Reviews

For review and radio play consideration:

Please send one copy of vinyl (preferred), CD, or cassette releases to MRR, PO Box 3852, Oakland, CA 94609, USA.

Maximum Rocknroll wants to review everything that comes out in the world of underground punk rock, hardcore, garage, post-punk, thrash, etc. No major labels or labels exclusively distributed by major-owned distributors, no reviews of test pressings or promo CDs without final artwork. We reserve the right to reject releases on the basis of content. Music without vocals or drums will not be considered. All music submitted for review must have been released (or reissued) within the last two years. Please include contact information and let us know where your band is from!

80HD Orc Party LP

Toxic State NYHC by way of being thrown in a blender with grindcore rhythms and ignorant breakdowns. This second LP pushes the excellent drumming to the forefront for me, holding together a solid mix of metal/punk/HC ideas that could very easily sound unfocused and undercooked. Love the production on this, hits like a fucking sledgehammer. The record is a perfect fit for Iron Lung with their curation of basically the entire spectrum of heavy music; this is such a brilliant mix that it’s deceiving in how coherent and natural it sounds. This delivers on the potential of the first LP in spades.

Anti-Regimen Demos 86/87 2xLP

This double LP compiles the first two self-released cassette demos from these Spanish punks who are still going strong today. These demos go back to ’86 and ’87 and are pressed on individual LPs with the original artwork and a sixteen-page zine for the real heads. While the recordings have been mastered for vinyl, they still have the lo-fi charm that you would expect to hear on a tape. On the first track “Ya No Puedes Ir Donde Tu Quieras,” you can even hear the tape warble from the original recording. It’s cool that the British influence is so prevalent here compared to their later thrashier stuff. If I have any complaints, it’s that a few songs sound like the CLASH, and I fucking hate the CLASH. Otherwise, it’s a solid release, and a no-brainer if you’re a fan of Basque or Spanish punk.

Bront #9 EP

Six years since their last release, Antwerp, Belgium’s BRONT is out with their #9 EP. Band leader Brent Pauwels may have been the only credited musician on 2019’s Nipples, but this latest effort features Simon de Geus (MELTHEADS, MOAR) on drums, Samuel D’Hoore (DEATHSTAR, MCGYVER, SAVING NICO) on synth, and Caspar de Geus (BRORLAB, VLERK, MOAR) on guitar and backing vocals. On this four-track EP, we find clean, sharp guitars jangling around simple, driving drum beats, bobbling bass, and angular vocals that are sung/spoken in a calm manner. Poppy garage tunes that stay on the fun, light, and odd side of the dial. The closer, “Hard and Sad,” catches my ears and is quite the anthem, with a really driving pulse-beat and ascending melody. Great 7” out on Belly Button, who are celebrating their tenth anniversary!

Cheater Slicks Live at Double Happiness LP

CHEATER SLICKS get another live document courtesy of Almost Ready Records, who’ve already put out several LPs of their shows plus a four-cassette box set. Recorded at a record store appearance in July 2014, Live at Double Happiness captures the band in their natural state: loud, loose, and completely unconcerned with your approval. Some of it serves a VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO vibe, all the instruments doing their own thing simultaneously, and those were the moments that hooked me most. The whole record plays like outsider art rendered in thick, rough lines, presented with a confidence that makes it clear they’re doing exactly what they want to do. If you don’t get it or don’t want to get it, that’s on you. They’re just going to keep on going. Limited to 180 copies on vinyl for the faithful.

Joel Cusumano Waxworld LP

A longtime contributor to the Bay Area music scene, CUSUMANO enjoys a resurgence of sorts with this latest full-length, his debut solo venture. This is towering power pop that is still utterly human. While there is architecture of song here, built up high with airy backing vocals and keyboard atmosphere thick like incense in the verse/chorus cathedral, CUSUMANO’s voice is disarmingly earnest. It’s a singular voice, in a sort of warbling baritone that is commanding and fragile at once. The melodies are perfect, and a track like “No Hello” is like one of those puzzle cubes that could only have been put together the way it was. His understanding of what makes a good song sounds second nature. The guitars soar, the delay washes over you, there’s echoes of something like FELT fronted by David Berman, which may have well been written just for me. Beautiful and sticks in deep.

