I imagine SATANIC TOGAS would be a ton of fun to see live. What’s not to love about fast, garage-y punk and vocals that sound like they are coming out of a drive-thru loudspeaker? This Aussie band delivers four tracks of unhinged melodies and meandering bass lines, leaving you to think everything is going to spin out of control. They are kind of like MR. CLIT AND THE PINK CIGARETTES with an accent and wackier vocal effects. Good party jams.
The first side of this EP has Slovakia’s BETON blasting out some wild D-beat/death metal, sounding like it was recorded in a sewer tunnel. Although they have a wall-of-sound thing going on, the drums clacked away clearly. “Safari” was the most interesting musically, as it seemed to have something sounding like a banjo in the mix, and by the end of the song, the guitars sounded like a foghorn, but in a good way. On the flipside, Japan’s BEYOND DESCRIPTION serves up their brand of crusty hardcore. I don’t know what they were yelling about, but the unrelenting speed and aggression are legit. Very powerful.
France’s GUMMO brings all kinds of grindcore/powerviolence pain on this compilation of their recorded work. Side A contains their 2019 LP Sheltered Despair, which is hardcore as fuck with droning, grinding bass in your face. The vocals for that album were recorded with various singers from their local punk/hardcore/grind scene, but the cassette A-side also includes a version of the LP re-recorded with their permanent singer, Théo. Their cover of NASUM’s “The Final Sleep” changes up the pace with a slightly slower attack but keeps the gloomy, angry mood unchanged. “Neaderthal Scream” has a chorus worth screaming in traffic or in a public library. Side B has more of the same with their 2019 split Split the Hard Way, a 2021 single for “Heart Shaped Box” (NIRVANA), the 2021 LP A Fresh Breath on the Neck, reviewed by me in in MRR #465, and three exclusive tracks. One of my favorites on this side is “Fucking Monkey Drummer,” which has a chous that spoke to my soul: “Fucking monkey drummer / He strike like a beast / Even with my earplugs / He destroys my feelings.” In fact, most of the tracks on the split, as well as the NIRVANA cover, introduce a good sense of humor, a refreshing break from the unrelenting hate and depression of their LPs. Altogether, this discography is an hour-and-a-half of unrelentingly fast, brutal, aggressive shit, and a must-have for the discriminating grindcore fan.
This is a big slab of fastcore fun for fans of early D.R.I., back when their songs were 35 seconds long. Boise, Idaho’s HUMMINGBIRD OF DEATH manages to squeeze 83 of their early recordings onto this comp. Recorded between 2005 and 2008, these tracks remain relevant, as with “Stupid Bills,” which says “Off to the record store / Where did all my money go?” Ain’t that the truth. The lyrics range from the political (extolling LGBTQIA+ rights, shitting on racism, dissing animal cruelty, etc.) to the personal (loneliness, anger) to the simple joys of rocking out and moshing it up. The track “I Wanna Be a Frog” gets cerebral by posing “Bears are always angry / But frogs are always cool.” And just the title of the song “Fadeouts are for Chumps” made my day. Then there are these oddball tracks that stray from the fastcore formula, such as “Coward.” Clocking in at a massive 4:37, HUMMINGBIRD OF DEATH is suddenly a stoner doom metal band with a firecracker fastcore section sandwiched in the middle. “Frayed Nerve Endings” is an instrumental. “Waste” has a nice, D-beat swagger. “No Child Left Alive” manages a guitar solo in its seven-second runtime. This album is one of my favorites of the year. Raucous, angry, sometimes silly—it has everything.
Mouth of Madness has re-released the sole release by these Quebec death-grinders, originally from 2000. Recorded in their jam space, the sound quality is what you’d expect from the turn-of-the-century DIY metal cassette scene. Nevertheless, the hissy tape sound works for this raw, aggressive style. The pounding, marching drums are slightly forward of the relentless, fuzzy riffage. The two vocalists swap growls of mostly French hostility. Not sticking to the conventions of the genre, they make bold choices as on the track “Torturer,” where the bass and drums take center stage and the guitar hangs back through most of the song. Never fear, the guitar comes back toward the end with a manic, noisy vengeance.
