Album review: La Famiglia – ‘Alphabet Mafia’

Punk and hardcore, at their best, have always been outsiders’ music; by and for people who never quite fit in with the rest. Melbourne-based hardcore punks La Famiglia are a case in point; this is their first record since vocalist Beth Seymour came out as transgender, and much of it explores themes from the discrimination and trauma she’s been through to the power of queer solidarity.

Musically, much of ‘Alphabet Mafia’ feels like a love letter to classic US hardcore, mostly the West Coast variety. The opening brace of ‘Life’s A Joke And We’re The Punchline’ and ‘Bad Times Don’t Last, Bad Girls Do’ bursts forth in enjoyably raw fashion, and both feature the kind of bouncy mid-section riffing sure to get many a dancefloor moving. The band themselves cite Madball and Comeback Kid among their influences, and indeed, echoes of the former’s muscular NYHC and the latter’s carpe-diem lyrical slant rear their heads throughout this record.

The highlights come thick and fast. There’s ‘Beauty All Around Me’, which features a chorus that just demands to be yelled along to, amid verses custom built for a circle pit. There’s that insistent stop-start riff of ‘Spite’ and the surprisingly catchy likes of ‘Cycles’ and ‘Why Do You Hate Me’. Most notably, there’s lead track ‘Hath No Fury’, on which Beth declares “I don’t think Jesus stood for what you have to say”, taking on religious hypocrisy with all guns blazing and more than a hint of Circle Jerks.