On its surface, Regional Justice Center’s debut album, World of Inconvenience, is a ripping hardcore record that checks all the right boxes—minute-long bursts of blunt, pissed-off mayhem, polished by producer Will Killingstorth’s trademark grimey sheen, and wrapped in a Mark McCoy original design. And if that’s as far as you need to dig to get your hardcore jollies, then fine—knock yourself out. But looking a little closer, World of Inconvenience tells a deeply personal story.

Regional Justice Center is the brainchild of Ian Shelton, and while the band is mostly his own labor of love—handling drums, guitars, and vocal duties on the record—Shelton leaned heavily on inspiration from his brother Max on this LP. The record was written as Max was awaiting sentencing for an attempted murder charge. World of Inconvenience details the exploitative, demoralizing difficulties of navigating the prison system and the toll they've taken, not just on Max’s life, but his entire family’s.

Here’s Shelton describing the process behind World of Inconvenience:

“In August 2016 my little brother, Max, was sent to Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent, Washington to start his year and a half long process of awaiting sentencing. He was 18 years old, got caught up in small town drug politics and got himself into a violent situation. When he first went in I was visiting him two to three times a week I was seeing the way companies like Securus Technologies extort families for money just to talk to their loved ones, the asshole nature of the corrections officers I would have to interact with, and even the state attempting to saddle harsher extra charges on my brother just to make an example out of him. As I drove back and forth multiple times a week the ideas and themes of a band started to take shape and it began to seem like a way to have my brother involved in a project even though he would be gone for a long time (he ended up being sentenced to 72 months).

When it came time to make RJC's LP I wanted to take that idea to the next level by actually having his voice on the record and having him be able to communicate his situation through his own lens. I recorded conversations with him and those discussions ended up in the songs, I think it makes for an interesting document to look at as his sentence goes on, and especially when he’s out, to see how his thoughts and feelings have changed when he eventually comes out the other side of state prison. I wish it was under different circumstances but I’m proud to finally be on a record with my brother.”

Listen to the first two songs off of World of Inconvenience below. The LP is out on June 15 from To Live A Lie Records, Forever Never Ends, Adagio830, and Straight and Alert Records (yes, all of them). Pre-order it right here. Regional Justice Center also has a few shows coming up. Dates below.

5/16 - Los Angeles, CA @ Top Space

5/17 - Las Vegas, NV @ The Garth

5/18 - Sacramento, CA @ The Colony

5/19 - Oakland, CA @ 1234 Go! 6/15 - Portland, OR @ Blackwater Bar *

6/16 - Seattle, WA @ The Black Lodge *