Reviews

Noise Merchant

Bad Image II cassette

Five smoldering cuts of pissed-off hardcore punk done just the way I like it, relentless and raw. Word on the street is that their singer, Jaedyn, is known to wield an eight-foot chain during live performances. Sick! With a couple tapes under their (bullet) belt, BAD IMAGE has cultivated a noisy, raw-punk-inspired style that radiates energy and rage. Having relocated from sunscorched Phoenix to dreary Seattle, one has to wonder if the change of location has led to a shift in disposition. No complaints here. From furious D-beat to fist-pumping pogo punk, they are checking all the right boxes. Can’t wait to see where they’ll go from here.

Bell Toll 23’ Demo cassette

At a glance, I’d have expected Las Vegas’s BELL TOLL to be a little heavier. They have a great name and some cool artwork, but to be honest, I was a little let down by the skate punk style I found here. It’s not bad by any stretch, just a little generic. The vocals remind me a bit of MALLWALKER or BE YOUR OWN PET, and sonically, there are some slight BLACK FLAG and DEAD KENNEDYS vibes, but overall it just doesn’t stick the landing. In time, I could see BELL TOLL carving out a place for themselves, but in this listener’s humble opinion, they need to let these songs cook for a little longer.

Cammy Cautious and the Wrestlers Cammy Cautious and the Wrestlers cassette

This is really growing on me. It’s a perfect-length cassette of bouncy garage punk from Sydney. I think it will unfortunately get the obvious AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS comparison due to the thick-accented female vocals, but I think this deserves more attention. Sure, it’s got the thudding drums and crunchy guitar, but this almost has some BABES IN TOYLAND or early HOLE moments. Imagine if AMYL and Co. never listened to AC/DC or the COLOURED BALLS and you might get something like this. “Critter” is my fave.

Cimitero Il Culto della Carogna cassette

Intrepid Italian duo CIMITERO returns for another dose of black-metal-infused hardcore punk, or as they so aptly call it, “candlelight punk.” Their self-titled debut already presented the band as a consistent contender in the world of “spooky chorused guitars” punk bands such as fellow compatriots LUCTA, and Il Culto Della Carogna solidifies their sound and plays on the tropes of both genres that influence CIMITERO: there are D-beats, blastbeats, skank beats, devil’s chords, and a lot of angry shouting. The four songs on this EP are as cold as they are aggressive, never ceasing to be intense, like a bastard child of DARKTHRONE and DISCHARGE. Italian hardcore bands like WRETCHED or STIGMATHE had a lot of “darker” riffing, so I’m guessing it’s natural for an Italian band to gravitate towards the colder, darker aspects of hardcore.

Cura Ab Sublimation cassette

CURA AB’s love of bouncy rhythms and grooves doesn’t enter full metal territory or pure noise. They actually sound restrained to me, since the songs didn’t go longer or louder than they do. I agree with that choice because I prefer wanting more over being served one last chorus/main riff reprise. There’s still plenty of volume and vitriol, along with some fun curveballs like a guitar lead instrumental and some creative drum work. The sound quality is cleaner than I prefer, but there’s enough bass in the mix to give it HC-grade umph.

Cutup Cutup cassette

Quick and solid tape from this Cleveland band that sounds like classic ’80s USHC but reveals layers of weirdness right below the surface. Vocalist Mark has a vocal approach that mixes the unhinged power-slur of John Brannon with the wavering croon of David Yow. It’s pretty great. Once the fast HC battering ram effect wears off a little, subtle details like the fat, fuzzed-out bass and melodic breakdowns weaving through the five short songs become apparent. This is fast hardcore with texture, depth, and personality. Tracks like “Last Man Laughing” and “Can’t Eat a Condo” expertly veer between punk and noise rock lanes, greeting traditionalism with sneering experimentation. Check it out—it’s definitely worth six minutes of your time.

Desborde Todo Es Una Mierda cassette

Fast Argentine punk with synth parts. I don’t want to call it synth punk, as the electronic parts seem to be very appendaged-on for this recording. You hear them in the beginning or the end of a song, but the guitar generally drowns it out once it roars in. Aside from that, this is a tape full of rippers.

Desborde Ya No Kiero Ser Parte De Este Mundo demo cassette

Buenos Aires band DESBORDE’s first release (although they put two of this tape’s seven songs on Bandcamp in March of this year, if you deem that to count) is being released by a ton of labels in different parts of the world, and I can only assume they all had much the same “woah!” reaction as I did on first hearing. It’s synth punk, but pretty far removed from the post-CONEHEADS/NWI scene egginess that seems to be the default style for that sound at present: it wouldn’t surprise me if none of DESBORDE’s five members owned any DEVO albums. Instead, it’s super catchy, mid-paced street punk-adjacent stuff with sing-along choruses (if you know Spanish) and groovy keyboard fizz—the juxtaposition is kinda similar to NACHTHEXEN, although DESBORDE is on closer terms with punk orthodoxy, sound-wise. Gotta imagine this band would be amazing to see live where most people in the room knew the songs back to front.

