Of course I have heard of 100 FLOWERS, the latter-day mutation of the URINALS, but I’ve never spent time with their stuff. This single—which consists solely of a HEAVEN 17 cover and remix of same—does not make me want to go back and explore their catalogue. Try as I might to respect my elders, I just cannot muster any enthusiasm for this one, which sounds like the outro music to some ’80s teen comedy. Sorry, dudes—tried, can’t.
ADRENOCHROME is a dark punk supergroup of sorts straight out of Oakland, with members of bands like CRUZ DE NAVAJAS, ZOTZ, KURRAKÄ, ÖTZI, and FALSE FIGURE. The Knife is released as a 7″, a story of reflection on the trauma and abuse experienced by women in the world, through fantasies of revenge and violence and self-empowerment. Musically, it is thrilling and addictive, the bass and drums building a solid and muscular base where the riffs work in a really expressive way, and the vocals, full of tribulation and agitation, deliver the message in a direct and brutal way. They also have a great EP, The Buzz or Howl Sessions from 2018, highly recommended.
Throaty, fist-clenched metallic UK hardcore. AT THEIR MERCY nods respectfully to the throne of ’80s UK thrash, but they run off with those influences and pick up some straight Big Four thrash along their way. The recording is massive (check “All That’s Left” if you doubt me) and the vocals are far beyond powerful—this is a classic and refreshing example of a band crossing between heavy hardcore and heavy metal. In other words, some old dudes (guitarist was in ’80s thrashers ATAVISTIC, and the others are no young bucks) showing the young kids what’s up, and I’m here for it…I just hope the kids are paying attention (and taking notes).
A mixture of drone-y soundscapes with minimal lyrics/samples/field recordings, harsh noise freak-out stuff, and electronically-driven dark post-punk/goth songs. Very artsy and atmospheric. The little write-up by the band on their Bandcamp implies that the songs were all written for and about the pandemic, during which this album was recorded. The B-side of the tape, not available online, is the exact same recording but in reverse. A funny concept, but pretty difficult to get very far into it unless you happen to be a super-fan of this style.
Punks on YouTube always know what’s up, especially when it comes to buzzing, damaged hardcore, and that’s how I first heard BAD EXAMPLE. They have that sound that seems to always ignite comment sections across the web lately. There’s cave-like production, amplifying the ferociousness of the playing with waves of cacophony, plus you have those vocals that sound like you’re live in the warehouse—a whipping screech that cuts like wind following a machete swipe. It’s of a style, one that is especially popular right now, but damn if it isn’t done well. Nine tracks in under fifteen minutes, sounding like a hailstorm in a tin can and played like they mean it—BAD EXAMPLE shines alongside their contemporaries in hardcore and keeps the genre dismal and alive.
Solid nerd punk from Texas for fans of ERIK NERVOUS and URANIUM CLUB. Bookended by a chiptune opening and closing, the rest of the tape is trebly garage punk with fairly technical drums and guitar lines and sarcastic spoken/sung vocals. The constant start/stop rhythms and busy fretwork show some prowess that is welcome and give the band a slight noise rock feel on songs like the mathy “Generation of Plagues” and sardonic “Rat Race.” Where BIG BOPPER shines the most is when they pour on the sugar with catchy gems like “Boys Club” and “Partners in Slime.” The latter is a lo-fi power pop hit with a mutant PAVEMENT guitar line and bright major chord progressions. I love it. The tape is worth checking out for that golden nugget alone, but the rest is good, too. I look forward to hearing more.
This discography covers two LPs and an EP from a band who relocated from Poland to Ireland. Fast, angular guitars with darkly-focused lyrics sung in Polish. A great introduction to the band, plays like a sped-up and then stripped-down version of Pink Flag-era WIRE.
Playing hard and bouncy punk with a melting pot of influences, Vancouver’s BOOTLICKER is sharper than ever on this explosive full-length outing. Weaving classic hardcore and D-beat elements into their UK82-style songs, these guys come off as a bit more original that some of the more stringent ’80s-flavored bands that have been springing up as of late. This record from the CHAIN WHIP labelmates is loaded with catchy tunes (“Herd the Sheep”’ will get stuck in yer head) delivered with conviction through obliterated speakers. Taste the rubber, baby.
This is kind of an interesting one. Sludgy, doomy heaviness from small town Eastern PA with a love for the late ’80s Seattle sound. It’s primitive and ploddingly heavy but attempts to be on the mainstream side vocally. Maybe like the more polished MELVINS projects or STONE TEMPLE PILOTS crossed with EARTH. They even got Tad Doyle mastering. Definitely a throwback to a time I don’t necessarily want to remember, but it could be a delightful new experience for yourself?
After an impressively ominous intro, I really wanted Ontario’s BRAIN ITCH to come out raging…but the tension they created with their solid, mid-paced metallic UK punk chug wound me up so fukkn tight that when the opening title track did finally, mercifully, unload….? Well, it was awesome. Five blasts on Forced To Pay, landing somewhere between hard-churning Motörpunk and that 1-2-1-2 doopa doopa that personifies most of the last decade of North American hardcore punk. This is their third tape in as many years—all short, all sweet, all killer….and not an ounce of filler.
Another COVID recording project, this time featuring the songwriting of DEAF WISH’s Sarah Hardiman and drumming of Carolyn Hawkins (CHOOK RACE, PARSNIP, SCHOOL DAMAGE). On Thicks as Bricks you get nine tracks of loose, laid-back garage/proto-punk. The recording is warm and inviting, giving the whole cassette a bit of an intimate, live feel. You get the suggestion of loud music without ever getting the sense that it is loud (imagine the VELVET UNDERGROUND recording White Light/White Heat while trying not to wake the neighbors). It ends up giving off a bit of a late-aughts vibe, back when bedroom garage and one-ish-person bands were all over the place. Throughout these tracks, I hear stuff like the MARKED MEN or the KING KHAN & BBQ SHOW (and of course the artists who would have influenced them). But I also hear less cool stuff. The one comparison that I couldn’t shake was pre-Grand Theft Auto V BASS DRUM OF DEATH (which—hey—is the period of their work that I would revisit, were I to ever revisit any). Anyway, this cassette is mainly cool, so give it a listen.
This is the debut EP from a one-man Chilean project started by Luis from MISA HISTÉRICA and INCENDIO, edited as cassette by To Live a Lie Records. Imbued by the violence and strife of Chile’s recent socio-political climate, this pandemic bedroom-core document of fast-as-fuck D-beat and powerviolence with furious high-pitched vocals is a visceral chronicle of the South American country’s last two years of popular rebellion. The super-short EP reflects the frustration and impetuosity of the rioters with ten songs that cover the full spectrum of the experience: media manipulation, police violence, corporate greed, the terrorist violence of the state forces, and the burning desire of change. The sound is brutal and will leave your ears ringing, there’s this feral intensity akin to MOB 47 and that whole scene that I particularly find addictive.
By now, Martin Sorrondeguy should require no introduction. His work with the transcendental LOS CRUDOS speaks for itself in the minds of thousands of young people across the American continent. The queer emancipatory effort from LIMP WIRST is a visceral work of self-acceptance which you can mosh to. Martin got together with members of SIN ORDEN and DROIDS BLOOD to form CANAL IRREAL, and now they present their debut, a 12″ with nine absolutely addictive tracks; one of those materials that the more you listen to it, the more details you discover and the more you enjoy it. Sonically, this is hardcore punk, but the band happily travels a twisted path of their own—it’s trashy but incredibly dark, like Greg Sage taking leads in the ADOLESCENTS. But it’s all that and more. The muscularity provided by the throbbing bass, the often dissonant guitar work with that chorus pedal, and above all Martin’s voice, intense and hostile as always, give the band a truly unique sound. The whole thing is fantastic, sung half in Spanish, half in English. That guitar riff on “Glaze” is incredibly nasty, amazing how it builds and builds and never releases the tension it creates. Get it now!
This is a nice little piece of history. CHAOS was one of Austria’s first punk bands and this is their half of a long-ago split with Swiss band the SICK. I’m not much of an Austrian punk connoisseur, but CHAOS was closely tied with the Swiss punk scene of the day. You can hear the resemblances to Swiss peers like the NASAL BOYS or TNT. “Day Doult ” is definitely more of the razor rager here in snootiness and speed, but “Get Out of My Pocket” is the catchy Euro gutter trash-pop number that’ll be glued to your brain. There’s really touching liner notes from a young relative of one of the band members who seeks out his kin, Slaughter, in the ’90s and gets a lesson in punk. It’s a nice slice of ’77 Euro punk and if you’re itchin’ for a new reissue, this could be the one.
Bachelor digs up two unreleased 1979 recordings from these Austrian oddballs. CHUZPE, arguably Austria’s first punk band, formed in 1977, initially playing pretty straightforward punk. Over time they would gradually morph into a full-on synth-pop band, but these tracks find them a bit closer to the punk end of that spectrum. “Women in Prison” is a punky new wave number where the synth is wielded like a frat rock organ, giving the song a bit of a B-52’S vibe. “Stealing Russians in Watchia” is more frenetic and post-punky with a circusy synth running throughout, sounding not unlike early WALL OF VOODOO. Probably inessential, but a cool enough record.
