Following their first album in 2018, JARADA comes back with this one-sided 12″ with eight hardcore punk, raw, chaotic, aggressive gem songs. This Tel Aviv band makes us feel the struggle to live in hostile territory, and brings us a cultural and political debate in their lyrics, both in Hebrew or English. If you like bands like EXIT ORDER and ARMS RACE, you should definitely listen to them.
They did it again! After the excellent Here Come LP in 2018, they come back now in 2020, once more with an amazing power pop, punk explosion. This power trio from Sudbury, Ontario gives us brilliant and cool classic punk, just like BUZZCOCKS but also something like the #1S. I can’t stop listening since they released this EP! A sad fact that it only lasts four songs; waiting anxiously for the next records.
Issued on tape by the German label ETT last month, Gold Plus is a new version of the release announced at the beginning of this year. If my computer could be a band, definitely it would be like AOL—machine voice, great cool riffs, systemic drums. This Floridan band knows how to hack into the cybernet world, seven nice and short tracks easy to repeat all over again and again. Bring punk to beyond modern life, DEVO-core in your new and best way.
What I like most about this band is that it is impossible not to move. I felt the same thing when I first heard GAG and the desire to jump over the walls. This Chilean band’s demo tape comes at a perfect moment with an aggressive and dancing punk. Even though I don’t like the vocals very much sometimes, the guitar and the punk pogo drums hypnotize me. Keep an eye on the Chilean punk scene!
Direct from Tenochtitlan in Mexico, CADENAXO finally releases their LP, full of energy, fast punk, aggressive like a cadenaxo in the teeth, the definition of hardcore. Impossible not to think of a sweaty pogo in a small gig during the summer time. Perfect blend of POISON IDEA and ATOXXXICO.
This part Mexican and part Californian band with members of CADENAXO, FUGA, and others finally puts out their second release and first 7″. Sonidos Barbajanes has a raw punk and rock’n’roll sound (a little bit of garage, why not?), drums as a machine, crunchy guitar, compressed vocals, powerful female backing vocals. With touches of tropical punk and plus tremendous artwork. (Cassette version on Junko Records.)
This first album from an intriguing band direct from Barcelona, featuring frenetic drums, a noise guitar with small melodies and the intensity and unevenness of spoken Catalan vocals. This band sounds like a manifesto, an urgent and necessary call. As if CONFLICT heard noise in 2020.
This wonderful Polish band releases their first full-length of wild, ferocious and simply amazing chaotic rock’n’roll. It is impossible not to think of ANGRY SAMOANS as a reference but it also reminded me a bit of ANNIHILATION TIME. Advice? Listen loudly!
The impressive cover from this London band’s debut full-length album has already totally caught my attention. Sound like exactly everything I have heard all my life—it is energizing, fun, aggressive with a few breaks for melodies and melancholy, like COCK SPARRER. As if SLADE had met MOTÖRHEAD in a perfect space-time.
DEGOLLADA is a new band from Buenos Aires with members of VENENO and FORRA, and just released their demo through Corona Rx, a label created during the quarantine. With a primitive and very effective punk sound, their influences are from German punk bands like DEUTSCHER ABSCHAUM. DEGOLLADA brings drumbeats and cymbals that sound like broken glass and a hypnotic and catchy guitar sound that blends perfectly with the vocals. Just four songs that are passed around as if they were just one. Anxious waiting for more material, hopefully soon!
Justicia Argentina is the second release from this almost-new band from Buenos Aires and brings a brutal and evil sound, not often seen in the scene on this side of the globe. Just like DEGOLLADA, they also released their record during this quarantine here, by the label Corona Rx. Imagine GBH but with a devilish voice and a delay pedal in eight songs, very well recorded in ten minutes. Compact and demolishing. We must keep an eye on VENENO and their next steps.
What I like about the FLINGUE is that it reminds me of all my favourite European punk bands like the KIDS, 999, and so on. The beautiful clean guitars with the tambourine give a more modern touch to an epic punk style from the past. I didn’t know this band until fortunately playing together on a tour in Argentina—it was definitely a surprising gig, and they are insane live.
This third DARK THOUGHTS album follows the same musical line that everyone already knows: the RAMONES style. It’s amazing how the band can explore something as limited as this simple style. For those who follow DARK THOUGHTS, their trilogy of records complement each other a lot; although this album is very interesting, I still feel attached to the second one, though I’m flirting with the new one. Dee Dee would approve of this band.
I am an enthusiast about the current Bogota punk scene. I am impressed by everything I hear coming out of there, and this band is no different. Aggressive vocals, intense lyrics, distorted guitar, and creative drums—the golden ticket to UK82 land! This first LP that has been released demarcates a territory in the current punk scene, and puts Bogota on the map once again.
SESPER is a reference of art, skateboarding and music in the Brazilian underground scene. It would be hard to describe who he is without making it too long, but he’s well-known for his different bands, art projects, and now a double-release of a one-man-band and trio project. The Cell is the more introspective album, recorded by himself, and has a darker lo-fi sound with keyboard synthesizer and programmed drums, dark wave shots and post-punk. The Days Go By Like Broken Stairs by ACRUZ SESPER TRIO has more people participating, and travels back to the ’90s with a shoegaze-punk touch; perhaps if SWERVEDRIVER had listened to Youth Crew in their childhood. I got no doubt the songs on this album could easily be on skate videos.
Direct from Tallahassee, D-beat-ish punk with a twist of new punk sounds. It’s impossible to stand still while you listen to these musical jewels; it transports me to a basement show packed and with aggressive pogo in such a small place, you can smell and feel the sour. There wasn’t a single moment that I didn’t feel like breaking everything, that beautiful feeling this kind of punk can trigger.
If I didn’t know this band before, just by listening to it, I wouldn’t know if it was recorded recently or in the ’80s anywhere in South America, like MARIA T.TA Y EL EMPUJON BRUTAL’s missing record. But in reality it was recorded in 2018, and more importantly, by Latina immigrant women living in London and supporting The Latin American Women’s Rights Service (LAWRS), a London-based feminist organization. A primitive punk, raw guitar, aggressive vocals and a muffled recording effect.
Fast but with perfect speed, raw punk and—why not?—D-beat. The name of this Californian band’s EP is as good as the record itself: “Sin Frontera Sin NaciÁ³n” (No Borders and No Nation). The drumbeat makes all the difference here, it will catch you right at the beginning, but the guitar comes sharp as a knife and stabs you in the middle of the stomach, you can feel the despair. It’s a perfect combination of LOS CRUDOS and DISCHARGE.
