When the Vancouver hardcore punk band Punitive Damage first released their demo back in 2019, its cover art was a picture of a skeleton with two swords, and that skeleton was stabbing both a cop and a klansman through the neck. This was a nice early indicator that Punitive Damage are not fucking around. The band followed that demo with a three-song cassette called We Don’t Forget in 2020, and Convulse Records put both of those releases on a 7″ EP. Yesterday, Punitive Damage returned with a new release called Strike Back. It blasts through three songs in two minutes and 59 seconds, and it kicks so much ass.

Punitive Damage singer Steph Jerkova also plays bass for power violence heroes Regional Justice Center, and she sings in a feral roar that suits the band’s fast, fundamentalist early-’80s hardcore attack beautifully. The band’s whole style is urgent and visceral, but it’s also straight-ahead and polished enough that you won’t have to bee too versed in the present-day hardcore scene to get what’s going on here. It should make sense on an immediate gut level. Strike Back rips extremely hard, and you can check it out below.

Regional Justice Center’s Ian Shelton also writes in to point out that Punitive Damage bassist Kristin Ebeling is also a skateboarder who recently went pro. Here’s one of her videos:

The Strike Back EP is out now, and you can get it at Bandcamp.