This CLIBBUS album has knocked me off-course during my inter-dimensional travels and I have crashed-landed onto an alternate Earth where the marquee bands are PRIMUS, ALICE DONUT, and VICTIMS FAMILY (on this planet, early WEEN is like NICK DRAKE). It makes a lot of sense that this power trio hails from Rochester, New York. Rochester has a notoriously eccentric punk scene, full of skateboarding weirdos whose parents huffed a lot of Kodak fumes and birthed strange progeny who enjoy flouting genre restrictions and get off on letting their freak flag fly fucking high. After a manic opening instrumental, CLIBBUS gets down to bizness on “Exploding Child,” complete with half-rapped singing as the MEAT PUPPETS jam in the background, and don’t forget to pause for the BEATLES-esque soaring vocal part, and you know this sucker ain’t gonna end without some ironic whistling to bring it all back home. This is prog made by the kids in high school who were so into their own trip that they seemed to vanish into a hole that was probably actually a portal to another universe. You know the type: they invent funny-to-them names like “Beefus D’Aurelio” and “Lettuce Head” and they’re suspiciously good at their instruments. It’s exhausting, but in a bad way, like climbing too many stairs when the elevator is broken, not the good way, like screwing in your roommate’s bed when they’re out of town. I like weird shit made by smart idiots, but still I can’t fully endorse these goof-offs. Yet, I can see an impressionable ne’er-do-well witnessing these guys shred a basement show and get the itch to quit hiding the freak flag under their straight clothes and to that I say, “huzzah!” You absolutely should not cut that brief DOORS piss-take six minutes into that one song, and yes, the public does indeed have a bottomless appetite for wacky, pitch-shifted vocals. They might be from Rochester 2021, but to me CLIBBUS will always come from 1989 San Francisco and right now they’re pumping quarters into a payphone on Mission trying to get on a NOMEANSNO bill. Maybe Jello will be into it?
Great little LP from Denmark. COACH rocks a classic punk sound with a horn section that shreds. The horns lend a slightly angular bent to the sound. Most tracks on here are a hell of a lot of fun. Between the fuzzed-out guitars and horn section, there’s a real energetic big band feel across the record. The band doesn’t make a big splash at any point on the record. It’s a slow burner, but one that pays off if you stick it out.
Absolutely relentless, blistering hardcore punk. Short and sweet four-song demo clocking in at just over four minutes. Completely crushing. This is unquestionably my kind of hardcore. Sounds a bit like LIFE’S BLOOD to me, and how can that possibly be bad? A lot of attention to detail went into making this tape look super cool, too; maroon print on sparkly silver paper, white cassette shells, and a really cool embossed effect having the band name raised off the cassette itself, like how a label maker would look but without the label. My only gripe was that the copy I was sent was dubbed unbelievably poorly. The A-side was unlistenable and warbly, and the B-side was depressingly quiet. Had to re-dub my copy off of the label’s Bandcamp. Hopefully it was a fluke and the rest of the mere 50 copies of this stomper sent out into the world sound better.
A welcome reissue of this Belgian punk EP from 1980. CONTINGENT comes across like Brussels’ answer to the DAMNED, the CLASH, and RADIO BIRDMAN. Tightly-wound, angsty punk rock’n’roll with blank generation vocals spit out in angry, accented French.
Hard props for the opening twenty seconds of “Accidente,” because I can’t remember when I was this anxious to hear a record kick in. And while Mexico’s COSAS ILEGALES kicked it (a little) slower than I was hoping, I stuck it out and was compensated generously…with interest that I didn’t even deserve. Just a killer collection of infectious, damaged garage hardcore. Smart, sharp, and very dark punk that sounds like it just arrived from another planet to remind us what outsider freak music was supposed to sound like. I want these songs to be faster, but that makes me feel all anxious which makes me realize that they played everything exactly right because all I want is more the minute it’s finished. Consider me a convert…but there’s only 100 of these fuckers, so you better act fast if you want to join the cult.
Damn, 1985 keeps coming up in my reviewer rearview, and here’s yet another perspective on that mid-decade nadir. The first of three privately-issued LPs that Jenkins released in the ’80s, Undesirable Element is a true stew of the delicious, the tangy, and the questionable. JENKINS belongs to a lineage of oddball American originals that includes MICHEAL YONKERS, GEORGE BRIGMAN, KENNETH HIGNEY, and WICKED WITCH. Got Kinda Lost takes the LP’s original seven tracks and adds three more (the CD has a whopping nineteen cuts in total) to give you a well-rounded view of JENKINS’ eccentric muse. Recording everything himself, JENKINS utilized early drum machines and rack effects in interesting ways, although his basic style is still singer-songwriter at its essence. “Blind Faith” opens the album in snarling punk mode, echoing shut-in rockers like J.T. IV and JOHN BERENZY GROUP with its FX-drenched guitar leads and quietly panicked vocals. “Article Two (The Handgun Song)” is a subtly devastating examination of one of the USA’s biggest, stupidest, and most intractable problems, still so sadly relevant that the takes write themselves. Every lyric in this jaunty number is like a tweet aimed at your dumbest social media followers—”You pay your dues to the NRA / Armed with false statistics / They tell you what to say.” I can just see some red-hatted, Oakley-shaded numbskull getting worked up and trying to cancel Mr. JENKINS ex post facto. Some songs, like “Depression” and “Love And War,” dip dangerously into schmaltz, as if MICHEAL YONKERS nixed the righteous fuzz and Yippie indignation, but “Non-Surgical Lobotomy” rivals J.T. IV with its anti-social studio apartment rock. “Paranoid Song” and “Destitute” bring more of that bad acid/good times dichotomy like only a few damaged souls have been able to—think JIM SHEPARD or the aforementioned KENNETH HIGNEY. “Another Day” veers back towards the schmaltz but cuts it with some SKIP SPENCE let-it-all-hang-out vibes and ends things with a glimmer of hope. Who cares what year it came into being—Undesirable Element is an out-of-time gem ripe for rediscovery.
If DATBLYGU’s reputation precedes them, that reputation is likely being “the Welsh response to the FALL,” and/or serving as a crucial influence for a crop of bands in the ’90s that sounded a lot like the FALL (see: COUNTRY TEASERS). Following a string of early/mid-’80s cassettes in more of a skeletal, no-fi bedroom DIY style, the explicit FALL debts really started to take shape on DATBLYGU’s first vinyl offering, 1986’s Hwgr-Grawth-Og EP, and their 1988 debut LP Wyau. The parallels are easy to spot—the speed-addled specter of Mark E. Smith looms behind vocalist David R. Edwards’ caustic narrations (delivered almost exclusively in Welsh), while the instrumental backing from Patricia Morgan and T. Wyn Davies demonstrates a FALL-worthy devotion to minimalism and repetition, largely centered around little more than rudimentary drum machine, busted guitar twang, and droning keyboard. But Edwards’ lyrics also often addressed class and social issues with a very un-Mark E. leftist pointedness (can you imagine the FALL ever contributing a song to an animal rights benefit comp?), and DATBLYGU was truly a post-punk band in the literal sense of the term, drawing as much inspiration from experimental and dance and folk music (among many other things) as anything found in the FALL playbook. For my money, this is their finest hour: the electro-pulse, borderline industrial clamor of “Cristion Yn Y Kibbutz,” “Dafydd Iwan Yn Y Glaw” and “Tymer Aspirin” hitting that totally wired Rough Trade-era FALL sweet spot, the biting and hilarious take-down of the cult of MORRISSEY on “Fanzine Ynfytyn” (Ben Wallers was absolutely paying attention to that one), just legit fucked-up brilliance. Rest in power David R. Edwards, who passed away in June, less than a month after Wyau and the 1990 follow-up LP Pyst were brought back into vinyl circulation—no time like the present to seek out both records and pay your rates to the departed.
Hard to put a finger on this one, which should be a strong vote in the “pro” column for even the most casual listener. Oakland’s DECIDER wants to be a heavy ’70s rock band, but I fear they’ve listened to too many post-punk records to let themselves pull it off. Make no mistake—they would be a flawless heavy ’70s rock band, but they’re an even better post-indie band with heavy ’70s and second-wave UK art-punk under/overtones. So I’m glad they won’t let themselves not be weird, and “Unintentional Evaluation” should be the soundtrack for your summer adventure.
Started as a way to stave off the insanity during COVID lockdowns, DEMONIOS CHEUCOS is a one-man band from Mexico City, Mexico. I am absolutely blown away by this, and by the humble writings of Carlos about the entire process (found on the Bandcamp page). He goes in depth describing each of the songs, as well as the process of learning bass, drums, and how to record in order to make this project a reality. Catchy, ripping hardcore punk, start to finish. Most full bands would be lucky to end up with a finished product this good.
While DIRECT THREAT from Denver adheres pretty strictly to the USHC playbook in terms of songwriting, the distorted demo-quality recording puts a layer of dirt on it all that adds to their “no fucks given” aesthetic. The band’s messy stomp is driven by foreboding hooks and raw-throated vocals. The singer also has a one-man-band side project called REALITY COMPLEX, just in case this tape leaves ya thirsty for more.
Total eardrum massacre! This Macedonian trio worships the hell out of DISCLOSE and does one of the more consistent tributes to the whole “noise not music” page of punk. The sound is obvious on this one as they leave the formula unchanged, so think DISCLOSE and all the DIS bands and you can get the point. Sometimes you just want to hear this kind of noise and zone out of reality for a bit. Also, they have an impressive back catalogue of 23 releases in just nine years of existence. D-beat raw punk at its finest!
Six songs of blistering raw punk/D-beat mixed with elements of powerviolence-inspired hardcore. It’s heavy, it’s nasty, it’s over in a flash! Thankfully the cassette is double A-side, so the listener can flip and repeat to their heart’s content. A killer debut release from the lovely state of Maine. Everything looks and sounds spot-on with this tape. To quote the liner notes: “DMT is meant to provide a calming and meditative state, play loud for best results.” Well, I followed the instructions but my results seem to be varying from that which is described—hmm, maybe I did something wrong, better flip it over and try again…
Mid-tempo punk out of Seville, Spain that tensely keeps the right amount of lyrical and musical attitude through the eight quick tracks. This could have been something the JAM recorded in the short time between their first two albums, if only Paul Weller sang in Spanish.