German punk rockers LAFFF BOX are difficult to pigeonhole into this or that genre. Driving hard with distorted vocals and a noisy, twin-guitar attack, they switch from rollicking, mosh pit punk on tracks like “Master” to a more melodic, mid-tempo rock vibe on the very next track, “Just a Fool.” The rhythm section stands out, providing a bedrock foundation for the chaotic guitars. One of my favorite tracks is the stripped-down Motörpunk rager “Restart the Program.”
Out of Malaysia, this four-piece delivers hardcore punk that reminded me of POISON IDEA, SLAPSHOT, and to a lesser extent, CRO-MAGS. This five-track EP comes fast, hard, precise, and political. A good example is the track “Edu-Cash-It,” which insists “What you have to seek is the education / But it’s been misused for their greed.” An excellent choice for fans of old-school hardcore with a thrashy twist.
Brazillian-style harcore from Sweden? OK, let’s go. This disc has five tracks of original music and five covers of tunes by PSYKOZE, MERCENARIAS, and OLHO SECO. I wish I knew Portuguese because this shit rips! Two of my favorites are PSYKOZE’s “Buracos Suburbanos” (“Suburban Holes”) and “Santa Igreja” (by MERCENARIAS.) Both have catchy choruses and great bopping rhythms. Musically, TERROR 83 plays crisp and clean with crunchy guitars and a solid rhythm section.
Starting your album with a RAMONES cover (“I Don’t Wanna Grow Up,” but in Polish it’s “Nie Chcę Znów Dorosłym Być”) was a good choice for these Warsaw punks—it sets the tone for what you’re in for. Their vibe is unapologetically 1977 NYC punk. With ex- and current members of GLUE SNIFFERS and INHALATORS, among others, SATELLITES make good noise. Switching from Polish to English, and stirring in different flavors like rockabilly, keeps the album from getting repetitive. Sixteen tracks of the same 4/4 RAMONES-y stuff would get old, but that’s not the case here.
The musical “Intro” of this release sounds like the opening credits for the cheesiest ’80s slasher film, and then the thrash starts. This French band clearly loves the ’80s, because of the occasional samples and weird synth interludes between tracks. They vacillate between hardcore and thrash effortlessly. “Shower,” in particular, is reminiscent of early SUICIDAL TENDENCIES. Other tracks feel more like D.R.I. and fellow Europeans CRIPPLED FOX. Lots of great thrash coming out of Europe lately. Every track is tight, fast, and clocks in under two minutes, perfect to skate or slam to.
This record could have been made in any of the last four or five decades. While sounding fresh and new, they remind me of TELEVISION—smart, groovy, mid-tempo garage punk. Some tracks like “Alexxa” and “Find the Right Fit” have a wilder, unhinged edge, like MR. CLIT AND THE PINK CIGARETTES. One track can be tight and moody, and the next could sound like it’s shaking in all directions like a low-rent carnival’s janky Tilt-a-Whirl ride. Over the course of the whole album, you get a satisfying synthesis of styles and eras with a throbbing vein of straightforward rock’n’roll at its core. Other standout tracks are “Mop Bucket” and “These Pines.” Listening to them and closing my eyes, head swaying back and forth, I hear echoes of STOOGES and sometimes BLACK CROWES. This album would be a good soundtrack to a long road trip.
Can Lemmy really die when bands like POLUTE are banging it out like this? Four blistering tracks of Motörpunk from Australia, roaring along smelling of black leather and motor oil. Drummer/vocalist Ben Portnoy’s singing style is very Oi!, which puts the band’s sound more on the punk side. If their Bandcamp is to be believed, they wrote the demo in one jam session and recorded it in three hours. But there’s nothing sloppy or thrown together here, it’s just straightforward, fast, raw rock’n’roll.
