Scowl

Scowl: “As much as Hardcore is for everyone, not everyone is for Hardcore”

Bogged-down, bored and unfulfilled, Scowl vocalist Kat Moss was wilting under the Californian sun until she found her place in Hardcore Punk. Lockdown might’ve hampered her band’s bottlerocket ascent, but pouring every ounce of frustration into rapid-fire first album "How Flowers Grow", life is moving fast again for the Santa Cruz collective. And it’s exactly as they like it… Nine-hundred-and-thirty-four seconds. That’s how long it takes Santa Cruz’s Scowl to confirm their credentials as the hottest new band in Californian Hardcore. Live and on record, the vocalist is a tornado of piss and vinegar, switching vitriolically between surgical scorn and scattergun societal outrage. In person, she’s pointed, polite and overflowing with enthusiasm. Either way, she has the air of an artist making up for lost time. “I never thought I would have the opportunity to make music,” she explains, tired but bright-eyed after a long Monday shift at her day job as a production operative for coffee roasting specialists Verve. “With Hardcore, it felt like, ‘I can do this, too!’” Rocklin, California wasn’t the greatest place to grow up an outsider. A perpetually sunny suburban spot, surrounded by vineyards, horse ranches and hiking trails some 22 miles north-east of Sacramento, Money magazine recently named it as one of the United States’ best places to live. For a youngster with burgeoning alternative interest, it was a pastoral vacuum that needed to be punctured by spiky looks and serrated sounds. “I was drawn to Punk by how real and raw it felt,” Kat continues. “Hardcore was the most organic version of that. I was attracted to the stuff that made me feel like I had a real opportunity to be a part of it, and the DIY aspect of this scene really drew me in. There isn’t a barricade in the way. There aren’t music techs onstage. There isn’t that disconnect of the person performing feeling like some kind of a celebrity. Hardcore bands are your friends!”

Scowl EP (2019)

01 - Scowl
02 - Roots
03 - Negative Contract
04 - False Virtue
05 - Just To Be

Reality After Reality... EP (2019)

01 - Retail Hell
02 - Petty Selfish Cretin
03 - Reality After Reality...
04 - My Turn 2 Play
05 - Choke

How Flowers Grow (2021)

01 - Bloodhound
02 - Dead To Me
03 - Pay Privilege Due
04 - Trophy Hunter
05 - Seeds To Sow
06 - Idle Roaring Room
07 - Fuck Around
08 - Roots
09 - Four Walls
10 - How Flowers Grow

Psychic Dance Routine EP (2023)

01 - Shot Down

02 - Psychic Dance Routine

03 - Wired

04 - Opening Night

05 - Sold Out

Are We All Angels (2025)

01 - Special

02 - B.A.B.E.

03 - Fantasy

04 - Not Hell, Not Heaven

05 - Tonight (I'm Afraid)

06 - Fleshed Out

07 - Let You Down

08 - Cellophane

09 - Suffer The Fool (How High Are You?)

10 - Haunted

11 - Are We All Angels

pass: freepunk77