HOLD MY OWN – Pay No Mind

vote
7.5

• Bands:
  HOLD MY OWN
• Duration: 00:21:13
• Available from: 04/17/2026
• Label:

• Daze Style

The hardcore community very often sees the birth and death of multiple projects created by the interchange of musicians within the scene, especially within the same geographical area.
The frequenting of the same environments, the support of the groups and the infinite line-ups of every single concert only help the conception of new projects, more or less serious: some don't even make it to the recording studio, others develop quite quickly.
The latter is the case of Hold My Own, who were born in 2021 as a bridge between the Midwest and East Coast scenes: from the former comes frontman Greg Falchetto, known for his time in the crossover thrash band The Mongoloids; from the second the Chhabra brothers (guitar and bass) together with Sergio Mendoza (drums), who often played together in bands such as Sector, MH Chaos and Mal Intent.

Everything that boils on the East Coast is examined by the watchful eye of Daze, who takes little time to sign Hold My Own, releasing their first album “Pay No Mind” on the basis of the members' CV, a couple of convincing EPs and above all the dates in support of legends like Terror and Madball.
It is precisely in the wake of the historical names of HC that HMO build their sound, leaving aside contaminations and crossovers to focus on direct and heavy metallic hardcore, with a sound capable of completely overlapping disco and live dimensions, and finding the main inspirations in NYHC formations such as Biohazard (for the name, impact and style) and Bulldoze (without slowing down to the beatdown).
This obviously means a very 'real' production with a live sound, captured by Andy Nelson of Weekend Nachos, who doesn't forget to make the bass heard and often fills the room with people for very powerful gang vocals. It borrows heavily from the first Biohazard records also for the tempo changes, the changes in vocal style and the prolonged verse closures (Graziadei's trademark), as well as for the guitar phrasings that give melody to the tight riffing – with “Om” it is perhaps the most striking example.
It is worth specifying how Falchetto and company still largely avoid plagiarism, not only leaving aside the cadences and openly hip-hop influences, but also putting their trademark and seasoning the short and violent compositions with their rich taste of irony, which manifests itself in insults in Spanish and quite silly videos.
Whether it's fast and uptempo solutions (“Deceit 2”, “March To Your Death”) or whether you decide to enhance the groove (“Pay No Mind”, “Destiny”), the songs on the album follow one another concise and lethal, automatically generating future panic in the pit.

Just read our lines and give “Pay No Mind” a complete tour to understand that the only limit is that of personality, the group going on to take up with extreme enthusiasm, pat and inspiration a playbook that has become canonical and immortal, but has already been re-proposed countless times, among other things with the creators still around and often in excellent shape.
On the other hand, there is the right temporal distance to re-propose these coordinates with the right energy and the right hunger, so we must necessarily recognize the power of Hold My Own by imagining how this debut could hurt live. Other than earplugs, bring a mouthguard.