Two of the meanest, most fired-up straight-edge projects on the hardcore landscape today have just come together for a new split release that wasn’t announced ahead of time. Between the two of them, Louisville’s xWeaponx and Calgary’s World Of Pleasure feature members of bands like Knocked Loose, Mortality Rate, Harm’s Way, and Punitive Damage, and they might sound even harder in their side projects than in their regular bands.

Two members of Knocked Loose, guitarist Issac Hale and frontman Bryan Garris, both play in xWeaponx. (Garris plays bass in this band.) The group also features Bryan’s brother Trey on drums and Harm’s Way guitarist Bo Leuders, all backing up frontman Dave Baugher. Together, the members of xWeaponx play classically crushing ’90-style metallic hardcore. The xWeaponx demo came out last year, and now the band has two new songs on this new Weapon Of Pleasure split. One of those songs, “Domination III,” features Mortality Rate/World Of Pleasure leader Jess Nyx screaming about “straight edge domination,” and it’s awesome.

Jess Nyx started World Of Pleasure during the pandemic, and the band currently features her Mortality Rate bandmate Colter, as well as members of Serration, Punitive Damage, and Juice. World Of Pleasure released their demo in 2020, and they followed it with the great World Of Pleasure & Friends EP last year. Their two songs on this new split go hard as hell. Stream the whole release below.

The Weapon Of Pleasure split is out now on DAZE.