Recent releases suggest that punk's close relative, hardcore, is the candidate of choice.
Straight Faced's Conditioned is a pivotal offering for the new direction, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to fully represent the scene's available talents. Due to the vocals' emphasis in the mix, the shortcoming is hard to ignore. With the likes of Ignite, Good Riddance, and Strife all hailing from the West Coast, it's hard to imagine that Straight Faced was Epitaph's best option. The labels attempts at branching out are respectable, but until a karaoke version of Conditioned becomes available, I'll get my hardcore fix from other sources.