Pharma - See? 7"

Big Neck (2023)

I feel like the 7" is a dying art form.  The cost of getting one pressed these days is so high and the resulting price that you need to sell it for to not lose money seems a bit crazy to me.  I'm not saying that labels are over charging for them in general (though some probably are for sure), but it's just how much they cost now.  As someone that's been buying 7"s since my dad let me buy the "Walk Like An Egyptian" one at Sam Goody as a kid, it's kind of crazy to see $15 7"s becoming the norm.

Now, Big Neck isn't charging $15 for theirs, so kudos to them for that.  And kudos to them for releasing a 7" at all.  So many bands and labels have given up on them completely.  In some ways, Pharma is the perfect band for a 7".  It's five songs long and all but one are under two minutes long.  A throwback to punk rock 7"s of yore.

That said, there were a lot of punk rock 7"s back in the days of yore that I didn't buy because they were kind of like this.  There's lots of yelling over distorted guitar, at times frantically placed and kind of sludgy at others.  It's just not the kind of punk that ever really connected with me, though I have to give the band credit for their ability to make the vocals sound truly otherworldly and insane.  There's a chaotic energy captured that really is above and beyond a lot of bands playing this sort of thing.  Unfortunately, this sort of thing isn't really my speed.

Pharma - See?:
https://bigneckrecords1.bandcamp.com/album/pharma-see