful EP land so hard. Out via the Philadelphia label Strange Mono, this is the Eugene, Oregon outfit’s follow-up to last year’s Don’t Think EP, and it takes the same tuneful-yet-buzzy formula and points it somewhere sharper: the low-grade, everyday exhaustion of watching the news right now. Frontman Jon has said the record is a “natural progression” from the band’s earlier material, and you can hear it — this is a band getting more confident about saying exactly what it means.
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: Strange Mono’s house sound favors a bass tone that sits thick and a little dirty in the mix, giving the EP a rounded, physical low end that keeps the songs from ever feeling thin, even at four tracks and no filler.
The Spatial Dynamics: The guitars are recorded hot and close, all buzz and treble crunch, while the vocals sit just far enough out front that the hooks never get buried under the noise. It’s a production choice that owes an obvious debt to ’80s French oi and to Portland’s own Wipers — tight, urgent, unfussy.
Standout Performance
What carries Hateful EP is Jon’s delivery — aggressive without tipping into cartoonish, and melodic in a way that keeps pulling you back for another listen. There’s real pop instinct buried in the sonic annihilation, the kind of hooks that critics have rightly compared to Replacements-era songcraft.
Why It’s Certified
Four tracks, zero wasted motion, and a record that tackles “the political heaviness of daily life in the United States” without ever losing its sense of tune — that’s a harder trick than it sounds. This is a band using its platform for something bigger than itself, too: proceeds from the EP go to CORE (Community Outreach through Radical Empowerment), a Lane County nonprofit focused on youth empowerment. Punk bands love to say they mean it. Liquid Cross backs it up. Certified great.