Article By: Pat ‘Riot’ Whitaker ‡ Edited By: Leanne Ridgeway
Regional Justice Center is the project of Ian Shelton, who plays almost every instrument on the new album ‘World Of Inconvenience‘.
With post-hardcore intensity and a heavy amount of furiously aggressive noise metal, RJC is fierce and not messing around. ‘World Of Inconvenience‘ is a turbulent onslaught of mosh-worthy musicality, an offense-ready middle finger to The Man and The System.
It is appropriate too as much of the music is the result of Ian Shelton‘s attempt to deal with seeing his own brother Max entering the U.S. prison system. That institutional entity, with its unjust horrors and tactics of oppression, is the ideal catalyst for creating such volatile audio as this. Ian describes this catharsis best himself:
“In August 2016 my little brother, Max, was sent to Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent, Washington to start his year and a half long process of awaiting sentencing. He was 18 years old, got caught up in small town drug politics and got himself into a violent situation. When he first went in I was visiting him two to three times a week I was seeing the way companies like Securus Technologies extort families for money just to talk to their loved ones, the asshole nature of the corrections officers I would have to interact with, and even the state attempting to saddle harsher extra charges on my brother just to make an example out of him. As I drove back and forth multiple times a week the ideas and themes of a band started to take shape and it began to seem like a way to have my brother involved in a project even though he would be gone for a long time (he ended up being sentenced to 72 months).
“When it came time to make RJC’s LP I wanted to take that idea to the next level by actually having his voice on the record and having him be able to communicate his situation through his own lens. I recorded conversations with him and those discussions ended up in the songs, I think it makes for an interesting document to look at as his sentence goes on, and especially when he’s out, to see how his thoughts and feelings have changed when he eventually comes out the other side of state prison. I wish it was under different circumstances but I’m proud to finally be on a record with my brother.”
We are presenting you an advanced stream of Regional Justice Center‘s ‘World Of Inconvenience‘ here today. It will be released on June 15th and available to pre-order from To Live A Lie Records, Forever Never Ends, Adagio830, and Straight And Alert Records HERE.
You can catch Regional Justice Center live at the following performances:
June 15th – Portland, OR @ Black Water *
June 16th – Seattle, WA @ Black Lodge *
August 4-5 – Olympia Hardcore Fest #
August 7 – Vancouver, BC @ 333 #
August 8 – Kamloops, BC @ TBA #
August 9th – Edmonton, AB @ The Aviary #
August 10th – Calgary, AB @ Commons Church #
August 11th – Spokane, WA @ Charlotte House #