This one’s really puzzling and hard to say anything nice about. I’ll try to be constructive and not destructive. Really stupid band name, horrible artwork, songs with titles like “Cumma Back to Me”?! I would classify this as bedroom grunge. It’s like NIRVANA’s Bleach album if one 40-year-old guy living with his mom recorded it in one of those basement rooms where you end up living when you’re 40 and living with your mom. Hey, I’m no saint and I’ve been there too, but I never chose to subject people to stuff like this or waste valuable resources on making a CD that’s going to end up in a landfill. The music’s bad, the singing is monotone, and the lyrics aren’t even dumb in any redeemable form. Is this constructive? How ’bout save the planet and stop making music, please!
This Phoenix three-piece plays metallic, noodly, slightly prog old-guy punk. With song titles like “Hookers & Blow” and “Drunk All the Time” you might get an idea of what to expect, but it’s not all as offensive or unintelligent as you might think. The vocals are mostly done in a deadpan El Duce style, but the lyrics are well-thought-out, even if not at all my thing. The band can play and they seem to be having a swell time melding styles and jamming. I abhor “jamming,” but maybe a couple microbrews and a doobie will make you like this just fine?
Philadelphia solo project aims big and hits the mark on Aimless Dread. Discordant, heavy sludge/punk that will appeal to fans of ’90s mid-paced “metallic” hardcore acts like DEADGUY or CAVE IN…think TORCHE without the pop hooks for a more modern sonic reference. Excellent execution with an extremely heavy presentation, and the shit is really dark. Into it.
From Melbourne, EXECUTION crawls out of the sewers to shatter the social fabric with Silently It Grows. A piece of violent and chaotic piece of hardcore rawness that is on the faster and noisier side. The frantic energy they exude comes close to the ’80s Italian hardcore bands like WRETCHED and CHEETAH CHROME MOTHERFUCKERS. A must for fans of pure chaos, non musica.
With a front cover that looks like it was ripped straight out of a 1987 Thrasher magazine and a sound to match, EXIL drops in with an old school thrash punk assault on their debut LP. This Swedish shredder is full speed ahead and sounds something like what DRI might have evolved into had they not decided to pioneer the crossover movement. Though to be fair, there are tinges of crossover to these songs and some classic SoCal punk influence as well, which all fits the bill. Pairs well with headphones, a board, and a bad attitude.
This one’s some burly crossover thrashing out of DC. More specifically, Falls Church is a real place near DC, and that’s apparently where they’re from. Now that’s funny! Anyway…this band has a real problem with the church’s shady financial privileges and wants to mosh it the fuck out with you! If you’re down, you get five songs of straightforward, circle-pit-friendly, heavy-duty hardcore with double bass drum, and a BAD BRAINS cover thrown in for good measure.
Hailing from Oxnard, California, FALSE CONFESSION brings a VARUKERS-speed punk attack with the clarity of FINAL CONFLICT and the ease of CHEM-TRAILS from Connecticut. This album may sound traditional, but in that way it sounds timeless. You could tell me this was an obscure classic from the ’80s and I’d believe you. Picking up ICONOCLAST, DR. KNOW, and CRUCIFIX power as well, maybe a bit on the melodic side of VOIVOD. FALSE CONFESSION plays fast and clearly from the roots of hardcore punk and Dis-bands. Vocals are sung and repetitive, but I mean that in a poetic way. Over all of the aggression, the message is sincere and stylishly delivered. Songs are also quite long and complexly composed for this style, which can easily be offered as a verse-chorus-verse stale slab. Thrash breakdowns here and there, minimal obtuse discordant riffs and solos, various themes about the shared planet and the personal psyche all create something a bit different that at first notice sounds expected. Fuck…upon further inspection, I now realize this band was a pioneering band of the Nardcore movement in the ’80s. I am sorry, I’m from the ’80s/’90s East Coast scene and was not aware. Now FALSE CONFESSION is actually starting to sound familiar. It happens, m’kay! I’m such a fucking idiot, I’m submitting this. Making punk an honest threat again. Good new album, guys! I especially like this plodding metallic track “Mortal Coil.” I’m here to tell you this band should not be forgotten! Like the other HERESY or something…apparently, they were good…ugh. I should be fired.
Anthemic hardcore punk from Polish expats living in Ireland. Layers of guitar leads and melodies temper the stark vocal delivery and create a sonic environment akin to an anarcho-punk PROPAGANDHI. As always, Pasażer is over-the-top with the packaging, and gives an over-the-top recording the presentation it deserves
I’m not sure who this FRANKY is, but he seems to have a bit of an issue with time. Between the physical release and the small amount of info that can be found on the internet, I am being told that this batch of songs was written in the early ’80s, released in 1990, copyrighted 2006, and released now after being discovered after an unknown period of time. What’s more important is that I couldn’t possibly care less where the goof ends and reality begins because these songs are timeless enough that I could be convinced that there is truth to any combination of those wild claims. Mr. SHAMPOO and his backing band, who the internet tells me is called the CITY CREATURES (tho, I strongly suspect it may just be our sudsy new friend all on his lonesome), seem to be from Chemnitz, Germany. FRANKY plays a lovely mix of many different styles of punk. There’s some ’77-type stuff in there, some mid-tempo post-punk catchiness, some synth punk elements peppered in, it’s all done extremely well and nothing sounds out of place. I am greatly hoping there are more tapes to be discovered by this enigmatic individual. I’m feeling all frothy and lathered up, and these mere seven songs have set the bar incredibly high. What’s this? A secret track? An unlisted eighth song, full-MIDI version of “Ace of Spades”! FRANKY, you mad man! Wherever you are, come back to us, you’ve got a hit on your hands with this tape!
FRIGHT EYE is a hard-rocking rock’n’roll band from Denmark. Their music veers into punk territory at times and garage-y territory at others. The music is high-energy, pedal to the metal. The vocals are bratty while also being laissez faire. One of those bands you’d be kicking back a few beers with. Plus they do a nice version of one of my all-time favorite songs, “Learn to Hate in the 80s.”
Debut EP from this unfortunately named Berlin post-punk sextet. Apparently, the six tracks that make up Low were totally improvised, with only the vocals being written and added later. It certainly gives the EP a loose, jammy vibe. But the extended grooves the band locks into also serve as a nice reminder of the role funk has always played in post-punk. In fact, this record kind of feels like a survey of post-punk. “Repetition of High” sounds like a mix of early GANG OF FOUR and Remain in Light-era TALKING HEADS, “Truce” is an atmospheric goth-rock number that sounds an awful lot like the CURE, and “I’m Exhausted” has the same type of bass-driven melody you’d find on a JOY DIVISION track. It’s all very easy to listen to (aside from the minute-plus blast of noise that makes up “Cheap”) and really makes you wonder what they’d cook up were they to actually sit down and write some songs. Definitely worth a listen, especially if you’re a fan of the post-punky garage of EDDY CURRENT SUPPRESSION RING or the garage-y post-punk of INSTITUTE.
Four songs and a DEVO cover from this Australian band that sounds like a mix of FRIED EGG and GAG. The songs are mostly mid-tempo, noisy hardcore with gruff shouted vocals and the occasional stompy breakdown. Nothing revolutionary here, but very solid nonetheless. “Caged Pigs” has a 1-2 beat that could get a circle pit going in no time. And who can say no to a heavy, shouted DEVO cover? Not me. Check it out if you’re angry and want to throw your elbows around.
This feels like a record where the weird/shitty production makes a mediocre band so much better. I could be wrong and Copenhagen’s GULDSJAKAL could be the most unhinged live band since GG AND THE SCUMFUCS, but judging by their band photo, album cover, and songwriting, I’m not really convinced. The songs are plodding riff rock with not much variation between tunes, but the strange reverb-filled production putting the mega rawwww noisy guitar up front and center really helps them out, taking this up to something akin to early LEATHER NUN mixed with GLUECIFER. The vocals echo in that growling, screaming mass stuck in a cave way, giving this almost a primitive black metal sound, maybe like the first BURZUM record. Is this a good review? Is this a bad review? Fuck, I don’t know, but this is worthy of a listen.
Snotty hardcore from the UK that immediately reminded me of CHAOS UK and the more contemporary PI$$ER, and as it turns out they share members with both, as well as FUK, the WANKYS, and a slew of others. HAZARD PROFILE plays jangly, wanking blasts, kind of like a looser HARD TO SWALLOW meets SUICIDAL SUPERMARKET TROLLEYS with the maniacal energy of PLEASANT VALLEY CHILDREN. The attitude and grimacing is over the top, and this is a great pint-drinking, loud night kind of EP. Five tracks of boot-stomping, slightly crossover slam punk with blasts and palpable negativity. My favorite track being “Rubble & Bones” (“Nothing fucking matters / Nothing fucking matters / We”ll soon be…”), which starts out with a moment of THIN LIZZY-like intro soloing and immediately dominates into a nihilistic beating. HAZARD PROFILE is ugly, cold, and prickly on the ears; I imagine a live set to be significantly more embittered.