Final Dose Dark Places cassette

I was blown away by this solo project’s first demo of furious fuck-the-world blackened hardcore. This cassette couldn’t be a better follow-up. This is like someone took Ohio’s MIDNIGHT and ringed out all the fun like a dirty rag, and I mean that as a compliment. There are plenty of headbanging riffs and gang vocals, but the affair is imbued with such an impressive bleakness that it stands on its own ground. The black metal cold really sets in on standout track “Sick,” which is the perfect collision of Deathcrush-era MAYHEM and slamming D-beat. These tracks are engineered to destroy, perfect apocalypse catharsis, and the fact that it’s all performed, mixed and mastered by one person—B. Fusco—is pretty astounding. I wouldn’t change a thing, and I want more.

Glass Praxis Demo 2023 cassette

Discordant post-hardcore with a metallic bent. Nothing whiny though, this is ugly, mean, and brutal. Reminiscent of bands such as PALATKA and REVERSAL OF MAN, though not as angular or chaotic. Which is not to say that GLASS PRAXIS is tame in any form or fashion! There’s a groove that they lock into that is not dissimilar to NO TREND. Heavy, dour skramz punk from one of the best scenes in the country, Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Noisy and unsettling music for bleak times.

Idiopathique Idiopathique cassette

IDIOPATHIQUE throws everything at the wall and sees what sticks. They tear through a mixtape’s worth of styles, from crust to MINUTEMEN-esque jazz parts to early ’80s HC. The dual vocals are pitched screams and growls throughout. I felt my attention pulled in too many directions here. All of those genres deploy more than enough aural input on their own. Featured back-to-back like this, they just felt like a hurdle instead of a provocation. It’s also possible that my middle-aged self is just fatally out of touch with the youth of today.

Inflicter 7 Song Demo cassette

This seven-song demo from the UK’s INFLICTER is raw, fast, raging hardcore punk, not unlike the fast, thrashier hardcore of the HERESY/RIPCORD/STUPIDS late ’80s UKHC tradition. It’s more of a modern yet raw and noisy approach, with breakdowns for the moshers out there.

Kiht Fihsto Kiht Fihsto cassette

It took me a couple listens to appreciate this EP. KIHIT FIHSTO melds a bunch of different styles ranging from D-beat to metalcore to skate punk to Kill ‘Em All-era METALLICA. Sometimes when a band draws from different influences, it comes off as more disjointed than it does eclectic. That’s the impression I got on my first run-through here. But the more I re-listened to this album, the more it all clicked into place. They’re just a group of folks looking to have a good time playing rock’n’roll, and that’s all that really matters. To hell with an aesthetic! The guitars sound huge on this and are impressively tight, even if they are just power chords. As a fellow Illinoisan, I always need to give props to a band from Not Chicago.

Last Quokka Red Dirt cassette

Real fukkn infectious Aussie punk with serious modern indie vibes—this is a band whose vision and mission are fully realized. The band that by all rights you should hear on the damn radio and think “damn, commercial viability has finally caught up to actual quality,” even though that will never really happen. “My Girl” is the smash hit that will never be, and literally every track here is absolute in-your-face garage punk of the highest order. Snarling ferocity and hooks for days, I’m actually not sure what else you could ask for.

Man With Rope Multiply. Expand. Consume. cassette

With a name like that, you’re probably not going to sport the band’s shirt at your nan’s birthday, unless of course she’s well into dark ’00s-flavoured crustcore, in which case she could already be into MAN WITH ROPE and might actually nick your shirt (it’s her big day, after all), so maybe bring another non-crust top to be safe. This lot are from St. Louis and Multiply. Expand. Consume. is their first oeuvre, with five songs of heavy and anguished crust that should have been released in 2005 and can be said to fall under the “neocrust” umbrella. I hardly ever listen to that subcategory these days, and I realize it has become something of a derogatory term in some quarters as many do not look back too kindly on the ’00s. But when the genre is that well done and the passion and energy are there, I’d rather listen to this tape than the fancy post-punk act of the day. MAN WITH ROPE is not one of those total TRAGEDY copycats that I do, truthfully, tend to avoid because they often dick around too much with melodies and forget to hit hard. MAN WITH ROPE does not. There are elements of HIS HERO IS GONE of course, but I am hearing a lot of ACURSED and mid-’00s SKITSYSTEM too, the Swedish school basically, and Madeline’s vocals sound incredible here, vehement and quite extreme inviting AMBULANCE or SCHIFOSI to the table of despair. Not a style I would blast daily, but an enjoyable and a little nostalgic moment nonetheless.

Metrics Demo 2022 cassette

High-energy hardcore from Spain that teeters on the edge of egg-punk thanks to their inclusion of a keyboard. Speaking of which, I’ve been listening to this EP on repeat for the last couple of weeks or so and only just realized there were synth leads layered in throughout the entire demo. In fact, the guitar overpowers almost everything, including the vocals. Otherwise, the production here is solid and crisp. I would just suggest they be a little more careful with the mixing next time around. All in all, a decent debut from METRICS. It makes me look forward to what they’ll do next.

