Reviews

Pokeys

Bootcamp Controlled Burn cassette

Fast and angry hardcore punk from Iowa City with a D-beat backbone and catchy hooks. With their sights set on the genocidal war machine in the Middle East, Henry Kissinger, scummy rich kids, and the factory-farming ravaging the Midwest, BOOTCAMP provides plenty to hate (on) here. Each track is a banger, but I recommend the closing title track, “Controlled Burn.” At a whopping one-minute-and-forty-seconds, it’s their longest track and a total scorcher, one you can imagine the knock-off Looney Tunes on the cover dancing to while the industrial farming facility behind them burns to the ground. Great stuff and highly recommended.

Psyop Dare to Live EP

PSYOP’s Dare to Live, recorded in West Liberty, Iowa in 2022 and released through Iowa City’s DIY label Pokeys Recordz, is a blistering, no-frills hardcore attack from the Midwest. This four-piece band puts speed above precision with these eight guitar-driven songs, each never crossing the two-minute mark. While most of these songs would fit right in on an ’80s hardcore comp, at times they also veer into noise rock territory, like in “State Violence,” which echoes the dissonant weirdness of Goo-era SONIC YOUTH. Singer Dolly Sperry (also of BOOTCAMP) sing-talks lyrics tackling topics like war apathy and police brutality, rejecting meat consumption and finding solidarity in an anti-authoritarian tribe. It’s raw, urgent, and unpolished in the best possible way. I hope they lean further into the weird without sacrificing the energy. Check out the track “Dare to Live.”