Tyler from OCCULT DETECTIVE CLUB relocated from Fort Worth, TX to Chicago, IL and started a solo project under the pseudonym of HIGHWAY STACY. A bit of a mixed bag of genres on this tape. Mid-tempo post-punk/art-punk that occasionally has electronic EDM drum sounds and almost youth crew-style vocals on a couple of the songs. Confused? Don’t be, it works. The tape ends with a strange minimalist take on the classic ADOLESCENTS track “Losing Battle.” Apparently, this one-man band is looking to branch out and do a full band with these songs. Live in the Chicago area? Head over to the link below, check out the songs, and hit up Tyler.
Stirring up a respectably chaotic din, HWANZA’s demo brings us rabid barking vocals over harsh and winding thrash melodies. The six tracks on this EP are punchy, direct, and prone to become a bit unhinged at any moment. Is this South Korea’s answer to Austin’s GLUE? If so, it’s a pretty good one. Favorite track: “F.Y.C.T.”
Fidgety, repetitive math-punk meeting at the intersection of DEVO and BEEFHEART. Deadpan slice-of-life vocals remind me of URANIUM CLUB. Often this type of music is technically well- played but lacking in terms of focus or songwriting clarity. ISMATIC GURU’s six songs here layer clever guitar interplay and kinetic rhythms with defined structure and a trajectory that actually brings the listener along, while still getting in and out in under two minutes. Great stuff.
Second release from this Berlin-based act named like a late ’90s swing troupe. This four-song EP finds them channeling a mix of In My Head BLACK FLAG and the plodding grooves of early FLIPPER. When the primary vocalist is at his loosest, it sounds an awful lot like NIRVANA at their noisiest. The most distinct track on the record, “Suck My Watts” (seriously, these folks gotta get better at naming shit!), mixes things up with a female vocalist adding a full-throated early GOSSIP-like performance to the mix. I’m not sure that it works, but it definitely made me pay attention. And that pretty much sums up this release. Each listen left me feeling like maybe these pieces don’t really fit together. Nevertheless, I found myself compelled to go back in to make sure that was still the case. So, something interesting is going on.
JUST ICE plays extremely tight rhythmic grooving hardcore from outer space and Quebec, somewhere between LIFE OF AGONY in harmony, MÖRKHIMMEL in heavy darkness, NECRO (the rapper) and INTEGRITY in vocal grit, and VISION OF DISORDER in hooks and fury. But the cool thing about JUST ICE is that they make it sound so easy. It is very well-produced and grabs you on every track. Backing vocals meld everything together with the winded yet bellowing and strained lead vocals. Breakdowns galore run through, but it never gets boring, with lots of tempo changing and hardcore riffage. Listening to JUST ICE is kind of like watching a gnarly fearless street skater who is just nailing everything. Looks like this is limited to only 100 copies (for the second press!) and at the time of writing this, only fourteen remain. From 2019, and I hope this review moves a few, because it’s damned good grooving hardcore with a shit-ton of heart and a frigid hard stance.
Unfathomably epic six-song debut(?) release from Finland’s KIROTTU ÄÄNI. Emotive and chaotic hardcore with a serious primitive black metal bent; novice listeners might place them on the map somewhere between CELEST(E) and BONE AWL. But the more advanced among you (us) will hold out until “Paiseet” on the second side, where they launch into some truly unique freak shit and careful listeners will realize that they’re listening to a band that’s spreading their wings before they’re even off the ground. A brutal and powerful, and beautiful, record.
Lille punks KRONSTADT return for their second LP, bringing with them a more expansive, melodic sound and ambition along with them. Like their compatriots LITOVSK and SYNDROME 81 I suppose it is ostensibly Oi!-adjacent, but there’s a not insignificant dose of post-punk sheen on this release; a lot of the rough edges have been knocked off which is where, unfortunately, I find a lot of the charm. It’s perfectly good enough, serviceable punk but just slightly too polished for yours truly.
One of my faves from last year, LANDOWNER’s Consultant was a true masterclass in smart-aleck punk as performed by young men who had ingested entirely too much coffee. For this re-release, Born Yesterday takes LANDOWNER’s debut cassette and commits it to the permanent record. If you dig LANDOWNER’s other two albums, you will be in familiar territory. Here, LANDOWNER is represented by principal architect Dan Shaw. He not only writes all the songs; on Impressive Almanac, he’s playing everything, including programming the drum machine. Shaw mines MINUTEMEN precision and RUDIMENTARY PENI mania to craft expert punk nervosa. Maybe it’s that drum machine that enables this initial batch of Shaw’s songs to seem even more frantic, sometimes coming off like the FEELIES trying out distortion-free powerviolence. It’s always been a bold move in the punk world to forgo the fuzz, but with LANDOWNER it pays off in dividends. This is head music for speed thinkers. The songs are always tense and driving, but the focus shifts to the greater whole, even as it’s constructed with tiny moments of meticulous concentration. Shaw often sounds like he is urgently whispering to you, and it makes you conscious of how much time you spend getting yelled at by singers (and teachers and bosses and cops). But it’s not all swift kicks and snarky lyrics, as there’s plenty of forceful yet twinkling tracks like “Shimmering Neck” and “Ancestral Home.” “Places to Put Cars” positions itself as the first in several key LANDOWNER songs about parking. Straight up—Shaw is currently one of the best songwriters in punk and this welcome reissue reveals that that has been the case for a while now.
Collecting their killer tapes from the last couple years, LASSIE pulls me back from the brink…of the well. The one I was thinking of drowning myself in cuz there’s no mo’ fun punk bands that also aren’t just plain embarrassing and (forgive me) cringe. MEAN JEANS? Are you fucking kidding me? LASSIE kinda sounds like if LOST SOUNDS were more into the B-52’S than GARY NUMAN. Super-snotty and non-cloyingly goofy, LASSIE is a rare beast indeed. There’s not a bummer track here, but “Phonecalls on My Deathbed” is a hit if I ever heard one; where’s Dick Clark or Rick Dees or CDs….yeah. Hey, this is why I don’t write silly but endearing spazz-wave songs. LASSIE does, they’re really good at it. “Tiger in My Tank” sounds like the fucking RONDELLES! I bet they turn a boring bar into a total fucking blast. “QT Enhancer” is a pogo party in a can. If you like C.C.T.V. or LUMPY or DEVO, I don’t see why you wouldn’t like this. I feel like if this band was from California, they’d be big, or at least “opening for the SPITS” big. So, not that big. But they should be. They’re great.
I picture LEOPARDO being some kind of hippy, freeform communal group. Their music is an eclectic collection of styles. There’s the usual instrumentation—guitars, bass, drums—but also banjo, synths, percussion, drum machine. It gives you a feel of people just bringing whatever they want to the group and seeing what happens. Yet, this record still seems cohesive. There’s poppy songs. There’s psychedelic songs. Some are slow. Some are upbeat. It’s a record for listening while lying down.
This band is made up of members of the ERGS!, the SLOW DEATH, the RAGING NATHANS, and the ARTERIES. Each of the four members contributes lead vocals to their individual track. These four songs, despite the vocal differences, flow together well. The biggest thing that calls out to me while listening to this is that even though the pedigree of this is decidedly anchored in the punk scene, this is more of an alt-rock vibe, dare I even say a “mature pop punk” record. I can’t stop listening to this. It’s that fucking good.
LOW RATS are out of Minneapolis and play punk-y garage rock with a bit of a rockabilly twang. It’s a standard variation on genres. I can think of bands from the ’80s, ’90s,’00s, etc. that have gone in this direction. At first listen it seems like I have heard this before, but after a few more listens, their sound hooks me. I particularly like the lead singer’s pleading vocal style. “Ex-Crisis” featuring an out of the blue female backing vocal is my fave on this. They slow it down a bit and lean toward their punkier side. It’s cool.
Great Chilean punk with piercing female vocals and a no-frills approach that sounds like it was recorded live in a spacious empty room. From the instrumental intro to each of the songs, the fairly simple, straightforward arrangements find their groove quickly and stick with it, jamming while the vocalist Muriel delivers high-pitched, high-intensity messages about empowerment, consent, sexual harassment, and fighting the ever-present threat of the male gaze. From the mysterious artwork to the urgent, personal lyrics (thanks to an online translator since I don’t know Spanish), this is a killer demo definitely worth checking out.
Pretend for a minute you’re a mad scientist and you’ve got some crazy-ass experiment on the boil that involves weapons-grade plutonium, a fist full of Adderall, and—I don’t know—a Margaritaville brand “frozen concoction maker.” You’re working late, so you’ve got some lively tunes cranked to keep you from nodding off—a mix of LIQUIDS, C.C.T.V., and DEE DEE RAMONE. But—oh no—something goes wrong while you’re flipping a record! You turn around to see your now out-of-control experiment advancing across the room and watch as it engulfs a lab table, upon which sits a VHS copy of Rollerball that you had dubbed over with old episodes of Voltron and Beakman’s World. But as the smoke clears and dust settles, you notice the cassette…is…moving. It’s…it’s alive. A miracle! Realizing what a blessing this is, you do the only logical thing—make it form a band…a band that ends up becoming RESEARCH REACTOR CORP…OK, now take that same story and swap out the VHS with a thumb drive full of Snorks episodes. You’d likely end up with MAINFRAME! Anyway, MAINFRAME is an early-COVID email project between Sean Albert (SKULL CULT, BELLY JELLY) and the two RESEARCH REACTOR CORP. lads, Bill and Ishka (also from SATANIC TOGAS, SET-TOP BOX, etc.). It’s still fucked and fast like RESEARCH REACTOR CORP., but it’s brighter, sillier, and maybe even kind of pop. It’s almost certain to annoy the grumpier denizens of the punk world but be a fun time for everyone else. Single-sided 7″ too, so you don’t have to worry about your experiments going awry while flipping the record.
