Reviews

Hey Fuck You

Blanket of M Fever on Front Street… CD

Not to be confused with M BLANKET, BLANKET OF M plops out a bouncing live album that leaves you with a good understanding of what the band is all about. Although they hail from Tyler, TX, there is a heavy East Coast and WESTON sense to their pop punk that comes off more on the non-live tracks on their Bandcamp page. The slower tunes have a definite RAMONES vibe with a side smile to the MISFITS. I usually hate live punk recordings as they tend to sound horrible, muddy, and the band, overall, is far, far less interesting than in their recorded material, but this stands out. Great crowd sounds with tons of tight friends, a few inside jokes, and probably jumping around and such. I would most certainly go check them out if they ever played within 40 minutes of where I live.

Catspidar Catspidar CD

Noisy, loud, and chaotic! Twenty “songs,” or bursts of noisy grinding hardcore punk, solely focused on venting about how bad random things are. Song titles like “Knocked Loose is Bad” or “TikTok is Bad” instantly makes one think of ANAL CUNT and Seth Putnam’s hatred towards the world. Sonically, it is tamer than the aforementioned band, and in a way comes close to some of the more punky PIG DESTROYER songs. CATSPIDAR only wants one thing: to tell you that everything sucks!

DFC 666 CD

Legendary Brazilian band that merges hardcore and thrash, delivering fastcore and crossover mayhem all around. Active since 1993, they have the energy and blasting fury of skate punk from the early ’90s but with a fiercer grip on the hardcore side, in addition to being political and compromised with Brazil’s reality. There’s carioca breakdowns mixed with speedy fastcore. Recommended as a reference example of this wave of hardcore punk that took over Latin America like 30 years prior, full of energy and relentless tupa-tupa to pogo ‘til you drop. Favorite track: “Respeito É Bom E Conservas Os Dentes” (that translates to “Respect is Good and You Get to Keep Your Teeth”). Bom pra caralho.

Gottlieb I Am This Place cassette

Angry-as-hell four-piece hardcore group from Los Angeles. This is their second EP, following 2021’s Dear Heroes, and this double A-side cassette offers a litany of social and political critiques and downright condemnations. Themes of consumerism, billionaires, racists, homophobes, and sense of place get highlighted and torn apart during this five-song basher. Pretty straightforward HC musically, but I think the lyrics shine through and are really poignant. Lines like “It all leads back to shopping centers, touch screen skies / I’m terrified that we’re in denial / But we love the lie” from “Venetian Hotels” and “I looked up to my cousin / He beat me with a shovel and passed a bit of wisdom / Stop being such a girl” from “Man Up / Down” stand out to me, blending a sense of self into the issues at play. Not something you’re going to put on, snap your fingers to, and have a good time, but rather, it will enliven your sense of rage (if it’s not already at its max). Wake up!

Lone Creep 100 Beers of Music: The First Year CD

Self-proclaimed AARP hardcore! Thrash-inspired one-man punk act out of the Southwest. Biting satire, not only aimed at nationwide issues seen in songs like “Get Shot” and “Corporate Job,” but also on a personal level with tracks like “My Neighbor is a Dickhead” and “I’m in a Foul Mood.” I can definitely relate with those last two. Charisma here is infectious, and his vocals are absolutely built for punk music. Very strong and in-your-face! Lots of attitude and confidence. You can tell this dude just loves having fun, making music, and cultivating his scene at large. I did a little research here and his social media presence is nothing but PMA. Love to see it. The kind of guy you’d love to get a beer with. Well worth a spin, especially for all you old fogies!

Lone Creep Drama Queen CD

Back in the ’80s there was a band from Colorado Springs, Colorado called the CREEPS that played thrashy skatepunk and had a pretty good run, amassing a dedicated regional audience over the course of their seven-year lifespan. I encountered them on a fascinating comp that I reviewed in 2023, Colorado Springs Underground 1983–1994: Volume 1. In an unsuccessful attempt to revive the CREEPS for a potential fortieth anniversary album, one of said CREEPS stabbed out on his own…and thus we have LONE CREEP. As a solo endeavor, LONE CREEP carries the torch of the original outfit’s sound, cranking out energetic, at times melodic punk rock with a wry wit and political bent. There’s something about this album that reminds me of Metal Devil Cokes-era MDC. Perhaps it’s the blend of crude and satirical humor with biting political commentary, or the fact that the original CREEPS were also known to cover “Mongoloid.” Whatever the case, there is a lesson here for us all: if your friends turn out to be more flaky than creepy, never fear—even forty years on, you too may become a LONE CREEP.

