Not everything must be innovative to retain integrity and be artistic. Swedish hardcore crust punk veterans Victims are case in point, having had their fifth full-length “Killer” just licensed in the U.S. by Deathwish Inc., and simultaneously being on the verge of yet another wild year of bringing their Discharge-inspired hardcore punk to greater audiences worldwide. Victims are billed pretty high up at this year’s highly-touted Maryland Deathfest, an impressive feat considering the technicality of the bands they will be sharing the stage with, not to mention the fickle nature of death metal audiences. But all death metal initially came from fast, downtuned punk that Motorhead and then Discharge pioneered, so with Victims’ reputed live ferocity and buzzsaw riffing, they shouldn’t have a problem being one of the standout acts at the festival. Their sound also just got a whole lot thicker, having added prized guitarist and songwriter Gareth Smith to their lineup, formerly of the long-running UK doom sludge monsters, Raging Speedhorn. Victims fits in perfectly to Deathwish’s roster and their Swedish lineage will only help in the label’s quest of expansion into the dark, desperate undergrounds existing across the ocean, where so many of the label’s bands have wowed crowds for years. From their fitting beginning on a Discharge compilation on which they tackled “Doomsday,” to their following years releasing album after 7” on the Yellow Dog, Havoc, and Scorched Earth Policy labels, Victims have proven themselves just as worthy of the hype accorded in recent years to the Tomas Lindberg-fronted Disfear as one of the most convicted and viable nihilistic, primitive hardcore bands emanating from Europe. Musically, Victims have their feet firmly planted in the early days of hardcore and punk, whether it be the British scene of the late 70’s and early 80’s, the ensuing early-to-mid 80’s movement in New York, or the more recent but equally influential nowadays early-90’s Swedish hardcore crust/punk scene that was born shoulder-to-shoulder with the fabled Swedish death metal scene.