An absolutely delightful release from Helsinki, Finland. The debut release by MEAL is a six-song cassette of incredibly timeless post-punk which leans a bit into the art-punk/indie rock realm on a few of the tracks. I’m not exactly sure how it’s possible to feel overwhelmingly nostalgic about a recording the very first time you listen to it, but these songs seem to have that ability. I am not gonna sit here and say that it feels like listening to WIRE for the first time or anything like that, but maybe like a small little minute fraction of what that feeling was like.
Sounding much like the early DESCENDENTS with a little bit of the GERMS spilled on ’em, MICROBES open up this six-song cassette with a title track that could almost pass as a FAT EP outtake. A lot of the resemblance has to do with the singer, but as the tape progresses the songs veer into youth crew-y (“Bad Vibes”) and even hardcore thrash (“Faces”) territories that Milo and co. never aspired to. To confuse things even further, the artwork and lyrical content is very much in line with the Crass Records style of yore. I bet you these guys make a hell of a chili, too.
It took a few listens for this record to click. On the first couple of spins I heard a competent take on the same type of thing EDDY CURRENT SUPPRESSION RING has been doing for years. That comparison is as lazy as it is fair—they’re both Australian (MINI SKIRT hails from Byron Bay), they play the same type of post-punk-tinged garage punk, they can ride a groove beyond the four-minute mark, and they’re led by an energetic, plain-spoken yobbo vocalist. What I missed initially, though, was just how important that vocalist is to this record. I suck at paying attention to lyrics, generally only noticing them when they are awful. But try as I might, it’s impossible to ignore them when presented this baldly. So, after a few play-throughs I started to notice their sincerity (refreshing when compared to the glut of egg-punk zaniness and post-punk remove that populates the modern punk landscape) and their atypical subject matter…at least for a band whose sound bares this much resemblance to pub rock. They deal with political nuance and the difficulties of getting older in a world that’s seemingly going to hell and run primarily by idiots, and the vocalist is able to wrench way more emotion out of these lyrics than you would expect given that he’s basically talk-shouting. It’s really an incredible performance, and I found myself genuinely moved at points. Anyway, somewhere around my fourth or fifth listen this record turned from solid to essential. Please give it a go!
MODERN CYNICS’ grimy econo-pop sound is damn near perfect on this eighteen-track tape. On average, the songs clock in tight and tidy—usually around a minute and a half (sometimes under 60 seconds)—showing off songwriter Matty Grace’s chops for penning overdriven tunes that are full of muscle and melody. The whole affair washes over you, and is honestly best consumed in one go rather than shuffling through cuts. What stands out here is the blend of breezy disaffected execution, mainly in Grace’s vocal delivery, with a perfect dose of urgency and punch. Some of these tracks truly rip, while others are ideal mope anthems. It’s got it all, a tape to keep in the deck for weeks at a time.
There was no shortage of No Wave-damaged transmissions originating from Portland, Oregon around the turn of the millennium, and MODESSA was one of the briefest bursts of static to appear on that whole frequency, a brain trust of late ’90s international art-punk featuring Helen White of the angular Slampt-backed UK outfit PETTY CRIME, Ethan Swan of Portland’s EMERGENCY (the only ’90s band brave/cool enough to cover COME ON?), and Amy Henevald, also of EMERGENCY and formerly of DC’s legendary teen free-punk antagonists MELTDOWN. The group existed for only two weeks in May of 1999 during which they wrote and recorded the four songs on this EP, plus one live snippet committed straight to Walkman (so-called “efficient” post-punks of the current century should be taking notes). It has all of the off-kilter charm of three people working primarily under the guidance of shared instincts, with no time for or interest in belaboring the creative process—vocals take the form of overlapping chants and whispered incantations, backed by a brittle assemblage of needling single-note guitar, steadily cycling bass lines, and skittish drums that calls back to the messiest of late ’70s/early ’80 UK DIY. The defiant embrace of imperfection in pursuit of art truly never goes out of style, and MODESSA had the smarts to recognize that.
Smashing debut LP by this London, Ontario group. Twelve songs in just under a half hour—I like those numbers, those numbers bode well. And these are actual songs—Apparatus Division is modern punk done right. MONONEGATIVES posit a pretty straightforward equation: take ADVERTS-by-way-of-JAY REATARD, add a hint of CHROME, cut with some jacked-up A FRAMES, and you’re about halfway there. “Living in the Age” into “Neighbots” is as good a back-to-back as I’ve heard this year. “Trauma” is like hardcore punk TUBEWAY ARMY, but don’t assume it’s all android energy bouncing around, as MONONEGATIVES has got real rock’n’roll swagger behind the motherboard. After establishing a mid-tempo groove, “Circuits in View” erupts into a suitably swinging rave-up that hits like the speediest parts of ’77. “Career Attitude” is all pent-up energy but finds the space for a couple killer hooks, while “Today’s Adult” cracks a dozen egg-punk shells in the time it takes to lace up your boots. Apparatus Division has got a perfect balance between rock grit and synthetic pulse.
Two doses of darkness from California. AMEBIX meets CHRISTIAN DEATH, with high howling vocals and a great metallic plodding pace to “Extinction of Bodies” that stays firmly planted on the weirdo/punk side of the spectrum. It just feels dark and dangerous. Sketchy. Could listen on repeat for an hour and not get bored….just did, in fact.
It’s not the make-up of NOG WATT that causes one to wonder, it’s the year! How did an undeniable, inarguable hardcore classic punch so hard above its weight …..in 1985?! Strange but true, and six songs at that, a proper EP a.k.a. “the hardcore LP.” There’s so much good punk contained within the opening cut “Going On,” it would take a lifetime to diagram. Holland was home for NOG WATT, yet there’s plenty of SoCal in their shadow-y DNA, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. These aren’t just blitzkriegs of speed, although NOG WATT jumps into that zone effortlessly and with a fistful of panache. This band has plenty of great riffs and enough swing to appeal to the full cross-section of the punk pyramid. “Hunted” and “Fear” are anthems of disaffection and dread, as the singer stares down your barrel and dares you to pull the trigger. Prime mover “Big Warning, Big Mistake” would open up the pit in a nursing home. The fucking bass runs! NOG WATT is never not aiming for your neck.
NUEVA GENERACIÓN kicks off this split with two mid-tempo songs that walk the line between almost sliding into pop punk territory, but are just a bit too dark and slow to fully cross that line, “whoa-oh”s aside. BETTER OFF DEAD also contributes two songs which are faster and more upbeat than the songs on the NUEVA GENERACIÓN side, with a dueling female/male vocal combo that works together well. While both bands don’t take a similar approach to styles, the contrast works well.
Aptly named album for a rock’n’roll band hailing from the toxic wastelands of New Jersey. Trashy garage punk noise with one foot in the shadows of Jersey legends like ELECTRIC FRANKENSTEIN and CHRONIC SICK and the other in classic ’70s garage punk like DMZ and LYRES. There’s a lot of material here, but with great songs like “Piss!,” “Vomit-Pig,” and “Rock’N’Roll Til I Die,” you can imagine what you’re in for. Jump in your IROC-Z, put this baby in the tape deck, and you’re in for a quite a swell ride.
Sydney hardcore band that’s been kicking around for the past few years issues their second release, a four-track cassette put out by Urge Records, the Sydney/Los Angeles label who have a track record for putting out cool shit. The Bandcamp copy on this release mentions JFA and MINUTEMEN as comparisons. I’ll give them the former, particularly in the vocals, but the latter is a bit of a stretch. Yes, the guitar is very trebly, but these guys aren’t really pushing the boundaries of hardcore in the same way D. Boon and company were, nor are they aping their sound in any noticeable way. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing! In fact, these tracks are pretty solid, and the guitar tone certainly adds an interesting dimension. But rather than the punk/funk I associate with MINUTEMEN, I’m hearing more of a ’60s influence. A couple of these tracks even have a bit of a LINK WRAY/”Ghost Riders in the Sky” vibe. It’s an odd pairing but an interesting take on a familiar sound.
There seems to be a crop of bands that are reinventing the early ’90s sound of “underground rock.” While a lot of these bands, to me at least, kind of miss the mark and end up sounding uninspired, OUTPATIENT isn’t one of those. Hooks, fuzz, “whoa-oh”s, a perfect marriage of early NIRVANA and the MUFFS. If I had one complaint it’s that four songs aren’t enough!!!
Two solid anthemic rock tracks out of this Buffalo, NY trio. Self- and socially reflective while still insightful and angry. Playing like a ’90s version of STIFF LITTLE FINGERS with some synth and current culture angst thrown in.
The future is certainly dark, as foretold by the band’s name. After a demo and 7″, worldwide hardcore maniax were thirsty for some more noise from NYC-based powerhouse PORVENIR OSCURO. Featuring members of such diverse bands as POBREZA MENTAL, PAWNS, and VAXINE, Asquerosa Humanidad proves to be a raw mixture of the very best of Latin punk with hints of UK82 via CHAOS UK. Everything from the beautiful cover to the thirteen pogo-drenched tracks reeks of disdain and restlessness. The cherry on top of this crusty cake is the vocal delivery by Colombian-born singer Sara. A punk gem released at the right time; as Colombia burns, the voices of disdain rise!
Unimaginably disgusting stoner sludge from Sweden. Imagine BONGZILLA writing “short” songs, but with a subtle Jourgensen tinge to the vocals. When the guitar breaks into the fast intro for “Meds” I start to clench up, because that’s exactly what I want to happen after a three-minute pulverization. Very dirty, very raw, extremely heavy.