Daisuck & Prostitute 死ぬまで踊りつづけて LP reissue

Yet another singular Japanese no wave salvo being given a second life through Spittle’s Made in Japan reissue imprint, 死ぬまで踊りつづけて (or Dance Till You Die, a fitting title if there ever was one) was the 1981 debut LP from DAISUCK & PROSTITUTE, a group formed by vocalist/guitarist Daisaku Yoshino under the joint sway of GANG OF FOUR, free jazz, and FRANK ZAPPA. Scratchy, skronky, and sax-spiked, there’s some obvious CONTORTIONS parallels here (the furious rhythmic pummel and shrill squawk of “闇の中のドッペル・ゲンゲル” basically pours gasoline on a fire first kindled by the No New York heater “Dish It Out”), while just as often bringing to mind the POP GROUP stripped of any dub leanings—check the decaying, noise-splintered desperation of the opening track “Ai O Itamu Uta” shifting right into a killer breakneck funk-punk outro. I’d be remiss to not mention that cavernous, Möbius loop bass line propelling the hi-hat-rattling mutant disco beats in “M.U.R.A.,” which is right up there with anything bearing a Rough Trade logo circa ’78-81, and even more of a mind-fuck knowing that bassist Yokai Takahashi would leave the band a few years later to join LES RALLIZES DÉNUDÉS(!). So supremely sick.

Failure to Comply Failure to Comply cassette

Ripping punk from Portland—FAILURE TO COMPLY sounds great on their self-titled debut. Across six noisy tracks, the band channels early hardcore like NECROS and ZERO BOYS to great effect, throwing in some interesting breakdowns and the occasional stab of feedback-laden guitar to keep things from feeling stale. Highly recommended; check out “Moral Failure.”

Gnostics Revelation cassette

GNOSTICS’ Revelation tape is steeped in the kind of nihilistic hardcore with sludge metal cadences and textures that treats clarity as a liability. Everything is blown-out just enough to feel unstable—guitars smear into a sheet of noise while the drums snap like live wires threatening to arc. The songwriting pivots between frantic bursts and slower, tension-loaded crawls, but the mood never lifts from its suffocating baseline. Vocals arrive shredded and distant, as if barked through a collapsing PA system at the back of a condemned hall. There’s a rawness here that reads less as nostalgia and more as refusal: refusal of polish, of accessibility, of any catharsis beyond the immediate physical purge. Revelation is short, ugly, and spiritually corrosive in all the right ways.

El tape Revelation de GNOSTICS está empapado de ese hardcore nihilista que trata la claridad como una desventaja. Todo está lo suficientemente saturado como para sentirse inestable: las guitarras se deshacen en una pared de ruido mientras la batería chasquea como cables pelados a punto de hacer arco. La composición pivotea entre ráfagas frenéticas y arrastres cargados de tensión, pero el clima nunca se despega de su línea base sofocante. Las voces llegan deshilachadas y distantes, como gritadas a través de un PA colapsando al fondo de un galpón condenado. Hay una crudeza que se lee menos como nostalgia y más como una negativa deliberada a pulir o hacer accesible

Hellbender Con Limón LP reissue

In 1997, when Andrew at Reservoir Records (DOC HOPPER, BLACK ARMY JACKET, SILENT MAJORITY, SPAZZ, C.R., STICKS AND STONES, etc.) sent HELLBENDER to Alap Momin’s (ASSFACTOR 4, RYE COALITION, TRANS MEGETTI, YAH MOS, DÄLEK, etc.) basement in Parsipianny, NJ to record their third LP, Con Limón, no one knew that it was to be their final release as a band. Nearly thirty years later, Dead Broke put in the work to make this available again. I think what attracted Dead Broke to this release was, in part, the highly unique and melodic post-hardcore song structures, starting with the sometimes odd, jazzy chords of guitarist Wells Tower, moving to the bass-driven songs of Al Burian that reflect driving down a road without headlights, and culminating in Harrison Haynes’ drumming, articulated perfectly at the level of Bill Stevenson (maybe even better). However, the truly irrevocable parts of this record are layered in the lyrical content, as the imagery is far too blunt to be fiction. The overall specific life points are cadenced out fast and with terrifying clarity, as if standing on a glass bridge above a jagged gorge—like, you know you’ll be OK, but fuck is it scary and uncertain right now. When HELLBENDER was writing Con Limón, they were all clearly going through a transitional period individually, and I don’t think they knew that they were done as a band until they heard their record played back to them. It was then realized that they had weathered an oceans’ weight of change together, made it through, and this was their goodbye to each other. It’s funny how everyone in this band went on to do things that became much better known, but for me, this was when they were perfect. Now remastered, Con Limón pushes forward buried, nuanced elements in the songs, like bringing small gems to the surface. There are now hundreds of bands that have stylistic elements that mirror Con Limón, but zero of those modern bands have reached the high marks of this record. Also, those hundreds of modern bands have probs never heard of this record, and now, perhaps, they will. I really dig it and I think you should, too.

