Dark Operative

The first leg of This Will Destroy You's UK/EU summer tour has begun! Both "Young Mountain" and "Another Language" will be performed in full. Of note: June 6 is a particularly special evening, as it will mark the 20th anniversary of the original release date of "Young Mountain."

Performers:
Chris King - guitar
Jesse Kees - guitar, electronics
Robi Gonzalez - percussion, electronics
Masaru Takaku - bass guitar
Emily Xander - bass VI, keyboard

Tickets for all shows are available via your local venue. Thank you.

THE ALL-AMERICAN REJECTS are featured on the cover of the latest Amped new release magazine from Alliance.

CD copies of “Sandbox” (the fifth studio album) will be in stores on July 3. Retailers: please hit up .distribution and/or to secure your copies for release day.

The LP is TBA and we have not assigned a street date just yet. There was an issue with the original lacquers that needed to be worked through which inherently caused unforeseen delays. It will be well worth the wait. :)

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Happy 25th Anniversary to MAJORITY RULE’s “Interviews With David Frost” LP. This album and this band are rare things in the sense that, while both were ahead of their time musically, production-wise, and politically, virtually every facet ended up being widely adopted not just across the subculture, but in very much above-ground albums, presentations, and even in the mouths of talking heads across the media landscape. A lot of us who worked on and/or listened to the album and believe in its messaging still get whiplash when hearing the same sentiments now casually being expressed in any given conversation you could overhear in your neighborhood dog park.

I’d attribute that to Majority Rule always having it dialed in on all fronts from this record on. Sonically, while most of us in their orbit would just turn up as loud as we could in any given room, Pat, Kevin, and Matt could always override those primal tendencies and quickly calibrate a sonic balance that was ultimately optimal for their unique dynamic range and the room itself. I can’t count how often our friends and mutuals would express loving jealousy as we all stood and watched the band play night in and night out.

Just as impressively, the messaging and ethos of the album and the band just continued on for the past two decades and a half, both in subsequent Majority Rule albums and in , the band they’ve been doing with almost ever since.

It’s an honor to be a custodian to such a tremendously special album. Every time a new pressing is in order, a unique sensation overwhelms… perhaps a deep appreciation that new generations of people who, in a general sense, *demand more* still find potency in a musical work that was truly always calibrated right on target.

Thank you to / / and for deeply inspiring then and now… and constantly blowing minds. ♥️

(Pictured: the first Magic Bullet pressing on white vinyl)

March 9, 2001: bleeding out at BRYCC house in Louisville, Kentucky (likely set up by the Patterson brothers and/or Chris Owens) on a spring tour with Waifle + some of the dates with .

Louisville was the first stop where joined up with the caravan. Given the tight quarters and enthusiastic turnout at BRYCC, it didn’t take long for Cory’s head to clip the edge of a cabinet and start gushing.

Fellow bassist was so kind as to to take Cory to the hospital and stay with him throughout the night. The rest of the touring party used the incident to stage an elaborate prank (involving real cops and EMT’s who were in on it) on for missing load out and other arbitrary metrics. Either way, the prank worked and we’re all grateful that Cory was ultimately okay.

Pageninetynine plays Nashville, TN at . Some tickets may be available at the door.

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#2001

Bandcamp Friday: Black Mare "Elizabeth" Digital Single

Furthering the album’s rhythmic meditations on grand topics such as the great mystery of death, dissolution, exile, and the abyss, this standalone track directly invokes historical figures whose work, philosophies, and life still deeply resonate in modern existence.

From the artist herself: “Queen Elizabeth the 1st and her work with John Dee are the inspiration behind this song. She was deeply involved with magick and alchemy, and shares an astrological planetary placement with me that has permeated my life deeply in terms of independence, and is theorized to have had the same effect on her.”