Anytime a hardcore, grind, or powerviolence band has a female vocalist, they become ten times cooler in my book. Thailand’s SPEECH ODD rips through this four-track demo with all the rage and hate of young people disgusted with an oppressive government. Take the song “Fucx Coup,” with these, and only these lyrics: “Fuck coup!!! / Stupit [sic] / Government fake democracy you are.” If you like your powerviolence with gobs of antifascist screaming, then this is the band for you. Well-produced, and over before you know it.
Melodic punk out of Las Vegas with strong vibes of NOFX, ALL, and BAD RELIGION. Some tracks veer more toward pop punk, while others more toward hard rock. Still, there are some with more of an edge, such as “Resist.” With anthemic lyrics like “Reject false divisions, they’re used to restrict you / Refuse to tolerate processed hate / Remember while you still exist / You can’t be brought down as long as you resist,” SUBURBAN RESISTANCE could be just straight-ahead punk, but this LP shows their range of interests, influences, and ambitions. There’s something for everyone here.
There were a couple endearing things making first impressions with this disc. First, the band included a nice, handwritten note in the review copy, which is wholesome as fuck. The other was that the disc was burned as a CD-R of WAV files rather than a proper CD, which had me hunting down a device to play it with on my laptop. That took me back. BASS FEENS are two punks grinding out earnest, high-tempo punk rock in their garage somewhere in Davis, CA. With a two-piece band, everything has to be solid, and they deliver track after track of driving, full-bodied punk rock you can party and/or skateboard to. “Reset” is a banger.
Swirling, bass-forward hardcore out of San Francisco, this brief but intense release by HOGG foregoes blistering speed for driving, circle-pit rhythms. “Stuck” brings some D-beat, and the closing track “Steep” is the longest, most complex, and most interesting in terms of pacing and mood. Overall, it’s a strange mix of head-scratching lyrics, odd audio samples, and gritty punk.
All anybody wants to talk about these days is the scene in Hattiesburg, MS, all because of JUDY AND THE JERKS. Fun, energetic punk fucking rock that brings to mind BLATZ and MR. CLIT AND THE PINK CIGARETTES. At moments poppy, and always unhinged, these ten tracks bring the party. “Scorpion” has a bass line that haunts my dreams, and before it gets too repetitive and dull, the song careens into chaos before bringing that bass line back to wrap it up. With so many solid tracks like “I Lost My Feet,” “California,” and “Nothing to Prove,” it’s hard to pick a favorite. Smart, funny, and radiating energy like an exposed reactor core, JUDY AND THE JERKS are near the top of the list of bands I can’t wait to see live.
Supposedly a solo project, New Bedford, MA’s INTERNAL offers a wall of sludgy powerviolence, particularly on the low end. The tracks hit hard and then are over. A track like the title track stands out for its length, just over one minute, and its slower pace in the middle third, which it uses to dish out a different flavor of brutality. The lyrics are bleak throughout, such as with “Pack It Up”—”Pack it up / The choice is clear / Disappear.” The closing instrumental track, “Internal,” slows things down with head-bobbing hardcore. This is the kind of stuff that grows on you with repeated listenings.
The cover of this split is a black flail, a medieval weapon with two spiked balls attached to a stick with chains, and that’s a perfect visual metaphor for what’s inside. The three KLONNS tracks are unrelentingly harsh Japanese hardcore. SOILED HATE are in a similar vein, but with more varied rhythms and chuggier moments reminiscent of NYC hardcore. “Persecution Mania” stands out as a dissonant ripper with a chanting, higher-pitched vocalist providing an interesting counterpoint. They also do a KLONNS cover, which you like to see in a split. Overall, these two bands play raw, powerful, and tight. The split closes with two tracks that are experimental synth covers of a song from each band, both with somewhat hardcore (in the techno sense) gabber vibes.
And now for something completely different, here are a dozen tracks of psych-y indie rock/pop from Cincinnati, OH. Any of these songs could sneak onto your hometown classic rock station or the soundtrack of a Zach Braff movie. The fuzzy, reverb-y guitars, dreamy, ’60s harmonized vocals, and trippy instrumental passages would make our parents/grandparents rack their brains for where they heard this band before. As an example, the track “Daydream” features BEACH BOYS-style “ooh”s, and check out these lyrics: “I walk through a dream / Half-a-stride / Awake so it seems / Eyes are wide open / Aren’t they?” Far out.
