Leval Blessing - Demo & S/T Full Length

I used to live on Fratney St., just off of Center. I remember waking up one afternoon, hung over, barely functional, and after taking my morning piss being surprised that someone in my house was blasting Leval Blessing loud as fuck. No one in my house besides myself was known as a huge fan of the band, at least not enough to be cranking the band at ridiculous volumes early in the afternoon. So I wandered around room to room trying to figure out who the culprit was... with no luck. Then I went to my front porch and low and behold, Leval Blessing is playing outdoors in the middle of a Center Street festival. I wandered down and caught them finishing their set in a pair of basketball shorts and flip-flops. 

For some reason I have a million similar stories about Leval Blessing, the band that just wouldn't go away. They were the band everyone knew that just couldn't seem to get the recognition they deserved. For years, I enjoyed watching them play their chaotic form of grindcore with every band imaginable, in every venue that would take them. I saw them at the Rave and the Rock Shop, in ten million different basements, in coffeeshops, in park pavillions, and even outdoors next to hippie bead booths like the kind at the aforementioned Center St. festival. They were a band that had the handful of members who always seemed to be around, always had their fingers in some new project, who always had something to say and the balls to say it and that deserves nothing but respect.

They were responsible for a lot of us getting into hardcore in Milwaukee. They offered Nuclear Powered Satan our first show (the flyer to the right) and although we broke up beforehand, seeing Leval Blessing go apeshit in a tiny coffeehouse was a life altering experience for me personally. Steve Krause, after trying on Ryan Schofield's mother's sweater, introduced the Scapegoat guys to the scene, which directly led to the formation of Shoot The Hostage. All of us displaced metal kids felt comfortable with this band and they should be remembered as one of the bands that bridged the segregated metal and hardcore scenes of their time.

The last time I saw them perform, Corey ripped my shirt sleeve off... and with that the band that would never go away did. People who didn't get a chance to see them, missed out.

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