Numero Group announce the Sept 18th release of a compilation LP for ANTIOCH ARROW titled "Your Hearts Belong To Us".
From the label...
Savage first-wave screamo from San Diego’s white belt progenitors. Collected for the first time on this 39-minute LP are Antioch Arrow’s complete Gravity recordings, including In Love With Jetts LP (+ a pair of previously unissued outtakes), The Lady Is A Cat 12”, Candle split, and two live Che Cafe tracks captured at the quintet’s spazzy peak. 23 tracks remastered from corroded DATs and annotated by Tony Rettman, plus lyrics, photos, and flyers, all housed in a stunning gatefold jacket for maximum McClard rage-baiting.
Formed in San Diego in the summer of 1992, Antioch Arrow emerged from a scene in open rebellion against its own hardcore orthodoxy. Bassist Mac Mann and guitarist Aaron Richards, a pair of North County skateboarders, built the band around an unlikely blend of influences: the emotionally raw, melodic hardcore pouring out of Washington D.C. such as Rites of Spring, Fury, and Ignition and the unhinged guitar work of hometown heroes Drive Like Jehu. They had a lot of grant ideas and influences and self-admittedly lacked the skills to pull it off yet from that, the band truely became its own thing.
Rounded out by drummer Aaron Montaigne (formerly of Heroin), guitarist Jeff Winterberg, and drummer Maximillian Avila, the band paired thrashing, mattress-lined-bedroom songwriting with a theatrical, thrift-store Mod aesthetic that baffled as many hardcore purists as it inspired. Their DIY approach didn't stop at the music with some early shows taking place in an abandoned meth lab and a since-shuttered pool hall. Richards recalling, in Tony Rettman's telling, that "we wanted to create an experience that was more than just standing around watching a band."
Antioch Arrow recorded two blistering, era-defining releases at San Diego's Doubletime Studios — their debut 12" The Lady Is A Cat and the follow-up In Love With Jetts — before touring the country amid van breakdowns, hostile hardcore-zine editorials, and a rotating lineup that swapped in bassist Andy Ward for departing guitarist Aaron Richards. The band's sound grew progressively darker and stranger, absorbing synths, Birthday Party menace, and oldies-radio pop before quietly dissolving in the mid-90s as members moved on to Get Hustle and other projects.
Though dismissed by some scene gatekeepers in their time, Antioch Arrow's fingerprints are all over the bands that followed — from The Locust and The Blood Brothers to At the Drive-In. As Rettman puts it, "the very qualities that distanced them from the hardcore scene were revealed as an enduring contribution."