Killer Kin Killer Kin LP reissue

What an album. First and foremost, I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the album cover. I don’t think there’s another image that could better represent what you find on this here slab. Pure rock’n’roll madness straight from the sewers of Connecticut. Very similar to MC5 and the RIFFS. This is the kind of band GG ALLIN wished he had backing him up in the ’80s. Apparently this is a re-release of their original 2023 LP pressing, which went out of print almost immediately. If you’re dying for this on wax, you better pony up for the shipping charge, because I don’t think this opportunity is coming back around any time soon.

Lika Dregs cassette

Two words: hell yeah. I loved how emotive and powerful these guys are. A growling, guttural force to be reckoned with, even on their (somewhat) slower-tempo tracks. They don’t mess around, you can feel the strength in every note played and sung (screamed). I had a blast listening to every track.

Minderased 四種雑多 EP

Four tracks of furious, jazz-inflected mathcore from this long-running Japanese band. The vocals are earnest and shouted, with guitar riffs that range from the emoviolence of SWING KIDS or ORCHID to the extreme technicality of DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN. There are occasional layers of whooshing synth noise added with some welcome chopped glitch-string samples in the first and last tracks that add dimension to the chaos. The drumming, frenetic and mechanical, lost me a few times and sounded digital and monotonous, especially on the relentless blastbeats of the second track (“集合の理”) and the clicking double-bass kick of the fourth track, “五里夢中杖を失 くし歩く.” If MINDERASED’s drummer is indeed human, then they are insanely precise, albeit cold. Strong mix of technical proficiency and rage.

Mujeres Podridas Sangre y Sol LP

As excited as I was to see this LP in my review queue, I still wasn’t prepared. MUJERES PODRIDAS have been a sporadic force in the Austin, Texas scene for a decade or so (four years between the demo and the first 12”, then another four until this full-length), which means that you appreciate them even more when they grace our world with more sound. On Sangre y Sol, you hear a band fully realized—it’s too easy to use a word like “mature,” even though that’s the best description here. That maturity gives them the confidence to reach into the(ir) past and harness a youthful energy that comes from being excited to make sounds reminiscent of the sounds that inspired the younger you. It’s why you hear early ’00s melodic punk in these songs (KNUGEN FALLER, SOVIETTES, GORILLA ANGREB, MARKED MEN) even while you feel the power and bombast of a fiercely Texan band raised on dirty, bombastic South Valley hardcore (“Mi Terra” at volume, if there was ever any doubt). This record swings, and it swings with complete confidence. This record is passionate and honest…this record feels real. And that shit is rare. Already looking forward to what happens four years from now.

Post Community Post Community cassette

POST COMMUNITY is a collective, a collaboration, an open group founded by members of a slew of East Coast punk bands, and presently operating out of Baltimore—message the band if you’re keen to participate in basement activities. POST COMMUNITY recently released a cassette with Urticaria Records (my favorite imprint), and it is a voyage. Experimental, intricate, one of those rare recordings that keeps you seated at the front of your chair awaiting the next moment’s surprise, as each song seems to be composed of many and they transition rapidly. Post-punk becomes punk, becomes noise, becomes hardcore, but before you know it, the journey reaches its end and the remaining energy feels similar to post-gig afterglow.

Rousers 1979 Sire Session LP

The Sire label was a big deal back in 1979—think of bands like the RAMONES and the DEAD BOYS. ROUSERS were another of those New York bands, though not one I was ever familiar with. I find this one interesting in an historical kind of way. I’m not sure it’s my thing now or if it would have been my thing back in 1979. It’s got a little too much of that rock’n’roll/rockabilly thing going on for me. I can hear it in the vocals and in the guitar. It’s good for me, but it’s not great. 

The Smog Speed of Life / New Game 7″

Two killer new cuts from Japan’s the SMOG. This is what I consider perfect punk. What does it take to qualify for perfect punk, you ask? I don’t really have specifics, but I do know when I hear it. There’s a strong BUZZCOCKS influence to the songwriting, and it’s played with the ferocity of Japanese punks SS. Play it loud, you deserve perfection!

Subterranean Kids Subterranean Hardcore LP reissue

Originally a demo released in 1985, Subterranean Hardcore has been unearthed via BCore Disc and Little Jan’s Hammer. This is raw ’80s hardcore fury from Barcelona, distilled into a blistering nineteen-track attack.  SUBTERRANEAN KIDS tore through these pissed-off anthems in barely half an hour, pairing turbocharged tempos with incisive riffs and angry vocals. From snappy tunes like “Nunca Más” and “Calles Vacías” to more ragged ones like “¿Puños o Cabeza?,” this is hardcore punk that sounds like a Spanish MINOR THREAT, and they even treated us to a cover of the iconic, movement-creating “Straight Edge” and a BLACK FLAG cover for good measure. It’s a real snapshot of a band living and breathing the urgency of their time and place.