The eerie riff in the beginning of this record sets the mood instantly. You’re in for a journey into the darkest corners of the mind. With members of FUCKED UP, CAREER SUICIDE, EU’S ARSE, and NINOS DU BRASIL, these seasoned musicians craft something new and exciting but rooted in the ’80s hardcore sound. There is obvious channeling of Italian hardcore like WRETCHED and NERORGASMO but through the mind of BITOUSHA and G-ZET. This unsettling album further proves that the Italian hardcore tradition is alive and well.
Acrobatic and mathy guitars lead the charge on this one, like on a URANIUM CLUB or LANDOWNER rec. Some of the instrumentation and harmonies throughout give off the same sorta inviting weirdo vibe as SUBURBAN LAWNS, which is always a plus. Both songs clock in at 3:36, somehow—whether this was on purpose or (probably) not, the end result is that I want more.
Okay. Here’s the thing, and I believe I made this point in another review. This is a lathe-cut 7″. Limited to 25 copies. Why? Why is this a trend? Why exude the energy of writing and recording these songs and then spend the money on pressing 25 records??? OK, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way…on to the review. Two songs here that are heavy on the JAWBREAKER influence. If I were to treat this single as a one-on-one battle to the death, I’d put my money on the title track to come out the winner. Apparently the B-side is taken from an upcoming LP. I’ll reserve my full endorsement upon hearing said LP. I do, however, believe that given what I’ve heard here, QUAKER WEDDING has a promising future ahead of them.
Super raw demo from this Indiana hardcore band. This sounds like a lo-fi boombox recording of a band playing in a closet. Everything is blown-out and extremely loud, with the drums and vocals slightly overshadowing everything else in the mix. I actually checked my headphones to make sure they were plugged in all the way. This reminds me of those shows where a band is just ripping so fast and loud that your clothes shake and the walls drip with humidity because of the concentrated energy. These four songs offer about two minutes of frenzied, early BLACK FLAG-inspired hardcore, and sometimes that’s all you need. I would go and see them for sure.
Vinyl version of a nine-song cassette that this Austrian group released last year, with the sort of lo-fi immediacy that can only be captured by playing together live in a room with a four-track running. There’s a definite NOTS vibe on this one, specifically NOTS as they existed in that transitional period between the stripped-down punky garage bash of their first two singles and the dark, driving electro-post-punk on their most recent LP, from the spaced-out delay on Rebecca’s shouted vocals (largely in German, with a few detours into English), to the squeals of synth on “Mischmachine,” to that wiry, post-WIPERS guitar strangling that comes through on the more urgent tracks like “Forgotten Keys” or “Glasfaser.” Despite some borderline post-punk flourishes (like the see-sawing rhythms and quick cuts of sax skronk on “Lebenslauf” and “100 Grad”), ROLLTREPPE is decidedly a punk band, with a raw, shambolic energy in step with any number of German-language, femme-centered DIY classics from a time well before now—GLUEAMS, HANS-A-PLAST, A-GEN 53 if you want to go really deep, etc. A solid debut, no doubt.
Shanghai’s favorite expats set the bar high with 2017’s Monster Vision, but Culture Shock Treatment is a next-level masterpiece. An astounding collection of songs and sounds (and hooks) that defies categorization while drawing liberally from classic punk—and then contorting the shit out of all of it. Slogs like “8000 Years” rely on moody sax and keys to drive the songs over one gloriously repetitive riff, while “Catatonic (I’m Not a Communist)” is a searing (and screaming) punk burner that rolls into the death march of “An Opportunity of a Lifetime,” both highlighting the band’s take on living in China as (Western) outsiders. The hooks on this record will pull in fans of SOVIETTES and/or RADIOACTIVITY, but the songs are simply advanced and so totally far-out. Who doesn’t want their BUZZCOCKS tempered with DOA and BEEFHEART? Dummies, that’s who.
S:BAHN is yet another punk band coming out of Melbourne that proves that the city helms one of the most exciting scenes on the planet. In tune with contemporaries like AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS or TOTAL CONTROL, there are elements of post-punk, hardcore, and garage rock littered across this record. There are moments of melancholy and slight moodiness which I think sets this group apart. I dig the spacey moments of well-developed and repetitive rhythms. If you’re into post-punk coming from Down Under, this is one of the best.
Especially in the early 1990s, Polish punk and hardcore existed on cassettes. There are countless worthy releases that came and went on tape, often fading away as the bands (or fans) moved on. SCHIZMA stuck around until well into the 2000s, but 1992’s Ostatnia Odsłona might be the best example of their brand of crossover thrash. The focus here is the guitars—properly damaged and red-lined, with primitive flange tempering the lightning fast chugs while vocals project full force from the chest. This under-the-radar Eastern European hardcore deserves far more than a casual nod from so-called “historians” from the West; SCHIZMA was making music that adhered to no rules but their own. Members came from late ’80s band KAMPANIA KARNA (who recently had their essential first tape put to vinyl) and later went on to IN SPITE OF (among many others), but this is about the SCHIZMA LP. Polish punks likely (hopefully) already know the drill, the rest of us are just catching up.
Tough and tight, SELF-INFLICT proudly waves the well-worn flag of traditional USHC. From Virginia, these boys channel OG acts like NEGATIVE APPROACH and MINOR THREAT through their muscly punk sound. The ’80s vibes are strong, even down to the colorful cassettes this demo was issued on.
SIAL is a great band from Singapore. Like, really, really, great. I don’t know what’s going on in the city-state, but Singaporean punks tend to be quite intense in their approach to music, something that my own intense self appreciates. The single is titled Zaman Edan, which means “mad times” in the language of Shakespeare. Both songs are cathartic in ways I couldn’t fathom if catharsis was possible before. Side A means “You Were Born To Fight” and it displays a really interesting sound, anarcho-punk with space rock elements: a really sick guitar riff, a dirty bass tone, and a synth bringing out of space and drone-y effects into the mix. Side B means “You Were Born To Die.” The song starts with a beat reminiscent of that part of the thumping bassline of “Land” where PATTI SMITH starts singing “Horses, horses, horses,” which leads to getting suckerpunched by a huge power chord ringing with a tinnitus-inducing guitar tone. There is some cowbell thrown in there just for fun and then you get this death disco beat with an ominous synth that maps a deathrock-y territory. Awesome. And then the song gets all this anarcho-punk in-your-face brashness that gets you exhilarated until it finishes with noise-induced psychedelia snippets Á la HAWKWIND. Brilliant. Get it on vinyl.
I wanted to like this German blackened hardcore punk band. I’m down with the sinister feeling of shrieked/howled vocals over reverbed punk, and the artwork is cool. A skeleton hand hammering a nail into a bleeding Earth is perfect visual mayhem. And while I get the feeling they were going for a BONE AWL or FUNERAL CHIC or even DEVIL MASTER vibe with these short songs, they miss the mark. They run together a bit, mostly fast with pretty basic punk chord changes and the wraith vocals on top. I never quite feel the menacing black metal attack enough with the music, and definitely not with the lyrics. If your band puts on the blackened armor, I want to hear about some demons or violence or end-times prophesying. Not “Gimme Chocolate,” which starts out, “Gimme all your chocolate, 1, 2, 3, 4!” Lyrics and songs like this (and “Gimme All Your Money” and “Booze Ghoul”) make the whole thing feel like a joke or gimmick, more spooky than evil. Without the grimness this music calls for, it’s a pass for me.
Slovenly remains the standard bearer for rock’n’roll that’s vital and unstuck from time. SLANDER TONGUE brings a megaton of swagger from Germany in a debut that’s beyond self-assured. You know that rare balance a band strikes where not a note feels out of place but is backed by enough grit that it never feels sterile? That’s the magic trick of these eleven cuts—unrelenting, big bad windmill-strummed guitar anthems that make you want to saw the roof off your car and go for an endless drive. There’s so much that can go wrong in this genre, and a lot of rock imitators sound too scrubbed up or washed out, but those common pitfalls are avoided with smart decisions made on the page and in the sound booth. Songs like “Shattered Girl” really showcase the goods—an anchored rhythm in the drums and bass that ride clean throughout wiry riffing that goes all over without losing the plot. Throw in some backup harmony and you’ve got a potent brew to keep coming back to.
Hard-hitting hardcore from Denmark. A collection of sub-60-second burners interspersed among some nasty doses of riffage. I think the mid-tempo numbers (“Selvkontrol”) are what makes it feel so damn good when they go fast (“Pillage”). Fierce, throaty vocals and a massive presentation to top it off.
C.C.T.V. is dead, long live C.C.T.V.! SNOOPER is a fairly fresh project from Nashville’s Blair Tramel and Connor “SPODEE BOY” Cummins, but in the absence of any context, one would be forgiven for assuming that the duo’s second EP was the product of a certain acronymous NWI combo, rising from the ashes of defunction like a neon slime-covered phoenix in pointy new wave sunglasses. Five pogo-prepped, attention-deficit tracks featuring writhing Hardcore Devo guitar lines, anxiety attack drumming alternately performed by a human and a machine, matter-of-fact femme vocals with a slight robotic edge, and that telltale Tascam warble—when they dial back the BPM count a bit, like on “DOG” (the most C.C.T.V.-patterned offering of the bunch), or the scrabbling and scratching “Pod” (is that a digital cowbell buried behind the breathlessly chanted chorus?), SNOOPER walks around the cracked egg-punk shells that have been littering the DIY floor these last several years and comes up with something that might have more staying power.
