Infest is an American hardcore punk band, formed in September 1986 by Joe Denunzio, Matt Domino, Dave Ring and Chris Clift. The band is considered to be pioneers of the dissonant hardcore style known as powerviolence. The term was coined by their guitarist Matt Domino, who first used it to describe his other band, Neanderthal with Eric Wood of Man is the Bastard. The Los Angeles quartet blended the ethos, speed and song structure of straight edge hardcore, along with the aggression and anger of bands like Negative Approach and Negative FX. Joe Denunzio’s vocals exhibited raw anger, with lyrical content about conformity, war, scene politics and socio-political issues. Infest did however differ from their peers in their fervent political stance and imagery, often depicting the tragedies of war and poverty, countering the obligatory “band in action” album covers common to the era. The group broke up in 1996, having played only a handful of shows within California.
On July 1, 1991, Infest recorded a live set for the Los Angeles radio station KXLU. This session was later released by Deep Six Records, who also released the No Man’s Slave LP in 2002. Instrumentals for the record were recorded during the summer of 1995 and vocals were recorded post-breakup in 2000.
On January 13, 2013, Infest played their first show since 1991 at The Echo, in Echo Park, California with bands such as ACxDC (Anti-Christ Demon Core), Barking Backwards, Fissure and Sordo. They were among the headliners at the 2013 editions of Maryland Deathfest and Chaos in Tejas respectively. In July 2013 Infest headlined the Destroy L.A. Hardcore Festival with California youth crew legends Chain of Strength. In July 2014, they headlined a one-off in Dallas, Texas at Vice Palace, along with Chicago-based outfit Weekend Nachos. The band has been performing frequently ever since, making their European debut at Netherlands Deathfest 2016.