Total Con This Whole World is Gonna Pay cassette

Relentless hardcore punk attack from this one-man band. What if WHITE CROSS was from the Midwest, and the only tape they listened to before making a record was BGK? Well, this might be the answer. Proper fucking punk here, against the establishment in all its forms, pissed-off, and empowering. I tend to have a bias against one-man bands, but holy shit, this ripped my face clean the fuck off—UKHC is just full of every kind of awesome shit.

Useless Eaters Ego Shell / Rub 7″

Rejoice! USELESS EATERS are back, and they sound even more fresh and kick-ass than before! While the dark and explosive energy of their earlier releases is still intact, it seems to have been upgraded to a more modern and sonically immersive sound. Crunchy drums, rumbling fuzzy bass, metallic guitars, grimy synths, and charismatic vocals…they just sound better in this three-dimensional style of production, in my opinion. It really adds a lot to the music itself. I can’t wait to hear what comes next from the legendary USELESS EATERS.

V/A Florida Underground Fest, Volume One LP

DCxPC Live’s Florida Underground Fest, Volume One collects twelve live cuts from twelve bands recorded at the Florida Underground Fest 5 in 2024, and it does exactly what it should: it captures a scene at a specific moment in time and makes you wish you’d been there. The bands lean heavily into ska, ska-punk, pop punk, NOFX-style punk, and emo-inflected melodic punk, with contributions from 69 FINGERS, NEVERLESS, NEVERENDER, SUCK BRICK KID, CONTROL THIS!, the LONGEST HALL, DIAL DRIVE, JOHNNY 2 CHORDS, IN-TRANSIT, FLAG ON FIRE, the KUTOFFS, and YOU VANDAL. The recording quality is surprisingly decent for a live comp, and the performances are pretty solid throughout. Fair warning: there’s a lot of annoying-younger-brother energy packed into these grooves, and if you’ve aged out of this particular corner of punk, it may not be your daily driver. But as a snapshot of what’s happening in Florida’s underground scene right now, it’s a worthwhile spin. DCxPC released a second volume from the same fest focused on heavier and more experimental music, if that’s more your speed.

Active Minds Things That Cannot Be Unseen LP

Look, the world needs ACTIVE MINDS. For 40 years, they have been delivering blunt-force, uncompromising activist hardcore/punk to generation after generation of punks, and I swear they feel more relevant today than ever before. The way they present such basic topics makes them feel…well, as important as they actually are. ACTIVE MINDS challenges acceptance on tracks like “The Price of Sporting Excellence” and “We Need to Talk About Saudi Arabia,” and ACTIVE MINDS challenges convention with the five-minute-plus anthem “The Man Who Fell to Earth” and the dirty Motörpunk speed-picking of “Fear of a Secular Planet.” Their commitment to The Plan is what makes ACTIVE MINDS so important—much like DROPDEAD continues to bludgeon everyone in earshot with the unfiltered truth, this UK duo continues to spit fire and deliver uncompromising (and uncompromised) sounds rooted in early UK anarcho. Fortunately for us, those roots have taken hold, and the result is more powerful than ever.

Better Plastic EP2 cassette

Brooklyn’s BETTER PLASTIC follow up their self-titled debut with the aptly-titled EP 2. Featuring two original tracks of powerviolence-infused post-hardcore and one LEFT FOR DEAD cover, anyone interested in mid-tempo, slightly off-kilter songs with blastbeats will find much to enjoy here. Overall, I do think the vocals are cool, but this doesn’t really do anything for me.

Blind Adam and the Federal League DCxPC Live Presents, Vol. 39 LP

If you’ve read my past reviews, then you’ll know I often go to bat for these DCxPC live albums—pure rock’n’roll archiving that will be long remembered for documenting the history of the genre in the 2020s. They are always worth at least a couple spins. BLIND ADAM brings more of the same energy you’ve seen in the past on these slabs, with high octane punk spliced with a hint of country/western and BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN. For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to refer to BLIND ADAM as skate punk (which I think is fair, as they sound like a cross between SWINGIN’ UTTERS and early RISE AGAINST), as the term “pop punk” doesn’t really do them justice. In an era where political punk is more commonly found in folk punk and powerviolence, it’s refreshing to have a skate punk act return the genre to its roots. These are the types of anthems you can build a revolution around. Their songs are so polished that if you told me this was a studio recording, I’d believe you. The lead guitarist is easily one of the best I’ve heard in a very long time; nothing but face-melting licks that tear their guitar to absolute shreds. A truly brilliant player and master of their craft. You already know what I’m gonna say: go give this record a twirl.

