Seattle thrashy punk quintet The Insurgence don’t stop at merely wanting to be noticed. They seem fixed on demanding your attention. Their newest record, Elimi-Nation (Innerstrength Records), is a testimonial to that fact. Dudes can play, and thankfully, not just in a shreddy, flashy, chops-indicate-penis-size kind of way. The Insurgence clearly understand the overlapping nature of punk, hardcore, and metal. They use it to build individual parts as well as whole songs on a variety of platforms, and understand how to then augment (which almost anyone can do) or temper them (which few have mastered) with different types of layering. And the distinct street esthetic to their sound acts as a unifying element for it all. Musically this album is well-packaged. It sounds great, the performance is tight and feels live, and likely appeals to a lot of people.

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