Eight tracks of old school punk goodness, coming from that school of hardcore that wasn’t yet an exercise in how fast you could play and occasionally featured guitar solos. Some tracks even have hints of British Oi! The two covers they do, by the SPITS (“Bring”) and NECROS (“Reject”), tell a lot about the overall vibe of DEAD STARE. The vocals are too distorted to make out, which is too bad, because they’re enthusiastic about something. I just can’t tell what. Riffy and melodic.
Savage, angry metallic hardcore out of Seattle! I am here for it. The guitars chug along relentlessly with the crashing cymbals. The lyrics are nasty and to-the-point. This is circle pit material reminiscent of SLAPSHOT with slower, anthemic breakdowns that accelerate into breakneck mayhem. “Intruding Thoughts” stands out for reasons that are just between my therapist and I. There’s no wasted space on this demo. Nothing but five tracks of solid old school hardcore in about fifteen minutes.
Hard, tight crossover leaning more on the hardcore than the thrash side of the scale. The cover art, songs about beer, and sick riffs all spell “thrash,” but the aggressive breakdowns and brutal attitude will have you throwing elbows and picking up change in the pit. “Let It Beer” absolutely rips and particularly showcases the insane drumming with double-kicks flying, rolls and fills, and hi-hats crashing all over the place. There’s no fat or filler in any of these thirteen tracks. Impossibly fast and in-your-face like all the best crossover should be. Fans of MUNICIPAL WASTE and GOATWHORE, take note.
I don’t have an advanced degree, so I can’t tell the difference between grindcore and powerviolence, but I know a ripping EP when I hear it. Five short songs growled into your dead soul with hyperkinetic rhythms and wall-of-sound guitars. “A Soft Throat for the Grip of Domination” dips a toe into noisecore territory. This California five-piece brings the pain. I want the album cover framed on my wall, too.
Nothing like straightforward, stripped-down punk to cleanse the palate. Apart from the distorted vocals, which remind me of MR. CLIT AND THE PINK CIGARETTES (who bark into a microphone made from a banana phone), these six tracks are cleanly recorded, mid-tempo, lo-fi, and fun. “Number 19 Pancake Parlor Special” features some keyboard action that hearkens back to some early B-52’S vibes. Great fun out of Melbourne.
AGATHOCLES pumps out raw, unhinged mincecore sounding like it was recorded in a public toilet. Nasty, brutish, and short, each of their 25 tracks on this split is a punch to the face. Some tracks, like “Porcelain A,” fold some of that sweet D-beat into the mix. All of it has that trademark snare drum/cymbal overload and growling, political vocals you’d expect from these veterans. Then, taking a huge swerve into another dimension, SHITLOAD starts blasting straight-up migraine fuel. The second of their seven tracks of dissonance and shouting is entitled “Kazoos, Whistles, Feedback and Noise.” I appreciate when things are labeled precisely as what they are. I don’t even know what to compare this stuff to, but I do love their track titles. My favorite is “Brah, You Shoulda Seent Da Looks People Were Givin Me When I Wore My Mawbid Angel Shirt With Da Sleeves Cut Off In Rouse’s.”
This two-track EP hits hard and fast, and then it’s over, just like good grindcore should. Expect blistering riffs and hardcore stomping in fewer than five minutes. Like other Indonesian grindcore stalwarts like AK47 and BERSIMBAH DARAH, EXTREME DECAY mixes up tempos, guitar attacks, and vocal styles to stand apart from the stereotypical wall of breakneck noise a lot of powerviolence and grindcore bands fall into.
