Speed and melody are this London quartet’s weapons of choice, and they wield them well!
Miss the glory days of Epitaph and Fat Wreck Chords? Diagnostics are just what the doctor ordered. Bridging the gap between skate-punk and melodic hardcore, the six tracks on ‘Thoughts To Forget’ see the London quartet breathing fresh life into these vintage sounds.
For the most part, these guys play seriously fast, and that’s just fine with us. They do slow down for an eerie voiceover on opener ‘Forget’, whilst ‘Thoughts’ belts along in a kind of NOFX-meets-Pennywise style. There’s a brief easycore melodic breakdown of sorts on ‘I Won’t Be Around’, and if it doesn’t make you want to BOUNCE, we feel for you. We truly do.
They really put the pedal to the metal on ‘Not Today’, with some lightning-fast riffing and drumming and a sprinkling of gang vocals, followed by the minute-long sprint of ‘There She Goes’. The closing ‘Raise Your Glass’ ends things on an anthemic note, with a chorus that will no doubt prompt mass audience participation live.
We never actually learnt to skate (terrible sense of balance, y’see), but ‘Thoughts To Forget’ makes us want to grab ourselves some boards and attempt to pull off an eggplant to fakie (even though we’re not entirely sure what that is). Anyway, you get the point. These songs will probably sound even better live, so keep an eye on the links below for future Diagnostics shows, including April 1st at London’s New Cross Inn (with Downstater and One Fall).
‘Thoughts To Forget’ is out now now via Disconnect Disconnect Records – order it HERE.
- Forget
- Thoughts
- I Won’t Be Around
- Not Today
- There She Goes
- Raise Your Glass
Follow Diagnostics on Their Socials:
Need more Punk In Your Life?
Exclusive – video premiere of Gypsy Pistoleros’ new single ‘King of Almost Everything’
The third single from Gypsy Pistoleros’ forthcoming new album, ‘Dark Faerie Tales’, ‘King of Almost Everything’ arrives with a brand-new video. A savage, cinematic takedown
Album Review: King Goon’s sophomore ‘Oh My!’
Describing themselves as a six-piece punk rock band with a bad ska habit, King Goon are based in South Wales. Now they are back with
Album review – the hard rocking debut by Monkeys Blood – ‘Anthropoid’
What do you get when three lads from several top Northeast English punk bands get together? A new, even wilder punk group named after a
Album Review : Good Riddance scratch that 7-year itch, and release a brand-new record
Based out of Santa Cruz in California (USA), Good Riddance are no strangers to the melodic punk scene, and over the decades, they have more
Live review: Top Dogs hit the The Underworld!
Friday 3rd April saw Jolly Roger and I catch UK punk rock’s rising stars Split Dogs, on their ‘Boogie Till You Puke’ tour at The
Shooting Daggers, London Blue Monk, 4th April 2026
Ah, Shooting Daggers, what can we say about you that we haven’t said before? As ever, Sal and co play a tight, vitriolic set that
I spend my days teaching English to foreign students, and my evenings attending as many gigs as possible. Raised mainly on a diet of 90s third-wave punk, my tastes have grown to include just about anything from trad ska to thrash metal. The Ramones are my musical gods.
Did you know that we are 100% DIY? We run our own game. No one dictates to us, and no one drives what we can or cannot put on our pages – and this is how we plan to continue!
