Leeds is the sixth-biggest city in the UK it has a population of less than one million people. It also seems to have one of the best hardcore scenes in the world. That’s not as weird as it seems; a whole lot of random-ass cities have great hardcore scenes. (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania will always be Exhibit A here.) But Leeds, it’s worth noting, has just been going off lately. Higher Power, a band that has a very good shot of crossing over outside of the genre, comes from Leeds. The Flex and Greed and Scorned all come from Leeds. Chubby Charles, frontman of the absolutely stomp-ass punk band Chubby And The Gang, is a former member of late Leeds legends Violent Reaction. And Leeds has motherfucking Big Cheese, too. Big Cheese are something special.

Big Cheese are very much a product of the Leeds hardcore scene. Two big Cheese members, drummer Alex Wizard and guitarist Louis Hardy, also play in Higher Power. Meanwhile, Big Cheese’s frontman, who I’m very happy to report is named Razor Hardwick, used to be in Violent Reaction. (Razor Hardwick! If you gave me a year, I couldn’t invent a better name for this motherfucker.) But Big Cheese don’t really sound like Higher Power or Violent Reaction. Instead, they’ve got a big, chunky, bulldozing take on ’80s hardcore. There is a whole lot of classic Cro-Mags in Big Cheese’s sound, and there’s at least a touch of ultra-unpretentious Motörhead-style metal, too. They make classic hooligan music, music for starting fights with strangers at matinee screenings of Pixar movies.

Big Cheese have been putting out music since 2016. Thus far, they’ve dropped a couple of demos and a 2017 EP called Aggravated Mopery. Today, they release their full-length LP Punishment Park, and let me tell you right now: This thing will fuck you up. If the fast-building drum intro to opening track “Pennine Scrubs” does not jam the adrenaline needle into your heart, than you should probably just hit eject right away; this type of music is not for you. If it does work on you, then you will be very happy to know that the album is 19 minutes of exactly that sort of mid-tempo pummel-groove. I love it. You might, too. We already posted the early track “Write-Off,” but now you can stream the whoel thing below.

Punishment Park is out now on Quality Control HQ/Triple B Records.