If you like your crossover with the thrash and hardcore elements equally dialed up to eleven, this cassette is for you. One marching, anthemic track follows another, reminiscent of CRIPPLED FOX, early D.R.I., or S.O.D. but stripped of those bands’ silly streaks. The anguished lyrics more closely resemble SUICIDAL TENDENCIES in tone, with themes of depression and inner pain, and are very well-written. “Total Massacre” differs from the other tracks by being less a skate park rumble from start to finish and creeping toward mosh time with more than two minutes of a slow, metallic, instrumental build-up. Clever, smart stuff.
Incredibly catchy lo-fi punk rock with an emphasis on the rock. Seemingly recorded in a closet with the microphone underneath a pillow, this cassette contains four tracks of RAMONES-y, three-chord sweetness. I wish I could learn more about this band. The lyrics are unintelligible, but the spirit is wild, carefree, and infectious. You’ll be bopping your head but to what? Who knows.
Great, chugging, old school hardcore in the vein of YOUTH OF TODAY but crustier and more distorted, Seattle’s INSTRUCT delivers a wall of distorted guitars, crashing cymbals, and howling, growling vocals. The third track of four on this tape, “No Option,” stood out as the rager to get your pulse racing, but there are no duds here. Each track bleeds into the next with guitar feedback similar to “Earth A.D.” by the MISFITS, as if all four tracks were recorded at once in one continuous take.
Four tracks of riff-heavy, anthemic hardcore out of Buffalo, NY. The first track, “Give It Up,” starts with a chest-thumping march reminiscent of SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, and then it’s off to the races with breakneck rhythms and chugging guitars. “Chaos Unfolding” also stands out as an absolute ripper and includes a quasi-power metal guitar solo. I know that sounds weird, but it works.
I couldn’t find out much about this band other than it appears to be one person’s project. They play guitar and bass and program the drums. It’s not my usual cup of tea, but the first several tracks are perfectly serviceable, crusty D-beat. Later, some tracks, like “Prep 2 Freak” and “2 the Bone,” get a little experimental and weird. “I’m Not Crying I Got Smoke in My Eyes” closes out the EP with nearly three minutes of moody piano.
Here’s a tape you can blast in the car and loop over and over. LACKING’s contribution is three tracks of blink-and-you-miss-them hardcore crammed into less than a minute each. “Ego Breathe” stands out as a mosh pit anthem. They manage, especially on “Dis-semination,” to change tone and time signatures a couple times in 44 seconds. ROAD PIG’s two tracks, while still hardcore, bend more towards metal with strong D-beats. “Deathmachine” is a ripper. Sadly, there weren’t any lyrics or liner notes with the tape.
These four tracks of straightforward, crusty hardcore don’t give you a chance to breathe. “No End in Sight” showcases the grinding guitars, solid D-beat drumming, and bleak lyrics that make this tape so dang good. The vocals remind me of Chuck Schuldiner’s on DEATH’s classic debut Scream Bloody Gore, though this is far from death metal. The final track is a cover of DISCLOSE’s “War Cloud” and is a wall of brutality.
Stark and grim, this album is a grimy soundtrack for the end times. Coming up with something to compare it to, my first thoughts were of AMEBIX and, in terms of mood and atmosphere, HAWKWIND. Undergirded by creepy, melancholic, droning synthesizers, Cainsmarsh is anarchic crust punk at its most eldritch. “The Terror” is a two-minute instrumental horror poem. “Laughter” picks up the tempo and raises the nightmare fuel levels to eleven. There are occasional metallic elements on tracks such as “Criminal Betrayers” and “Ergot,” but this is absolutely punk AF. With gravelly vocals, merciless riffs, pounding rhythms, evil lyrics, and a constant mood of hopeless gloom, this is one of the best, most psychotic anarcho-punk albums I’ve heard.
This noisy, sludgy mess of a cassette made me wonder at first whether my tape deck was broken, or I got a damaged copy. Full of dissonant fuzz and feedback, there were tracks, like “Below Beneath” and “Instrumental” that seemed less like music than the soundtrack to a psychedelic nightmare sequence in an old Italian giallo movie. Other tracks, like “A Wolf Alone” and “Drink to Survive” steer closer to hardcore and powerviolence. Their take on “Family Man,” one of BLACK FLAG’s Rollins-era spoken word pieces, smothers the spiteful lyrics in a thick sauce of industrial madness reminiscent of SKINNY PUPPY. SQUELCH CHAMBER seems to be trying to capture the unrelenting heaviness and static of life in the 2020s. Good stuff to disassociate to, especially “Interlude.”
