Subversive Intent – Self-Titled

San Diego’s Subversive Intent formed in 2025, and after a demo from the same year that somehow slipped under most of our writers’ radars, they’re back with a self-titled album. Subversive Intent might arrive as a long-player, but don’t expect anything less than a total ripper. This thing is ten songs in just over twelve minutes, wrapped in a simple black-and-white artwork that could just as easily belong to a scruffy demo or a dollar-bin 7-inch.

Subversive Intent were started by Oxnard hardcore lifer Zack Nelson, also known for the excellent 185 Miles South podcast, and his musical influences are all over the record’s sense of history and intent. In an interview I read, Nelson said the original spark was Discard’s Death From Above EP, before he realized that writing Swedish d-beat without sounding generic was a lot harder than just worshipping the right records. Instead, Subversive Intent tears off in a more traditional USHC direction, with riffs stacked on riffs and everything played like the band is trying to win a fight against the clock.

The first time I played the record, it sounded like a 33 RPM hardcore record blasted at 45. “Capitulation” kicks things off in a one-minute rush of clenched teeth and forward motion, and from there the band never really take their foot off your skull. There are no modern mosh parts here, no breakdowns built for gym shorts and spin-kicks. Subversive Intent deal in speed, rage, and impact. The production is thick enough to make the whole thing hit like a brick to the face, but it never slows the songs down or turns them into some overproduced hardcore slug. There’s some Crucifix in the political snarl, some Poison Idea in the brawling riffage, and more than a little of Bastard’s Wind of Pain attitude in the way everything feels hostile, urgent, and unhinged. I’d also throw in the thought that if modern US d-beat bands like Destruct or Ultimate Disaster had swerved into a more traditional USHC direction instead of letting the Discharge worship take the wheel, they might have landed somewhere close to this.

The lyrics are worth digging into, too, because this isn’t just another record screaming vague threats at a blank wall. “Capitulation” is a call for bravery and no surrender, while “Disappeared” turns toward the band’s own “state violence, state control” moment. “Manifesto” is where the anti-billionaire rage kicks in first, while the title track takes aim at the grift of corporations, politicians, bombs, surveillance, private jets, unaffordable homes, and public land sold off while the rest fight over scraps.

“Petrofascist” goes after oil wealth, religious repression, murdered journalists, imprisoned activists, and the kind of sportswashing that tries to launder blood through spectacle (note: fuck FIFA, fuck the World Cup!). “Coerced Perception” is one of the strongest cuts here, turning algorithmic doomscrolling and billionaire-controlled walled gardens into less than a minute of brain-fried hardcore. “Starvation” is barely there in terms of running time, but its point is brutally simple: hunger is a weapon of war. “Ready 2 Go” drags more state brutality and fatalism into the frame, while “Plasticosis” closes the record with microplastics, endocrine disruption, and technological excrement in the water and air… The first time I listened to the record without reading the lyrics, I was already at the last song when I had to ask myself, “wait, is this guy really singing about microplastics?”

Subversive Intent feels punk in the most satisfying sense. It’s fast, angry, subversive, and over before your brain has fully caught up with the damage. It is already one of my favourite USHC records of the year, and if this is where the band are at so early on, I’m very interested to hear how much more damage they can do next time.