The Milan DIY punk scene seems especially strong at the moment, and although I don’t know all the bands who supply personnel for SPIRITO DI LUPO (who are also partly Bolognese), I will rep KOBRA to anyone who cares to listen. Iron Lung clearly agrees, as they put the KOBRA LP out, and have given a North American home to this related band’s debut tape, released in Italy a few months prior. Revelling in its glorious shit-fi recording, it’s got proto-anarcho bin lid drumming, dual glowering dude/irate woman vox, a sort of Euro-Oi! tempo and something approaching a big rock moment in the riff power of the final song, “Canzone Della Foresta.” GERMS meets DIRT via NABAT, and as unhinged as such a meeting would have presumably been in reality.
Some good old-fashioned, hairy-arsed, short-haired rock’n’roll from the hit factory that is Mendeku Diskak. Bizkaian mob STA. CRUZ aren’t here to reinvent the wheel, but instead just to make a very fucking good wheel actually. Good time riffs by way of ROSE TATTOO or NO CLASS meet gravel-gargling vocals, but really what caught my attention were the surprisingly intricate bass lines and drumming, just enough to keep it interesting without being a flash bastard about it. All done in about ten minutes, keep em wanting more.
STREET EATERS is a Bay Area group that provides some of the thickest, down-to-earth punk I’ve heard in recent times. This four-track EP highlights the best aspects of the group, which happen to be playing kick-ass post-punk topped with a brooding vocal performance. Everything about this record is totally cathartic and powerful. I’ve heard this group has become something of an underground hit in the Bay Area, and with releases like this it’s no wonder.
This is the demo debut for Bogotá’s SYSTEMA. You can get it on cassette with some really cool artwork. These guys talk business and get to the point. They get mean, brutal, and raw while perfectly creating dynamics inside each song in order to release the right amount of aggression for those moshpit-inducing violent attacks we love. They remind me of the rough sound of ’80s Italian hardcore and the primitive scorched earth approach of ’90s Mexican and South American punk. This is a beautiful and fulfilling aesthetic experience. We need a full-length now.
One might have a hard time grasping the fact that being a punk in a Third World country is the hardest challenge one could go through, especially if you are a female that is constantly being oppressed by deep-rooted sexism embedded in religion. Breaking free of those restraints and putting up the middle finger is an admirably hard thing to do, and that’s what Moroccan punk band TAQBIR did in an extraordinary fashion. They have all the elements needed to create a great punk band: a raw vicious sound and a political statement that deals with real issues. The frantic energy comes close to DISCOLOKOSST, while the Arabic lyrics are shouted in a COMES kind of way. A wrecking ball of a band that is in its essence a political statement, just the way that punk should be!
OK, you’ve seen The Maltese Falcon…but have you heard Maltese punk? The ferocious noise of TARZNA is actually closer to no wave and they take no prisoners on their EP—this is truly some unhinged shit. We used to call this “scree,” and fuck me sideways if you can retain your sense of self or even your balance after this barrage of instrument abuse. Guitar and synthesizer fight a battle to the death while the singer free-associates primal scream therapy at anyone within earshot. TARZNA is kind of like MANISCH DEPRESSIV minus the punk riffs. Well, “U Joseph? U Joseph!” is kinda catchy, all 41 seconds of it. Templar your expectations just a tad, and ye shall be rewarded.
Latest project from Ishka Edmeades, whom you may know from his extensive résumé—he’s played in/as SET-TOP BOX, SATANIC TOGAS, GEE TEE, and RESEARCH REACTOR CORPORATION, and runs weirdo cassette punk label Warttman Inc. (co-releasers of this EP). But as great as those projects have been, Patterns might be his best release thus far. He’s taking that same NWI-worship you know from all his other projects, but this time he’s using it to construct some power/garage-pop tunes. His songwriting chops have always helped him stand out from the other eggs in the overcrowded DEVO-core basket, but hearing them applied in a slower, poppier setting really lets you appreciate all the disparate influences he’s working with. Throughout the four tracks on this EP, you can hear snatches of HUBBLE BUBBLE, SUPERCHARGER, HUNX AND HIS PUNX, the theme from the Heathcliff cartoon (…I’m only kind of joking), and of course DEVO—all tossed together into some seriously catchy numbers. Jump on it!
Apparently, this was a real single back in 1979 and it’s highly sought after. I have no knowledge of that. What I can tell you is that it is a near-perfect example of the high-quality power pop that came out of that era. It existed in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, and many other places. This one happens to come from the UK. Two tracks and, as I mentioned, both border on pure pop perfection.
Bachelor Archives has done well to serve us up with some hot rarities in the past—this time, a personal fave Euro hardcore punk 45, long in need of a reissue. I think these four tracks made it onto a DEAD NITTELS collection released on Rave Up some years ago, but as a collector I always prefer a faithful repro to get an experience closer to what the initial release format was like. There were some great releases coming out of Austria in the early ’80s but none cut quite this deep into hardcore territory. It’s desperate, pounding, and snarling, somewhere between SVART FRAMTID and VORKRIEGSJUGEND. Yes, seriously! See Pushead’s review in issue #14 for some nice descriptive words. The remastering is noticeable when played next to the original 1983 issue, especially in the drums. It’s an overall louder and wilder mix, for better or worse. I think newcomers may like it better but I’m indifferent. The red on the sleeve isn’t as neon as the original but the cover art is clearly the most lacking aspect of the release anyway! Top-tier for fans or ’80s Euro punk and hardcore.
When talk of early Boston stuff comes up, it usually omits the FREEZE, which is a shame—these cats, along with the PROLETARIAT, kick the most ass on the Boston Not L.A. comp, to say nothing of “I Hate Tourists” coming out in 1978, a full three years before SSD started playing Gallery East. This is all to say that this reissue of the FREEZE’s first LP is worth a listen, though with a prescribed grain of salt: satiric, melodic, and snotty throughout, with more melody and tunefulness than other bands in their cohort. Their lyrics land like a more blunt, less political DEAD KENNEDYS.
Mostly due to their tour de force album Crocodiles, this Swedish band stood out from their peers in the mid-2000s stripped-down power-garage-pop period—thinking bands like TRANZMITORS, the SHOCKS, and the HEX DISPENSERS who were reinterpreting the BUZZCOCKS for a post-Bush world. Crocodiles came out in 2008 and I thought the band had hung it up. Over a decade later they are back with a batch of new songs, but had the supporting tour sidelined by the pandemic. The album lacks the production earnestness of Crocodiles, but despite cleaning it up, there is an angsty darkness throughout the album captured best in the tracks “It’s Not Gonna Be OK” and “Worse Than I.” The songwriting and change-ups have allowed the band to expand their sound and even style a bit. The standout track is the mid-tempo “Make a Run for It”. An excellent album that manages not to rehash or revisit a long-gone time but moves forward in a newly defined way.
Here it is! The first of two official reissues from the legendary Canadian band. Before fastcore or powerviolence were hardcore subgenre touchstones, these three teenagers were playing blisteringly fast punk with lyrics full of social commentary and their own inside jokes. Recorded in 1982—1983, that puts this record right around the first DEEP WOUND demo and before the SIEGE demo. Way early for this kind of lightspeed HC, and it blows my mind that NEOS are not quite the punk household name that they deserve to be. Hopefully this eighteen-song 7″ and the recent discography release will change that. Enough history, how does it sound? Fast and raw with the frenzied syllable-per-beat vocal delivery I mistakenly associate with ’90s Slap-a-Ham releases. This EP sounds like it was recorded live, and the energy is palpable. It’s passionate punk, turned up to maximum speed—pure energy bursts of righteous youthful spirit. Essential listening as a historical artifact and as a total face-melting 7″.
Call of the Void follows up their 2019 PREFECTS vinyl anthology with this deluxe reissue of the 1982 debut LP from the NIGHTINGALES, who were essentially a revamped PREFECTS with a more expansive creative outlook. Pigs on Purpose landed in somewhat of a UK post-punk liminal state, right in between the scratchy eccentricity of the late ’70s/early ’80s SWELL MAPS/FALL axis and the disjointed, abrasive side of the C86 scene that was a few years around the corner (think BIG FLAME and all those Ron Johnson bands), after which the NIGHTINGALES would spend the rest of the ’80s charting a MEKONS-esque path away from wiry art-punk and toward an unironic embrace of country and western music—maybe that’s why Pigs on Purpose is rarely mentioned in the same breath as … In “Jane From Occupied Europe” or Hex Enduction Hour or any number of similar and now-canonized LPs from the same general time and place, but whatever the reason, it’s unfortunate. SUBWAY SECT/ALTERNATIVE TV-style first wave punk gets bent into new jumbled shapes on “Blood for Dirt” and “One Mistake,” vocalist Robert Lloyd comes off like a well-adjusted version of Mark E. Smith narrating over the sparse but frenetic FALL-like rhythms of “Start From Scratch” and “The Hedonists Sigh,” and “Blisters” and “The Crunch” work up a hyper-strum jangle that all but anticipates the WEDDING PRESENT; it’s like a crash course in the UK underground’s trajectory throughout the Thatcher years. And even better, the original LP is appended this time around by a second disc’s worth of demos and tracks from the group’s early singles on Rough Trade and Cherry Red, which would be worth the price of admission on their own—double your pleasure!
Album number eight from Montréal’s long-running art-punk sleaze merchants the PINK NOISE, squarely positioned in the most recent stretch of a timeline that extends through the RED KRAYOLA’s late ’70s Rough Trade cusp, ’80s major label-era PERE UBU (in my head, this LP is what Cloudland could have sounded like if it hadn’t been so blatantly mersh), and the FALL’s discovery of club beats in the early ’90s. Woozy UBU’d synths collide with cut-up Madchester rhythms, while Mark Sauner draws his vocals out in a half-speed Mark E. Smith cadence, pulling Economy of Love‘s nine tracks through a series of seedy and dimly-lit musical back alleys. Top marks go to “Opportunist,” which cruises down the glitter Autobahn with a glammed-up motorik pulse, the layering of some Andy Gill-worthy serrated guitar on top of rattling percussion and swells of acid-psych keyboard on “Wall of Ice,” and “Out of Step,” the grimy benzos-not-coke early ’00s dance punk banger that never was (but should have been).
