Face Erased don't waste time getting to the point on Processing Hate, a tight, nine-minute EP that trades sprawl for immediacy. The Green Bay, Wisconsin outfit has built its reputation on aggressive regional mosh tracks and heavy-hitting basement shows, and this release feels like a direct extension of that live energy with four songs built for a room full of people slamming into each other, not for polish or radio play. Title track "Face Erased" opens the record and functions almost like a mission statement, setting the tone with a blunt, identity-focused intensity that frames the band's name as more than just a label. "Processing Hate" follows and gives the EP its emotional center, using its extended runtime relative to the other tracks to dig into something heavier and more deliberate, letting the anger the title promises actually build rather than just explode all at once.
"Lost Full" keeps the momentum going with a similarly punishing pace, built around the kind of breakdown-heavy riffing that translates directly to a basement floor packed shoulder to shoulder. Closer "Rage Over Fear," also released as a standalone single ahead of the EP, brings the project full circle, framing rage not as the opposite of fear but as something that grows directly out of it. That live-wire intensity comes down to the four-piece behind it. The lineup: Andrew Briski, Elijah Poole, Bryce Boenski, and Ethan Morella- plays like a unit that's spent more time locked in on a basement floor than in a polished studio environment, and it shows in the record's rawness; there's a chemistry here that reads as earned through repetition rather than manufactured for the release. Nothing about the performances feels overly considered or precious, which suits the material, and this is a band leaning into its rough edges rather than sanding them down.
Taken as a whole, Processing Hate plays like a document of the band's live identity as much as a studio statement. Four songs, nine minutes, no filler, and it's built to be consumed in one sitting and to leave an immediate impression, which tracks for a band whose reputation was forged in Green Bay's DIY hardcore scene rather than in a rehearsed, radio-friendly space. There's an unmistakable regional-scene lineage running underneath the record, too; Green Bay's hardcore roots go back decades to bands like Suburban Mutilation and No Response, and Face Erased sound like a band aware of, and actively adding to, that local pedigree rather than existing in a vacuum. It's a record that plays to exactly what the band does best: short, sharp, and built for basement-show catharsis rather than a slow-burn listen. Four songs, no filler, and a clear sense of what it's setting out to do.

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