Camp Regret Camp Regret LP

High-energy punk with snaky elements of post-punk guitar work and staccato vocals. Catchy garage riffs and the overall buzzing enthusiasm make this record a fun listen along the lines of HOT SNAKES mixed with BLACK EYES. There are straight-up rockers like “Smoke Screen” and “Summer Venues,” but more interesting are the skittering drums and jerky bass rhythms on tracks like “Go Getter” and “New Zack City,” the latter with a smooth synth accompaniment.

Cigarette Camp Steps LP

CIGARETTE CAMP easily falls in with OFF WITH THEIR HEADS, RVIVR, DILLINGER FOUR, early JAWBREAKER, and all-over-the-place gruff melody and hooks galore. This record has summer and friends dribbling and popping through every note. I think that it is important to understand that although they are covering well-worn ground, this record also comes off authentically and not as merely wanting to mirror or rehash any other bands. There are nineteen songs, which might seem long, but they average fifty seconds each and are perfectly sequenced to flow together, and before you know it, it’s over and you have to flip it and start all over again. I think Steps is going to make gobs of folks happy, and perhaps make it easier to get through the cold and wet spring.

Dashed Dashed LP

DASHED’s self-titled debut LP offers eleven tracks of surf-inflected rock from this Minneapolis four-piece, built on jangly tones and rawly emotive vocals. The musicianship is solid throughout, and it all sounds fine in the most literal sense of the word. I wanted it to grab me, but every so often I found myself drifting, waiting for a moment that never quite arrived. Closing track “The Elephant” finally lets things get noisier and more raucous, hinting at a wilder band lurking underneath. I’d love it if this became the starting point for album number two. Recommended for people who like their surf sounds with a mild hint of HOT WATER MUSIC. The vinyl is pressed on Coke bottle clear wax.

Death Party Haunted 10″

This one’s got a little bit of a SOCIAL DISTORTION feel to it, both in the vocals and the instrumental work. Definitely not a copy or even trying to sound like them, but it’s there. The vocals are also a little distorted, almost like SONIC AVENUES—maybe they’re just leveled up super high. Catchy and melodic, there’s a lot to like about this one. It attacks the whole time and it’s got a garage-y eeriness to it. At the same time, it maintains that catchy, poppy side. Good stuff.

Forma Forma cassette

Debut release from Bilbao, Spain’s FORMA, a mixed female/male-fronted group singing mostly in Italian, with one song (“Itzalen Artean,” I believe) sung in Basque. Songs are heartfelt, angry at times (“Non c’è Spazio”), and run in the post-punk realm, at least in the phaser/effect pedal bass, crunchy rhythms, and clean lead lines way up front in the mix, while the vocals take a little more from a hardcore/melodic hardcore sound. Dynamic sound all around, great mix—music for the good and bad times.

Hektiks Obliteration cassette

Discordant, chaotic, noisy, and rage-filled is the short description of the Obliteration tape by Vienna, Austrian punks HEKTIKS. The six songs on the cassette are over and done with far too quickly, which means multiple replays are mandatory. Lyrics cover a range of topics including the horrors committed in the name of capitalism, sexism in our current times, and state oppression/repression, while sonically raw punk, feedback, and dirty distortion abound. This cassette is currently available through Roachleg or can be had digitally for a donation through the HEKTIKS Bandcamp page.

Itches House Animal Included LP

Very garage-y. The first track intro sounds a lot like MTX’s “Paula Pierce,” a garage rocker from their first record if I remember correctly. These guys definitely lean towards the garage sound. And not just any old garage sound, but the ’60s garage sound. I can’t tell if that’s a tambourine or just a ton of hi-hat, but you get the idea. Catchy and very easy to like.

Komatiite Famine Pact cassette

This is a short one: five songs in less than five minutes. Not even enough for a cig break. This tape EP is KOMATIITE’s second recording, after their demo in 2023. I would be a shameless liar if I said I’d heard of these chaps before, but I understand all the members previously played in the rather good BAKKARA, an evil metallic discore affair. KOMATIITE is a different animal, belonging to the US hardcore species with a distinct dark touch and something of a modern D-beat influence. The band does manage to vary the pace on the tape, offering a beefy, stomping number and a dynamic classic mid-paced hardcore one. There are a lot of things happening here, and what they did include is done well, but because of the length of the tape, I have trouble identifying what they really aim to do. I guess an additional ten minutes would have helped. Still, a pleasant slice of raw, dark hardcore.

