On their latest record, Harsh Reality, the Chicago-based hardcore punk group Stress Positions continues to push the volume of their sound. With some furious drumming, some small guitar solos and a breakneck album style, this may be the group at their best.

The record’s title track seems like it’s tuning itself in through its first 40 seconds before the guitars and drums truly break loose. They keep morphing until they all take very different paths and shrieking vocals come in placing the cherry on top.

Throughout the record, most songs follow the same pattern, transitioning from intro to verse to chorus to small solo and back before abruptly ending. Although extremely electric, it’s also repetitive without much variety or innovation. What really redeems each song are the guitar solos.

Stress Positions’ strives to make all of the guitar solos like snowflakes; no two are alike. On “Hand to Mouth,” the solo is extremely short and filled with distortion and slight movement. On the other hand, “How To Get Ahead” has a full 30-second solo that melds up and down like a runaway train coasting at different speeds. 

Most of the lyrics on the album do get muddled up in the sound, but the message of resistance is clear for the few that can be understood. On “No Sympathy (For The Police),” the minute-and-a-half track has only two verses and a chorus. But that’s more than enough to get the point across.

“The case for abolition has never been stronger / Our communities are tired / We won’t take it any longer.”

However, the best song on the record has to be “Sunken Place,” if not for the opening bassline alone. The other instruments almost mimic the bassline throughout the rest of the track, it is absolute harmonic perfection. The lyrics help spin a truly haunting tale that makes blood run cold. 

“exponential terror/ takes pleasure in fear. / Seconds are hours. / unmatched in a lifetime.”

Overall, Harsh Reality serves the title well, even when it tends to get monotonous, there is always a guitar solo or bassline to help save the day.