Panic Defense I Don’t Give a Shit CD

Ahhh…this is a tough one to review. I’m not certain that this is a solo project, but in many ways it sounds like one. This is stylistically all over the map. There’s lots of shreddy guitar work and tons of tempo changes throughout the nine songs on this disc. Some of the tunes are rooted in punk, but there are grind parts, metalcore parts, and even some hip-hop thrown in for (not) good measure. I’ll just come out and say it: I did not enjoy listening to this. The guitar tone is frankly excruciating, and everything sounds very synthetic. I can’t quite suss out if the drums are electronic, but they are really shrill and tinny. Ordinarily, I’d have zero reluctance with my criticism, but there is an aspect of this release that has to be mentioned. Shortly after this project was completed, one of the band members (maybe the only band member?) passed away, and all the proceeds are going to his family to support his young child. While I can’t necessarily recommend picking this up for the tunes themselves, it sounds like a cause worthy of support given the tragic circumstances.

Riot Division …The Album CD

The latest album from Richmond, Indiana’s (not Virginia’s) RIOT DIVISION. Artwork looks like an obscure energy drink, or locally-produced beef jerky package you can get at a desolate gas station in the middle of nowhere America. The sound isn’t too far off from that: some early crossover thrash metal and death metal influences that probably had some sort of weird impact on the creation of nu metal, but that’s not too important. For fans of Monster Energy, Full Throttle, No Fear, etc.

Shit Tax World Demise cassette

SHIT TAX seems to be a band that has been going for more than ten years, but only bothered to release something last year. To each their own pace, I guess. The moniker gave it away a little: SHIT TAX is a punk-as-fuck band playing direct, punk-as-fuck music. I am reminded of ’90s US anarcho-punk bands a lot, like RESIST, BROTHER INFERIOR, or DEPRIVED. Fast and snotty punk rock with lyrics against the pigs, religion, and consumerism, and about trying to survive in a violent society without going insane. It’s not bad, but with all the songs sounding a lot like each other, I found myself losing focus halfway through the tape. It is not so easy to keep the listener engaged with such a straightforward punk rock sound, and I think the EP format would have suited SHIT TAX better. They must be fun live, though, and I’m sure the local studs-and-spikes brigade are into them. And they’ve got a raptor playing the guitar on their Bandcamp, which is a definite yes.

Brain Bleed / Infuriate / Riot Division / Shit Tax Four Way Split CD

Four-way split effort delivered to us by Hey Fuck You! Records, featuring two tracks per band coming from Chicago, Minneapolis, Richmond, and Montreal. Crust punks BRAIN BLEED really stood out here with their forceful, female-led vocals in the track “Empty,” while INFURITATE grasps at much more precise, metallic-driven crust punk that features a minimum of powerviolence stances. RIOT DIVISION lacks precision and the mixing efforts are missed, as it sounds like rotten bananas, perhaps better live. SHIT TAX is near noisecore in its purest form, recommended for lovers of such, as it still lacks mixing effort, or rehearsal, hard to tell.

Slutbomb Attentäter CD

SLUTBOMB from Cincinnati claims to be “the fastest queercore band in Ohio,” and they’re not lying. Blasts of powerviolence link up with sludgy riffs to form a slow/fast wall-of-death sound that is as much old school thrashy hardcore as it is metal-injected punk. The guitar tones on this recording are some of my recent favorites (see “Blood of Monsters” or “Slippery Elm Bark” for examples), and sound sort of like an angle grinder running underwater. Debra’s vocal barrage is raw and articulate while firing off lyrics critical of all the things creating our contemporary global hellscape. All in all, this eight-song recording is a blast from start to finish while also bringing a fiery and crucial message.

River City Rejects / Triangle Fire HFY Split Series, Vol. 1 cassette

Split effort with four tracks per band. Nebraska’s RIVER CITY REJECTS execute classic hardcore punk flirting with anthemic street punk, fierce, fast-paced, and straight-to-the-point with a twist of irony, and even some palm-muting trances to continue the fast drum beats. Live vibes all around on “Blacklisted,” filled with angry vocals that remind me of GG ALLIN from time to time. On the B-side, there’s Georgia’s TRIANGLE FIRE delivering some kind of crust powerviolence with faster blastbeats and high-pitched, doomy vocals, and then some fast-paced classic hardcore punk with a formula of singing to the beat. Depending on the track, it gives a feeling of some crazy crossover—sometimes it is a demon from hell, and sometimes it is Beki Bondage from VICE SQUAD. Perhaps too much of a mixed cocktail on this side.

Unabomb Cabin Fever cassette

Ripping hardcore from Michigan that goes hard from start to finish. These five tracks blast by with lyrics commenting on corruption, organized religion, racist punks, and martial law. I have a feeling the members of UNABOMB have some classic thrash records in their collections because they have riffs, and when the Big-Four-style, palm-muted, galloping power chug starts up on songs like “Blind Patriot” and “Old,” the songwriting arrangement soars past the confines of your everyday one-minute HC song. The vocals surge into a blackened holler at times, and the drumming is locked-in and super tight with a high-pitched snare tone that blazes through the buzzing guitars and ups the intensity. Also cool is the simple line-drawing cover art, which looks like the background setting for an EXTORTION record.