The Liarbilitys Vandalheart LP

Here’s a reminder to never judge an album by its first track. Vandalheart kicks off as your standard skate punk affair: basic power chords, call-to-arms lyrics, and NOFX-esque drumming. I prematurely wrote the rest of the record off, assuming it would all sound similar. I was dead wrong. This slab completely opens up following the second track, “Sickbed,” and is a masterclass of modern punk rock songwriting. While the guitar work itself is as catchy as it gets, the vocals and the lyrics are what drives this home. The storytelling here is reminiscent of the CLASH; very personal yet undoubtedly relatable and sentimental for all who listen. The vocalist themselves is on another level—pure unadulterated talent here. I mentioned the guitars being catchy, but goddamn, this singer has hooks for days. It all reminds me of an English ARMCHAIR MARTIAN and Chad Price-era ALL. Very solid album, well worth hundreds and hundreds of spins.

Mandy Die Herrin Ist Mein Hirte LP

Germany’s MANDY belts out twelve tracks of no-frills powerviolence in around ten minutes. Throat-shredding vocals, tempo changes aplenty, blastbeats…they’re ticking all the right boxes. The down-tempo parts stand out for not being overtly metallic or floorpunch-y, and the production is exceptionally balanced with just the right amount of grain. The between-song feedback and samples add enough flesh to the skeleton for it to clock as a full-length LP, though I wonder if it would actually feel more complete as a 7” EP. That’s really splitting hairs, but I suppose that’s what I’m here to do. All told, a solid release with heft and force that leaves me searching for something corpuscular that would push it into brilliance.

Nite Sprites Only Better Changes LP

This sits in that sweet spot of soaring pop punk with gritty hollering and chunky diamond bass lines. The shout-along melodies are triumphant in a triumphless world, weary but fighting ‘til the end. While the band can air it out, too, with tracks like “Teaching Boys” and its chiming arpeggios, they’re muscular in sound in the evergreen tradition of groups like LEATHERFACE and OFF WITH THEIR HEADS. There is a wistful heartachingness to these tunes, but it always gallops forward. I also appreciate the lyrical abstraction, evocative and poetic even as the music sounds like anthems. A smart, spry full-length that’s recorded beautifully.

Open Veins Dead Inside LP

On Dead Inside, OPEN VEINS channels a distinctly metallic strain of hardcore that favors suffocation over flow. The riffs land in full-speed, collapsing patterns—less about momentum and more about pressure—while the low-end churn gives everything a nauseating density. The band does accelerate in almost each track, but it’s in short, panicked sprints that only heightens the sense of entrapment before dropping back into breakdowns that feel engineered for maximum structural damage (excepting their LP intro “Scorched Earth”), The vocal performance is all serrated edges, riding the mix like a threat rather than a guide. There’s a calculated bleakness running through the entire LP that resists easy release. Dead Inside doesn’t posture despair; it manufactures it in real time.

En Dead Inside, OPEN VEINS canalizan una veta marcadamente metálica del hardcore que privilegia la asfixia por sobre la velocidad. Los riffs caen en patrones lentos y derrumbados —menos sobre el impulso y más sobre la presión—mientras el bajo le da a todo una densidad nauseabunda. Cuando la banda acelera, lo hace en sprints cortos y paranoicos que sólo intensifican la sensación de encierro antes de volver a breakdowns diseñados para daño estructural máximo. La performance vocal es puro filo dentado, montándose sobre la mezcla como una amenaza más que como una guía. Hay una negrura calculada que recorre todo el LP y resiste cualquier liberación fácil.

Plant Bau! cassette

Talk about a good switch-up—these guys range from a mid-tempo post-punk feel to classic punk in just one song. I loved how I was caught off guard with guitars streaming in and out all of the time, and just when you think the song’s over, they bring in something new. Overall, these guys do a great job of bringing something fresh for every single song.

Quite Ridiculous Nonsense A Failure… EP reissue

Long-lost DIY EP from 1984 whereupon a young man named Dan Foley made audio experiments with a drum machine, a bass guitar, and kitchen appliances in his Montreal bedroom. Why go all the way to New York City when you can get SUICIDE at home? The ingenuity shines in all four tracks, like the blender solo in “General Attitude,” and the warped conga beat in “Appropriate Blocks.” Teenage ennui leaks out of the gurgling “Boredom” in the form of a looped “Dull / Boring / Dull / Boring” lyric. Kind of like a junior league THROBBING GRISTLE in that there is more creative spark than musical aptitude in these short song kernels, this is a curious document of DIY industrial-leaning punk, and a testament to the joy of fucking around with what’s at hand.