“It’s is an inner allegory of transformation about my own conscious evolution, as well as a sonic thread of this powerful and magical female matriarch being sewn into the hidden tapestry of the ‘America,’ which is made of ideas.”

https://blackmare.bandcamp.com/

Dark Operative and Pax Aeternum will be closed tomorrow, January 30, in honor of the general strike.

Punk, hardcore, and metal have long served as a baseline pulse toward the desire for more human decency worldwide, often shining a light on the maladies that come with corruption, overreach, and greed. Tomorrow pulls such matters into a keen, overdue focus here in America and we look forward to the amplification of that spirit in every town and city nationwide.

Pictured: a portion of the poster insert artwork for Majority Rule's "Interviews With David Frost" LP, originally issued on May 8, 2001.

Another wild idea from the mind of that turned out rather beautiful: “Move Along” on glow in the dark vinyl with pink cover art!
therejects.bandcamp.com

Bandcamp Friday:

https://darkoperative.bandcamp.com/

Thank you for another year of direct support via mailorder and via our network of independent physical stores, distributors, and online shops alike. Here are some highlights to consider as the year wraps up and as Bandcamp once again waives their fees for all artists and labels. Please have a safe holiday season and look out for even more new music in 2026.

OPS063-7: COFFINDROP "The Sounding Wall" 7"/Digital

https://coffindrop.bandcamp.com/

Orders for the 7" version of the records have been steadily shipping since release and should be all caught up this week. For anyone that missed it, you can pick up a neon pink vinyl copy via Bandcamp (with foldout cover art by Florian Bertmer).

Coffindrop is a heavy skate rock band from Venice, California featuring Robert Trujillo (Metallica), Rick Smith (Torche), Brent Eyestone (Bleach Everything), Graham Scala (US Xmas), Kurt Ballou (Converge), and Kyle Durfey (Pianos Become the Teeth). All royalties are donated to The Skatepark Project.

Thank you.

OPS045: VARIOUS ARTISTS "It Came From The Abyss" (Volume 2) LP/Digital

https://darkoperative.bandcamp.com/

"It Came from the Abyss" (Volume 2) continues the sonic journey into the depths of the underground's lush sonic spectrum.

This edition kicks off with the debut of a heavy skate rock studio project called COFFINDROP, featuring members of Metallica, Torche, Converge, Bleach Everything, and Pianos Become the Teeth. 100% of COFFINDROP's royalties are donated to The Skatepark Project. Vocalist Kyle Durfey then bleeds over into another one of his projects called BURIAL WAVES with their song "Light Heads."

The only other vocalist featured on side A is Eric Richter, who appears first with his newest project SUBURBAN EYES on the track "SoCal (Psycho)," immediately followed by his work 30 years prior via the CHRISTIE FRONT DRIVE track "Now I Do" (originally from the long out of print Sineater/Christie Front Drive split 7").

Side A wraps with some instrumental bliss, beginning with a previously-unreleased bit of brilliance from THIS WILL DESTROY YOU called "Shapeless Burst" and wrapping with the beautifully haunting "Duty" by HARMONIC CROSS, on vinyl format for the first time ever.

Side B starts with the open road anthem "Dusted" from INTRCPTR (Ben Carr of 5ive, Larry Herweg of Pelican), also appearing for the first time ever on vinyl. This is chased by BLEACH EVERYTHING "Bound" and a criminally underrated band/song from the early 00's Boston heavy scene in the form of DISAPPEARER "A Skull Full of Bats."

The program closes out with a 1-2-3-4 punch to the face from bands in the short, fast, and loud pedigree, kicking off with CORN ON MACABRE's grinding horror anthem "You're Okay, I'm Undead" straight into GEHENNA's negative hardcore-laced "Parallel Hells," and finally capped by a pair of 90's fringe legends in the form of APARTMENT 213 with "Mutilation" and BLACK ARMY JACKET closing the show with "Pathogen."

As with Volume 1, Matt Stikker returns once again with this edition's incredible cover illustration.

Thanks for supporting and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!