News

Regional Justice Center recently announced their return along with their third album, Freedom, Sweet Freedom, due out September 20th via Closed Casket Activities. The most compelling band in hardcore have now shared another ferocious new single, "Moral Death Sentence."

Regional Justice Center has always been about two brothers. Ian Shelton started the project in 2016 shortly after the incarceration of his younger sibling Max, and each release has not only sought to explore the choices, cycles, experiences, and institutions surrounding that event, but also to keep the two tethered during Max’s time in prison. In 2022 Max was released and now Freedom, Sweet Freedom, brings him directly into the fold, writing and performing on the album. And Max isn't the only impactful lineup addition--the album was recorded by acclaimed engineer Taylor Young who has now also joined RJC as a member. The result is not only a record that's packed with years-in-the-making emotional catharsis, it's also the most sonically hard-hitting 13 minutes of aggressive music you'll hear this year.

'Freedom, Sweet Freedom' is the kind of album that exemplifies everything that makes hardcore such a deeply intense and impactful genre: a lightning fast blast of extreme music that’s loaded with raw emotion and thorny ideas. “The album is saying that despite the trappings of freedom, you are not actually free,” Ian explains. “We’re all subject to a larger, broader system that’s meant to keep us in specific cycles–I think that’s a lot of what RJC has always been talking about: cycles of abuse, addiction, making the same mistakes over and over. There’s no freedom from society, from the system, or even from yourself.”