Blacklisted’s Philadelphia Reunion Show Was Heavier Than Heaven

Unbroken titled their posthumous collection of rarities It’s Getting Tougher To Say The Right Things, and I assume they knew it’d be harder and harder to convey exactly how their 2023 reunion shows felt. The band didn’t play a show for almost a decade until they reunited earlier this year for Indecision Records’ 30th anniversary shows in Garden Grove, CA. Next year, their seminal album life. love. regret. will also turn 30, and with it we can reexamine the highs and lows of the scene, where the album’s nuanced fusion of crushing riffs and lyrical turmoil made it kosher for hardcore guys to wear their hearts on their sleeves, a little above where they marked X’s on their hands.