Radioactivity Time Won’t Bring Me Down CD

RADIOACTIVITY’s Time Won’t Bring Me Down arrives ten years after Silent Kill, and, damn, the wait just might have been worth it. If you’re not familiar with this crew, Jeff Burke, Mark Ryan, Gregory Rutherford, and Daniel Fried intersect across so many bands (including MARKED MEN, MIND SPIDERS, BAD SPORTS, HIGH TENSION WIRES, etc.) that their family trees must look like a spirograph. Here we have eleven songs in just over thirty minutes, each written with clear purpose and played with the kind of tightness you’d expect from people who’ve spent their lives doing this. At times, for me, this brought to mind Meltdown-era MIND SPIDERS, but I think fans of any band in this extended universe will feel right at home. The faster songs are always going to be my happy place, but one standout track for me was the more nuanced “Shell,” where the rhythm section locks in below a soaring guitar line that opens up an unexpected sense of space while maintaining that forward momentum. Ten years between full-lengths, and they’ve evolved without losing the best parts of their sound. This would have made my top ten list last year if I had heard it in time. Strongly recommended.

Serial Experiments Freshly Baked Ritual cassette

Tokyo’s SERIAL EXPERIMENTS offer some of the most deranged and psychotic powerviolence I’ve heard in a while. Freshly Baked Ritual sounds absolutely hostile. Two bass guitars dialed to the most sledgehammer-y tone imaginable along with abrasive guitar riffs and blistering drums create a wall of sound that is impossible to penetrate. And yet, two vocalists rip off their vocal cords trying to do just that. The result is a noisy, almost avant-garde kind of fastcore that would be impossible to replicate. It’s totally, uniquely disgusting. Therefore, I love it.

Thee Headcoatees Man-Trap LP

“Dude, did you see THEE HEADCOATEES have a new record out?” I asked my bandmate. “I’ll check the press release, I doubt it was recorded recently,” he responded, followed by “Welp, I guess I’m immediately eating my words.” Eat ‘em and smile, my friend! This is their first new release in 26 years, and features a few BILLY CHILDISH-penned originals along with a bunch of covers. If you’re an existing fan, you take comfort in knowing that the band still sounds great after all these years, and CHILDISH’S songwriting has improved the same. If you’re new to their music, sit back and hear where the COATHANGERS learned it all. I would have loved to hear more originals, but you can’t slight the band for having fun and letting the tape roll again after all these years.This one is a no-brainer for all the garage heads out there.

The Tights Bad Hearts EP reissue

Didn’t the TIGHTS have a single called “Howard Hughes”? They did, way back in the late ’70s. This is also from that era (1978) and originally came out on the Cherry Red label. This is classic early UK punk rock/power pop, back when the two weren’t necessarily distinguished. This is a must-have. In addition to the punk and the power pop, this one’s got a dusting of new wave you can throw into the mix, just for fun.

Ultra Bleach Ultra Bleach cassette

Eight songs of quirky, bubbly, unhinged, repetitive art-punk from Richmond, VA. Musically, ULTRA BLEACH stays within driving, mid-tempo punk range. Cool little drum fills, tight-sounding band. I am not entirely sure if it is how loud the vocals are in the mix or the eccentric yelp styling of the vocalist itself that makes the repeated lines in each song feel less like hooks and more like someone aggressively lecturing you from a soapbox. There are moments where I hear a little bit of early MEAT PUPPETS, which only added to my overall feeling that this has much more of a grunge-type feel to it than anything near the band’s self-proclamation of egg-punk.

Windley Cloverleaf CD

WINDLEY opens up with a quiet and pensive look back at moving on and into the next phases in life. However—dang, duder! WINDLEY likes the DESCENDENTS and ALL and gobs more Bill Stevenson-esque bands. Look, of this specific kind of powerhouse pop punk, WINDLEY does it very well and prolly kills it live. The lyrics are a bit more introspective than usually tend to drive tunes of this ilk. Ten songs is the perfect amount for an album, and they nail it with nine out of ten, only because I’m not a fan of tunes about hangovers, and one of the ten songs is thirteen minutes long and sounds like maybe four different songs, so maybe eight out of ten or fourteen out of ten for someone else (¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). I’ve spun through this three times trying to find ways to beef it up or be more descriptive, and I think I’ve nailed all you need to know for you to jump in. Oh, the only other band I knew from Myrtle Beach, SC was BAZOOKA JOE, and now I know of WINDLEY too, so there’s that.