I confess, I knew about CARCASS, but I didn’t know about DISATTACK, the band that came before. This is a re-release of their 1986 demo, which Walter Glaser reviewed in MRR #39, plus a couple rehearsal tracks. It couldn’t be more different from more recent CARCASS albums, but the transition from this to Reek of Putrefaction is seamless. This tape contains some great, crusty DISCHARGE-type punk. With the headbanging riffage, glimpses are visible of the metal legends they would become. ”Opression and Death” stood out as more of a hardcore banger, but all six tracks are worth a listen.
I love hardcore punk, but this didn’t work for me at first. Musically, the hardcore is tight and hard, just like it should be. But the heavily distorted black metal vocals grated on the nerves. It did grow on me with subsequent listens because, overall, this cassette rages. “Sea of Vomit” is the best of the four tracks, with “Life is Shit” being a close second. I prefer cleaner vocals, but there’s lots to like on this cassette like great musicianship, particularly the guitar, which goes from being a wall of distortion to wailing solo and back perfectly. They reminded me a bit of FILTH, though Jake’s voice was just like that without distortion.
Absolutely crushing grindcore out of Madrid, Spain. There’s twelve songs on this 7” EP, most being under a minute in length. Even if my Spanish was better, the vocals are incomprehensible growls, but holy frijoles, the music doesn’t stop punching you in the face. “24H Control + Explotación Asimilada” (“Assimilated Exploitation”) sticks out for its three-minute length, but also because it plays with tempos in interesting ways, dipping down into doomy sludge and then ramping back up to crusty hardcore speeds. The aptly named “Punker than Grind” closes the EP with a fun, strange, mid-tempo stomper. Cool piece of work.
Ten tracks of garage-y pop punk out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. ROBITS’ delivery is catchy, light-hearted, and fun. Any of these tracks would have felt at home on Lookout! Records’ classic Can of Pork comp. “Hello Old Friends” reminds me of DESCENDENTS’ “Ride the Wild.” It’s refreshing, sing-along, summertime goodness. Exceptions are the final three tracks: “Aquamarine Eyes” has a harder punk edge, and “Robit Bop” has a sound like a kinder, gentler MEATMEN à la “Meatmen Stomp.” “Lampreys” closes out the tape with something to slam dance to.
It’s always amazing when a band can play so unhinged, you think there is no way they can hold it together. Surely, the guitars, drums, bass, and vocals are going to fly off in different directions like shrapnel from a grenade. They produce a tension in your head like you are about to watch a horrible disaster, yet by some sorcery, great bands hold it together, leaving you a sticky mess at the end. REJOICE’s three-track demo of melodic hardcore does all that and more. It’s wild stuff out of Columbus, OH, with vocals screamed through an echoey effects box and a wall of distorted guitars. The opener, “Empty Hands,” starts with the crazy, reverb-y drum track, and then all hell breaks loose.
DOUBLE FISTED describes themselves best as “old school punk rock dudes playing whatever they want.” This two-song 7” comes straight out of their garage in Glendale, AZ, with a fuzzy, stoner-psych vibe. But there’s more to unpack with these two sides. The instrumental A-side “Carousel” starts like a demo cassette of a ’60s psych-rock tribute band before switching seamlessly into solid thrash riffage in the style of an early METALLICA demo. Then, around the 2:20 mark, the hardcore skate punk chugging kicks in. It’s a lot, but it works. The B-side, “3 AM,” has more of a stoner, metalcore build to it. The riffs are great, and the vocals kick after about 90 seconds singing about witches, demons, and junk. This track also has that ’60s heavy psych rock/proto-metal vibe until it closes with a quick, hardcore mosh.
