I know Ace Stallings as one of the great advocates of Richmond hardcore. He promotes shows, puts out records, does the Forum Of Passion podcast and the Richmond Hardcore Shows Instagram page, and continues to lead the absolutely badass Mutually Assured Destruction. For the last few years, Stallings has been living in the Bay Area, and now he's got a new band that's based out there. They just announced their existence by dropping a three-song demo, and it's nasty as fuck.
Ace is always starting up new projects. Up until recently, he sang for Sentinel, which had members of bands like Mindforce and Restraining Order and which got Album Of The Week on this site for their 2023 full-length Age Of Decay. Last year, Stallings launched the solo goth-punk project Roes Chamber and released the EP State Of Affairs. Now, he's got Eliminators, a straight-edge band that makes old-school hardcore punk and sounds way dirtier than most straight-edge bands.
On a recent podcast episode, Stallings says that he started Eliminators specifically to play shows with Fentanyl, which rules. Their demo is three songs in four minutes, and it's fast and hard and direct and commanding. The first comparison that pop into my head is early Agnostic Front, but they're probably going for something more arcane and specific than that. I don't know who else is in this band, but I know that this is good shit. Stream the EP below.
The Eliminators' demo is out now on Convulse. Also, Ace Stallings is one of the promoters behind the 2025 Real Bay Shit fest, which looks crazy.
