Review: Execution - "Hellbound" [7-inch]
Buried in the annals of American hardore punk history is San Jose’s Executioner, who after 25 years finally put forth an official release for their 1982 demo Fix Me/Hellbound. Essentially a local band who generally stayed within eyeshot of the California coastline from their inception in 1982 to end in 1983, Executioner did share the stage with a handful of legendary acts including TSOL, Crucifix, Social Distortion, the Faction, Bad Posture, Social Unrest and Redd Kross (who were still known as Red Cross at the time) to name a few. Although alleged to be revolutionary in the release’s press materials, Fix Me/Hellbound came some six years after the formation of Black Flag (and four years after Black Flag’s “Fix Me”) at a time when hardcore had pretty much already spread across the country from the East and West coasts to the nether-regions like Minneapolis and Detroit. And while Executioner’s sound isn’t a total copy job of other West Coast hardcore at the time, it wasn't all too di...