Everything to be said about CRIPPLED FOX is in the lyrics of “United Mosh Pit,” the fifth track of eight on this EP. “Long-haired thrashers / And skatecore punks / Hardcore kids / Blasting the show as one.” That is the entire text of the song and could be the band’s manifesto. Occasionally punctuated with out-of-nowhere samples from DE LA SOUL, the TV show Married With Children, and others, this album shreds with fun, blistering, thrash-soaked hardcore. DRI’s Dirty Rotten LP is an obvious comparison to make. Close your eyes and you see nothing but kids in flannel shirts and bandanas zooming up and down half-pipes. The choice to record live in a rehearsal space was inspired. The resulting spontaneity and energy makes these good songs great. CRIPPLED FOX puts out some amazing crossover thrash and are now 95% of the reason I want to visit Budapest.
It’s always respectable when something is accurately labeled or identified. If you see a red MAGA hat, you can make some safe assumptions about the person wearing it. With the album title In the Name of Thrash, you can expect unrelenting speed and melt-your-face riffs. Straight out of Budapest comes 23 tracks of mosh-pit power-ups in the vein of early DRI, NUCLEAR ASSAULT, and STORMTROOPERS OF DEATH. Every song is devastatingly fast and tight with an attitude of fun and unity throughout. This band does not hide what it’s about under layers of nuance or lyrical gloss. Take the track “High on Thrash,” which asserts “Thrashing is my drug / I’m wasted with my riffs / Bashing myself / With a killer song that rips.” After nearly two dozen thrashcore classics, the album closes with a hilarious send up of power metal pretension and bombast, “P.M.A. (Power Metal Attitude.)” It’s all big hair, knights with swords, and soaring falsettos that had me grinning ear to ear.
With members of top-shelf ’80s and ’90s hardcore bands like DEVOID OF FAITH, CITIZENS ARREST, and DOWN IN FLAMES, FRIGHT drops six tracks of tight, East Coast-style hardcore streaked with old-school thrash and speed metal. The music is tight, relentless, and mosh-worthy. The vocals could have used more grit and gravel, but the riffs are delicious candy, like something blasting from a mixtape in my ’86 Buick back in the day. Lyrically, it’s fairly standard metal fare in the style of NUCLEAR ASSAULT—despair, corruption, decay, depression. An example is the track “Obliterated Ruin” with the lines “Castrated by repressive state / Organisms breed and cry / Basking in desperation / Lacking strength to arise.” Maybe they don’t tell a coherent story, but they fit with the overall vibe perfectly. This is FRIGHT’s first release and hopefully not their last.
This ten-track ripper is for those who love their hardcore old school and in-your-face. Starting with a great stomping track called, appropriately enough, “Intro,” this Oakland, CA two-piece rages fast and hard. Any one of these songs could have been on a seminal hardcore compilation from the mid-’80s, but instead of lyrics bitching about Reagan and Thatcher, GREYHOUND gives you 2020s existential despair, alienation, and personal pain. The only track hinting at anything vaguely political is “Mirroring Constructs,” touching on corporate exploitation and getting caught up in the illusions of status, materialism, and career. GREYHOUND proves that great hardcore doesn’t have to be all politics, all the time. With guest vocals by Trevor McBride (YOUTH IN CRISIS) and Frankie Oh (KANTA KANTA), this is an album to play on repeat.
Imagine early JUDAS PRIEST at its speediest, with shrieking, echoing black metal-style vocals, and that is NATTMARAN. Nominally out of Sweden, this old-school thrash powerhouse is actually an international collaboration of Michael Lang (Sweden) on guitar and bass, Koji Sawada (Japan) on drums, and Yoga Beges (Indonesia) on vocals. In fact, only the guitars and bass were recorded in Sweden. The rest of the recording, as well as the mixing and mastering, was done in Indonesia. There’s lots to like here for fans of VENOM or MOTÖRHEAD. The blackened thrash never lets up, and yet for all its grim speed, evil lyrics, and overall hostility, a nasty rock’n’roll swagger permeates every track. As blackened as it may be, on some tracks, like “There’s Nothing You Can See,” one could imagine substituting a power metal wailer’s vocals and transforming the song into a speed metal arena anthem.