Nagazaki Planeta//Carcel cassette

Bogotá, Columbia has produced some of the best noisy, aggro punk, and NAGASAKI is the latest premium example. If you like noisy, fuck-it-all, crashing raw punk, then you’ll want this cassette. With vocals that sound like they’re already destroyed from roaring against the system, bass lines that sound ripped from DISCLOSE, and guitars that crackle and grind, you’ll find yourself nodding along to these four songs of indignation. The guitar on “Reflejo” soars beautifully through the composition with a style that is similar to Randy Uchida’s. If you’re a fan of punk crudo and you haven’t heard NAGAZAKI yet, then wake the fuck up with this cassette!

Pigmale Brains Sanity? Okay! cassette

Weird, punky band from Indianapolis. I thought these guys were so fun to listen to, they were so different and weird that I was immediately hooked. My absolute favorite track was “Big Struttin,” where the guitar and vocals mimic one another tauntingly, then morphs into this just absolutely heavy metal scream that was so distant yet guttural, I was blown away. I also loved the variety of kinda funky bass lines with both heavy slower guitar (like the explosion of noise in “Liar Liar,” wow) and more classically punky guitar. The way the vocals and instruments worked off of and balanced one another was so impressive because they weren’t separate at all but continued to create one cohesive musical space. The vocals also reminded me of Kat Moss of SCOWL at times, but with a more kinda whiny and unique quality. Absolutely loved these guys.

Rash Decision Year of the Silence LP

Year of Silence is raging, crossover-style hardcore with thrash metal chugging guitars with pummeling, powerful drums and vocals to sing along with. The album was written during the pandemic, with an ode to health workers who risked their lives, with humorous yet important stuff to say about subjects ranging from anti-fascism to the solidarity of the working class. Easily could’ve been dismissed as some band that sings about eating pizza and partying, but in actuality, they’re singing about a sociopolitical reality more than most DIY hardcore punk bands out there. Unique approach for this style of hardcore.

Skabs World Burner cassette

UK metalpunk four-piece SKABS return after their 2023 demo with World Burner. Four tracks of heavy-ass, death metal-influenced punk with “crustified” black metal-styled vocals. SKABS’ dynamic sound oscillates between mid-tempo grooves with occasional blastbeats here and there, maintaining things interesting throughout. Sometimes you just want to listen to something that makes you want to headbang and this is it!

Snitfit Snitfit demo cassette

Nothing screams punk more than a group of teenagers making hardcore music, and SNITFIT, a group from Newfoundland, is a testament to the importance of it. With classic punk and garage-y instrumentals combined with riot grrrl lyricism, they bring a fresh style of punk feminism reimagined. Reminiscent of the yowling screams of Amy Taylor of AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS, combined with a deep passion bloomed from youth, SNITFIT has an enticing edge. Songs like “Bitch” and “Grope” show how SNITFIT uses blunt lyricism to strike through to the listener, as it feels like their instruments are somehow going to burst through the speakers and, quite literally, hit you in the face.

Ternura Trinchera cassette

Six tracks of politically-charged hardcore sung in Spanish from Bilbao’s TERNURA. Sonically, it sounds like something that came out of the US East Coast area in the late ’80s or early ’90’s—mostly hard-hitting tracks with breakdowns, but also melodic at times. An honest expression of the real struggles of daily life.

The Executed Demonstration cassette

Phoenix, Arizona’s the EXECUTED has released this demo on Noise Merchant Records from the UK, a key label to discover a wide range of emerging hardcore bands worldwide. Four tracks in less than seven minutes gives us the perfect intro for the EXECUTED. Sharp guitars, even sharper voice, good riffing and beat changes. Listen to the track “Blinders” for speedy pogo and riff rage, continue with “Grid Decay” for a catchy guitar jumping along with the drums followed by a downbeat that goes in crescendo to the pit, then “Shock State” follows quite in the same line as “Blinders,” and finish the album with “The Last Riot” to extinguish whatever was left of hatred and violence in you before the EXECUTED. Really fun album, hardcore punk mixed with nods to and cadences of ’80s skate rock and classic hardcore like the downbeats—for me it’s a formula that works, but that you don’t get to hear as often as you’d think. Highly recommended.

V/A Palestine Solidarity Compilation, Vol. 2 cassette

The second volume in an ongoing series of compilations to help raise funds in solidarity with Palestine. You get 27 tracks from 27 different artists contributing unreleased demos, covers, and live versions of songs, so you already know there is great diversity of sounds to be had, and new gems to uncover from bands like SPREAD JOY, CITRIC DUMMIES, SICK THOUGHTS, URANIUM CLUB, and more. The content that makes up this compilation doesn’t matter that much, even though it is a great collection to be sure. But the content as a vehicle to try and help others is and should be the focus here.