This is a reissue of the RABIES’ debut record from 1982. “(My Girl’s a) Hologram” is an extra-catchy power popper. It’s a fun tune. The flip “Criminal” is darker sounding and lyrically forward-thinking and engaging. Plus it’s also catchy, but more new wave-ish. This is a great record.
I almost thought I was listening to a reissue when throwing on this release by Osaka’s the SMOG, and that’s not to say it sounds dated. It’s power pop with a major emphasis on power, but feels a part of the pantheon rather than an echo. In just two songs, this single has got hooks and teeth—beautiful songwriting that sounds like it’ll step on your neck if you get in the way. “Noise Noise,” the B-side here, hits like a chain but also has a disarmingly vulnerable melody—the perfect intersection between late ’70s-indebted sneering punk and heart-on-your-sleeve lyricism that will never wear out its welcome.
The social media-sphere kinda melted a bit when this record dropped…maybe because it’s so fucking hot. In less than three minutes of music recorded two decades ago, two Black kids from Alabama shoved a huge “fuck you” boot up the pretentious ass of (hardcore) punk by simply being themselves. The songs are simple, tough as shit, equal parts furious ’90s East Bay hardcore and LIMP WRIST—it’s not so much that they’re pissed, it’s that the SOCIAL LIES feel real. Not every “lost” recording from decades past needs to be unearthed and released…this one did.
The folks at Goodbye Boozy deliver over and over again. This is raw punk rock that’s got that sound where everything is just a little fuzzy and abrasive. This isn’t going to sound like a compliment, but that’s how it’s meant. It’s just a little difficult to listen to. That it was recorded by ERIK NERVOUS makes sense to me. I don’t know ERIK; in fact I’ve never heard of him. But this has a nervous, almost frantic, energy about it. If this is where punk rock is headed, sign me up for another couple/few decades.
The UPTIGHTS are a Norwegian quartet with a mono fixation. Recorded over a sequence of years straight to cassette, you can’t accuse these garage rockers of being shiny or polished. By that description, you might expect in-the-red lo-fi puke punk, but the UPTIGHTS have a little something grander in mind. Unfortunately, the recording doesn’t help matters. Normally, I’m all about cramming as much sound as you can manage into that little box and letting the compression work its magic. But the cave setting doesn’t bring out the best in these songs; check, for instance, the over-modulated vocals of “Days.” The music is languid, almost a slowcore strum, but the mic distortion just craps all over it. Is it an aesthetic choice? Does it matter? After ambling through a few sedate instrumentals, those all-mid-range vocals come back with a vengeance and actually bring to mind an entire subgenre of badly-recorded emo from the 1990s. It’s an aesthetic pile-up and there ain’t a stretcher in sight. There’s genuine feeling here, and a couple good songs, but, ironically, the UPTIGHTS need to quit loosening the screws and get in the ring.
Providing further solution to the “there just aren’t enough OG USHC records” dilemma, THOUGHT CONTROL delivers ’80s-inspired fury in this spirited hardcore assault. And they are pretty vicious. Favorite track: “Sniff Out the Nazi.”
This mashup is almost too clever for its own good. The inestimable Mr. B is taking the vocals of various legendary punk (and the like) songs, and adding them to a bunch of ’60s/’70s music. More or less. So, the first two tracks are the vocals of CRASS’ “Do They Owe Us a Living” and “Shaved Women” put to some minimalist electronic music. Which actually works, and is interesting…in that the basic drive and beat and passion of those two particular songs remains intact. There’s then a couple of CIRCLE JERKS efforts put to some upbeat ’60s sounds, and then, so far as I can tell, IGGY POP’s vocal of “Lust For Life” with a ’70s brass-heavy funk backdrop, and then, I’m guessing, that same funk band’s vocal of some sort or other, over “Lust For Life.” Then there’s a similar treatment with BLACK FLAG. First there’s HENRY ROLLINS’ spoken word “Family Man” over some ’70s groovy freeform sound, followed by that same ’70s band (I’m presuming) singing over a BLACK FLAG instrumental track. Polished off with BLACK SABBATH’s “War Pigs” vocals over some other funky sounds. Kind of interesting, kind of too clever by half, and some of it lost on me, cos I don’t recognize either the non-punk backing tracks, or the non-punk singing, over the punk backing track.
Fast hardcore punk from Argentina. V.D.I has a very memorable quality to their songs, as if I have heard a number of them before but can’t quite pinpoint where. Most of the songs on this nine-song cassette are ripped through in the faster realm of mid-tempo speeds, tight stops and starts really accenting and keeping your attention. The only song that really breaks the mold that they’ve set is “Pogo Reliyon,” which is slower, catchier, and more sing-songy. I would have sworn it was a LOS EXPULSADOS cover were it not for the drastic speed-up ending of the song.
Twenty-six-song cassette compilation benefiting Paul Henry’s, an art gallery and performance space in Hammond, IN that’s played an important role in nurturing the NWI punk scene. The cassette features tracks from a bunch of NWI bands and some other like-minded weirdos. You can expect plenty of the egg-punk/DEVO-core you’ve come to associate with the area, but there’s also some more straightforward punk, ripping hardcore, shoegaze, power pop, and more. Not all the tracks are great, but all the bands are interesting at the very least, and the variety is nice enough in of itself to make for a compelling listen. The physical cassette, which is housed in a handsome cardboard outer box with artwork from LIQUIDS’ Mat Willams, will only set you back $10. That’s less than 40 cents a track! Definitely worth it, especially when you consider how influential the NWI scene has been to punk in general these past five years or so! Highlights include tracks from LIQUIDS, RESEARCH REACTOR CORP., previously unreleased stuff from C.C.T.V. and BIG ZIT(!), and a song called “Jesus Christ Super Hard” by a band called WATERWORKS. Label says tapes will be available until people stop buying them, so go grab one!
Excellent four-song freak collection from the Netherlands. Some dreary slow synth/No Wave from LANGE NIEZEL, followed by a whirling D-beat detonation from OUST (check their 12″ from last year if you haven’t already) on the A-side. As solid as that pairing is (and to be clear, it’s great), the flip features a stellar KBD rocker from GIF, and fans of AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS rejoice upon hearing “Comfort Zone,” because your shit just got punker. Then PONYTAIL TARTIFLETTE closes the record with an eponymous monster, a noisy track that channels the Trim Tab Tapes catalog while tripling down on chaos. “I make horses look like the police,” whispers the vocalist before the band launches into a jerky assault that descends into MELT BANANA-meets-free jazz and then just…stops. Fucking gorgeous pink wax, risograph cover, and a nice educational poster inside—the 7″ comp format catches a lot of flak, but this one is damn near perfect.
Another heavy-hitting Spanish hardcore punk record courtesy of Discos Enfermos, this time from Saragossa. Picking up where their Tu Patria LP left off, VENGANZA delivers the goods with La Fiera, a four-song EP that displays all the great qualities about Spanish punk: the anthemic quality, the fury, the rawness. A solid punk record for any fan of VAASKA and Spanish punk in general.
VERY PARANOIA is a bluesy garage rock outfit that is equal parts sharp and on-the-nose. Their fuzzy guitar riffs are sometimes overshadowed by the gnarly, aggressive vocals that spit fury up and down this record. They pull influences from all over the garage rock spectrum, from Safe as Milk-era CAPTAIN BEEFHEART to the GORIES. You get what you expect from this record. If you want headbanging, hectic drums, and blues solos, this is it.
From the ashes of the ELITE emerges VIOLENT WAY, refreshed and renewed to give the world a kicking. Some classic meat and potatoes Oi! from these Buffalo upstarts, and if you are a real American Oi! fan you’ll love this; willing to bet a couple of quid that these fellas had FORCED REALITY and TEMPLARS written on their pencil case at school.
I’m not sure what genre these devilish dudes from New York City would consider themselves. Death Oi!? Street Macabre? Boasting ghoulish tunes with fuzzy and buzzy guitars, hoarse ghostly vocals, and foreboding hooks galore, these NUMBSKULLS seem to be carving out their own grisly, jagged, and possibly infected path. The music is UK82 at its core, delivered via a decaying VHS tape bootleg of a banned movie. Whatever they call it, this band and the rest of the crew at the Chaotic Uprising Productions label are up to some wild shit, and I’m into it.
WRISTWATCH asks the question, “What if the SPITS went for more of a synthy dance party vibe?” This is punk rock that turned down the RAMONES and added a lot more DEVO. This is what ATOM AND HIS PACKAGE would sound like much angrier and looking for a fight. This synth-garage duo is charmingly grating and forcibly danceable. You will fail to keep your hips still while jamming to this one. Coming from Madison, Wisconsin, they bring the music like only the Midwest can. If we can get this duo on tour with DEVON KAY & THE SOLUTIONS, KITTEN FOREVER, and DIRECT HIT!, it will be the greatest lineup the greater Milwaukee/Chicago area has spit up in a long time. This is the first release from WRISTWATCH, but if the two members can sit still without going back to their multiple other bands or just creating a few more, this project can have some long and interesting legs. Start with the track “Screwed,” and see if you can stop listening. You won’t. Blast it loud and preferably while standing up with nothing fragile nearby. Better yet, find a show and throw your show dollars at them so they keep it up.