Bombastic, chugging metallic punk from Düsseldorf, Germany. This four-song demo gives strong early VENOM vibes with dissonant, grinding guitars, thick bass lines, and evil, growling vocals. The aesthetic of this demo reeks of the good old tape-trading days where the bands had more enthusiasm than quality recording equipment or graphic design skills. The result is no-frills headbanging and foot-stomping. Each track is packed with riffs and attitude. The first three stomp along at a moderate pace, and then the final track, “Fascist Scum,” picks up the pace to hardcore speeds. In fact, their Facebook page has a great portrait-mode cellphone video of them performing it live back in September 2020 in an actual garage and is worth a look.
This is an angry album. Gerda, the female lead vocalist, rails at the patriarchy and capitalism as the guitars weave back and forth easily between hardcore and metal. Each song is fast, crusty, and powerfully emotive lyrically. “Day of Reckoning ” is nothing less than a battle anthem from the gutter. “Fragmentation” is pure hardcore excellence with Gerda shouting back and forth with the male vocalist, Matte. They even throw in some violins and synthesizers on a couple tracks, and it takes nothing away from the blistering rawness. After nine tracks of anarcho-rage that fans of WOLFBRIGADE will appreciate, the album manages to close on a hopeful yet pissed-off note with “The Dying of the Light,” declaring to their children “To my daughter, to my son / The future is yours when the battle is done.”
The main point of reissuing important albums is to draw attention to underrated bands, and TALES OF TERROR’s self-titled is certainly deserving of another look. Originally released in 1984 and reviewed in Maximum Rocknroll #16 by Tim Yohannan himself, this record is a wild ride. Boozy and raunchy, the tracks call to mind early STOOGES, obviously, but lead vocalist Pat Stratford has more Darby Crash energy than Iggy Pop. Interesting and weird, undeniably punk streaked with psychedelia, this one left me scratching my head in a good way. Tracks veer one way and then swerve into a digression that ends up just ending. Did they run out of ideas, or did they need a refill? Tracks like “Deathryder” and “Over Elvis Worship” hit hard, but other tracks like “Jim” and “Tales of Terror” show potential and land with a thud. Potential is smeared all over this album since the band’s trajectory was cut short with the murder of guitarist Lyon Wong in 1986. How big could they have gotten? How great were they live?
Hailing from Lille, France, GUMMO sets the brutality at eleven with their latest LP. Featuring eighteen throat-punching tracks, this three-piece focuses their ire at cops, internet trolls, people ruining the scene, and capitalists, to name a few, and leaves no doubt about where they stand on social justice issues. The title track refers to the guillotine, and implies it might be time to bring it back. The first track, a pandemic manifesto called “Where Was Gondor,” features some interesting, almost melodic bass and drum work that makes GUMMO stand out from most of the powerviolence and grindcore bands these days. “You’ll Pay the Bill to the Styx” almost veers toward New York-style hardcore terroritory (SICK OF IT ALL, GORILLA BISCUITS) with chugging guitars and chanting, anthemic vocals.
This split of fun power pop from Japan takes me back to the early days of MTV with guitar-forward, uptempo earnestness. WEEKEND FAN! kicks off the party with “I’m a Failure,” which reminds me of the JAM or FALL OUT BOY with a bouncy rock feel, yet with a foot still firmly in the garage. On the B-side, SENSITIVE LIPS blow the doors off with a ripper, “Nervous,” that outpaces the other song in tempo but matches it with listenable bubblegum sweetness. Much more pop punk than pop, “Nervous” actually has a more new wave quality like early ADAM AND THE ANTS. Think “Dirk Wears White Sox,” but faster. Both songs share harmonized “oohs” in their bridges and guitar solos that have an edge but not too much bite. Each band turns in a tight performance, and the recording is clean as the parachute pants your mom just bought you.
