Zine Review: Trapped Nerve #4

Not long ago, I ranted about how many good writers, some of whom once published print zines, have moved to blogs and newsletters on platforms like Substack. In the age of smartphones and AI slop, plenty of folks have also declared the print zine dead. I’ve never stopped digging for hardcore punk zines. They’re still around, but maybe it’s becoming more difficult to get your hands on them.

Some of the best zine distros have closed, shipping costs have skyrocketed, and zines are getting harder to find at shows. Hardcore punk distros still around today rarely get new stock, often carrying just a handful of titles published years ago. Instagram seems to have become the main way people discover new zines, which is a depressing state of affairs. Without an Instagram account, even ordering a copy can be difficult (some punk zines are available only through Instagram DMs).

Trapped Nerve is an entirely different matter. Its author, Nathan Bean, has spent a few years in the wilderness, disappearing from social media altogether. Receiving copies of the new issue was a welcome surprise, especially as I think it’s been four or five years since the last one.

Trapped Nerve is a vegan straight edge hardcore zine from the UK. Nathan has previously published Harder They Fall zine, ran the Hemlock 13 label, and played in bands including Age of Kali, xCanaanx, Rot In Hell, and Eyeteeth. I picked up previous issues of Trapped Nerve years ago and truly admired what he was doing. The 2010s saw a resurgence of straight edge zines, but too many offered either dull interviews with posicore and youth crew bands who had little to say, or militant vegan edge posturing in the vein of those holier-than-thou ’90s diatribes and manifestos. Much of it was nothing but cringe.

Trapped Nerve was the real deal. Nathan knows the scene, but he is also a good writer, combining a rich vocabulary and dry British wit without being (too much) a judgemental prick. His tastes lean towards hardcore’s heavy, dark, metallic, and misanthropic corners, and this fourth issue is no exception. An excellent essay on the now largely forgotten ’90s UKHC band Ironside describes them as “straight edge without a bleached youth crew sunrise. No clenched fist uplift. No happy chorus about better days.” That gives you a pretty good idea of the zine’s direction.

Among the highlights is a deep dive into Grant Morrison’s Animal Man, reading the comic as a dark plea for empathy and compassion at a time when radical environmentalism and anti-speciesist vegan activism were gaining ground worldwide. There’s also a deeply personal interview with Rob Merrill, drummer for Sheffield’s In The Clear and vocalist for Koreisch. The latter’s only album, 1999’s This Decaying Schizophrenic Christ Complex, remains an utterly bleak, haunting record. Its collision of sludge, noise, dark ambient, grindcore, and power electronics creates a sense of dread and absence that feels hauntological, reaching far beyond the novelty of mixing those styles.

Elsewhere, there are essays exploring the intersection of goth and vegan straight edge, alongside a letter from a former vegan who returned to veganism. The review sections cover new releases and zines, books on Floorpunch, the Inside Front, Syracuse Hardcore 1991-1998, and Crunchface zine anthologies, and the recent reissues of Earth Crisis’ Firestorm and Day of Suffering’s Eternal Jihad. The closing essay, “From Paradise Into the Inferno,” is a fitting finale and one of the clearest examples of Nathan’s strength as a writer. Its account of ’90s vegan straight edge’s revolutionary ambitions being absorbed into marketable nostalgia reminds me of Mark Fisher’s writing on lost futures and hauntology. Yet Nathan doesn’t want to bury those ambitions altogether, asking what might still be salvaged from a movement that once imagined a world without exploitation.

According to Nathan, just 97 copies were printed on a dilapidated photocopier. He sent me three, I’ve kept one for myself and set the others aside for my friends Angel and Nikolay, the sort of people who would appreciate a zine like this. To ask about any remaining copies or just get in touch, contact Nate at [email protected].