Vitamin X Ride The Apocalypse Review
Vitamin X
Ride the Apocalypse
Svart Records
2026
Maybe it's my advancing age (49), my heavier musical tastes, or just generally hearing nothing in the hardcore punk realm that has excited me in some years. I don't think this is due to any newer bands, because the scene is rife with them. No, it's because I'm not convinced any of them capture the feel or carry the torch of bands from a bygone era - bands that felt dangerous, aggressive, and catchy all at once. That was until I heard Vitamin X (themselves not exactly a new, young band) and their latest long player, Ride the Apocalypse.
Vitamin X fitting this bill is nothing new. These Amsterdam thugs have been destroying venues for over two decades and are now on their seventh full-length here. Ride the Apocalypse was mastered by Joel Grind (Toxic Holocaust, Municipal Waste) and features apocalyptic artwork by Andrei Bouzikov (Municipal Waste). According to their press, “this record delivers 16 tracks of pure mayhem: faster, harder, and heavier than anything the band has done before,” and that's a bold claim, but the well-seasoned players here, along with a crisp, clean production that sounds very live but still in line with today's standards, make a strong case for such proclamations.
The band are best described as crossover hardcore punk. They got their start around the same time as bands like Wolf Brigade, Municipal Waste, and the crossover thrash revival of the early 2000s. Vitamin X separate themselves from the pack with a decidedly pronounced three-chord edge. There's plenty of old-school late ’70s punk rocking to be had in songs like “Over the Line,” and even some Sabbath in the intro to “Fear,” and the blues-tinged guitar licks of “Break Away,” but that is just one paintbrush they color their sound with. The main component of their compositions seems to recall Cause for Alarm–era and Kill Your Idols full-speed-ahead metallic hardcore, with a healthy dose of early Suicidal Tendencies. These elements are on full display in songs like opener “Chop Chop Chop,” “Sociopath,” “Devolution/Devolution” (the proto-thrash breakdown here is especially headbang-worthy), and the 1:45 of “Symphony of Doom.”
Ride the Apocalypse is not a long album by any stretch, and given the stylistic choices here, it's genre-appropriate at a whopping 24:46 in its entirety. Having said all of this, I find it to be a tight, fast, sociopolitical, unhinged, and FUN thrill ride that takes me back to the days of hearing all the greats (DRI, Cro-Mags, Agnostic Front) for the very first time. If you are feeling nostalgic for the salad days of hardcore punk, when CBGB’s held Sunday matinees with just as many long-haired metal guys as there were mohawked punks and boots ’n’ braced skinhead types in the pit, throw this on. Bring on the end and long live the X!
RIYL: Cause For Alarm, Kill Your Idols, Judge, Shelter, The Humpers and Blood for BloodTop of Form
Bottom of Form
~TB