Stream Chicago hardcore band Stress Positions’ new ‘Human Zoo’ EP

Chicago hardcore band Stress Positions (ex-C.H.E.W.) are following up their great 2023 debut LP Harsh Reality with a new EP called Human Zoo via Three One G this Friday (5/16), and a full stream premieres in this post. The EP has seven new pissed-off, purposeful, fast-paced rippers, plus glitched-out, industrial remixes of the title track and “Blood Money” by Planet B and a second remix of the title track by Made By Human Hands. The band says:

We wrote this record in the winter of 2024. We gave ourselves a deadline to have it written and recorded by the spring. We knew it would be an EP vs LP given the time we allowed ourselves and we tried to pack in as much intensity as possible. The goal is always to keep everything direct and fucking pissed while also challenging ourselves with the songwriting. The result is an expansion of our previous two records. It’s meaner, nastier and does not mince words. The B side is an attempt at reinterpreting the songs in a different style. Collaborating with Planet B and Made By Human Hands helped to really bring a new element of freak and booty shaking to the equation. We wanna see asses bounce and fists bump.

For more on the EP’s themes, the EP description reads:

As always, Stress Positions remains anti-colonialist and anti-capitalist, amongst the many other things that fall into these frameworks. Topics addressed on this release include draconian abortion laws, washed up comedians who can’t cope with a changing world, the long lasting effects of Western colonialism, the Israeli genocide, subjugation and occupation of the Palestinian people and their lands, Right Wing military indoctrination, and being a person of color in a white-dominated subculture.

Human Zoo was recorded by Matt Russell (who also worked with C.H.E.W., as well as REZN, Oozing Wound, Big Laugh, and others), and mastered by James Plotkin. Stream it below, and pick up a copy here.

Human Zoo by Stress Positions