XSmashcasters Tokyo Rose CD

Virginia punks the SMASHCASTERS broke up in 2013. Three years later, three of the group’s four members decided to reinvent the band, christening their updated configuration with the logical moniker XSMASHCASTERS. And now they’ve put out this CD. Though the tunes take cues from classic English street punk, they present an earnest rock’n’roll style akin to the HUMPERS. I’m reminded at times of the ANGELIC UPSTARTS, the BUSINESS side project PROLE, and also poppy ’90s punk like early BOUNCING SOULS. It’s smooth, upbeat, and punchy stuff that probably rocks harder live.

V/A Stop Genocide Now! Volume 1: In Solidarity With Lebanon & Palestine War / Genocide Victims cassette

The Stop Genocide Now! series has put together an impressively diverse roster across four volumes to raise funding for Lebanese and Palestinian victims directly affected by the ongoing genocide. This tape (the first volume to be put out as a physical release) features twenty bands from across the globe, spanning Brazil to Canada to Mexico to the Philippines and beyond. I recognized a couple of names here like INDIKATOR B and TÀRREGA 91’, but I was mostly introduced to these bands through this comp. There’s a lot to dig into, but standouts include raw punks MAU AGÖURO from Brazil, Dis-beaters DISANXIAN (地三鮮) from China, and ’80s USHC-inspired STILETTO from Singapore. I could go on, but this collection is best explored by the listener. Pick up a copy, discover some new bands, and support a good cause.

Amy Beth and Thee Creeps Shitheel EP

Portland, Oregon’s AMY BETH AND THEE CREEPS put down some turned-up trash garage on their debut 7”. Led by drummer/vocalist Amy Beth, whose bullhorned vocals and lo-fi bashing create a classic budget rock sound, the group smashes through three originals along with a fun cover of the URINALS’ “I’m a Bug.” It’s a nostalgic racket recommended for fans of the DUMMIES, THEE HEADCOATS, and other 1990s noisemakers of the stripes-and-sunglasses ilk.

The Blue Gods Youth An Ode to Blight cassette

I’ve got to admit my confusion with this release and will do my best to make sense of what I’ve got here in front of me. Musically, the BLUE GODS YOUTH play heavy, anthemic, mid-tempo melodic hardcore with pirate punk “yo-ho-ho” kind of parts, all with a singer doing his best TRAGEDY impression—like, if TRAGEDY decided that after Vengeance, they wanted to have more traditionally catchy parts in their songs but still wanted to keep their heavy-sounding recording style. Artwork: An Ode to Blight has very minimalist art, just simple text surrounding a heart wearing a crown and angel wings, and crosses on the back panel and on the tape. Sure, one of the crosses is broken, but with song names like “The Trespasser,” “A Lifeless Prayer,” ”The Chains,” and “Faith and Fury,” I am left thinking that either this is a Christian band, or that the band is attempting to be very strongly tongue-in-cheek against Christianity, taking the piss out of many aspects. Unfortunately, with no liner notes, no lyrics, and every aspect of the band’s online persona having been wiped clean, I have absolutely no way of knowing which one of those things the band was attempting. Can’t give you any other information other than it seems like they’re from Manitoba, Canada.

Briefbombe Deutsche Pest EP

The BLACK FLAG font on the cover had me dreading the first listen. I get a homage, but I see it used so often that it feels overplayed and unoriginal. It just feels kind of cheap, ya know? Are we so starved for fresh ideas that we must reuse and rehash the past? As much as I loathe the cover art, the music fuckin’ rips. It’s as angry, fast, and as pissed-off as the stuff our forebears were releasing 40-plus years ago, but it’s a different animal entirely. BRIEFBOMBE brings the riffs, and they do it with a fury. The songs are quick and meaty, packed with tight riffs and over-the-top drum fills. The vocals are intense and sung entirely in what I presume to be German. I can’t understand a word they are screaming, but the intensity in which it is delivered leaves no question that they mean every word. Cool stuff.

Control Freaks TV Generation LP

CONTROL FREAKS return with their fourth LP, TV Generation. Twelve garage punk salvos from San Francisco, all clocking in around two minutes each, which is perfect. Greg Lowery (SUPERCHARGER, RIP OFFS, INFECTIONS, ZODIAC KILLERS) trades vocals with Amy Munoz, and the back-and-forth between them gives the record a spark that made this stand out for me. Sammy G provides exactly the right drums for these songs, never showing off, just nailing it. The sound will land immediately for anyone familiar with Lowery’s earlier bands, though maybe a notch or two down in aggression. We all mellow eventually, but don’t mistake that for going soft: about half the tunes are diss tracks aimed at bosses, ghosters, liars, lazy slobs, and people who smell bad, so clearly nobody’s gone zen. It’s not reinventing anything, but it delivers the goods. Twelve songs, zero filler, job done. Recommended.