Reviews

Rabbit Rabbit

Black Dots EP2/EP3 LP

Denver punks at it for over ten years put out an LP with 2021’s EP2 and 2023’s EP3. I reviewed a flexi single of theirs a while ago, which was comprised of the first two tracks of EP2, so I feel like I’ve been here before… heartfelt lyrics with backing melodies chiming in on choruses, pretty straightforward mid-tempo instrumentals: palm-muted chugging, rests for vocals to sail over, and economic guitar riffs. I kind of get a HOT WATER MUSIC vibe. While EP2 might be a little faster and heavier, EP3 slows down and is perhaps even more melancholic, if possible. This isn’t something I seek out, but the songwriting is clever, the band is tight, and the production is clean as can be.  Check out “Tired of Dreaming” for a good sample.

Dead Silence Diving Back In 4xEP boxset

Let the ’90s nostalgia train keep rolling, young punks. Colorado’s DEAD SILENCE was everywhere when I discovered DIY punk. I never saw them, but the records (and there were a lot of them) popped up everywhere I looked, and the Freedom and Hell and How Could We Make Any More Money Than This? EPs received constant spins in my early years. Listening to this box, which contains those records along with the TIT WRENCH split and A Benefit tracks spread out over four 7”s, I’m struck by the UK influences that escaped me at the time. DEAD SILENCE really does hit like a group of North American punk kids gobbling up everything they could get their hands on and using it all to make a sound that was theirs, and that is unbelievably refreshing in 2024. Some previously unreleased recordings capturing the band in their infancy are thrown in as well, so this isn’t a straight reissue of records you (should) already have, and the booklet with images and memories makes this worth well more than the price of admission.

Hunger Artist Samsara LP

If Samsara is the cycle of death and rebirth, then that is the story of this album. HUNGER ARTIST consists of Edward Scales, Michael Honch, Tom Messmer, and Carl Silvio, and was formed in Rochester, NY in the mid-’80s. These eight songs were recorded at PCI Recording in 1989, the reels allegedly sitting behind closed doors all this time, just now coming to light on vinyl. The band’s love of DC hardcore, which they grew up on earlier in the decade, shows up in spades on this record—angular rhythms full of rests, followed by crashing drum beats, concise guitar lines screeching over gut-punching bass and strained vocals. From what I can find, they put out the Who Changed? 7” in 1988, contributed to a Flux Records 7” compilation in 1989, recorded the songs that appear on Samsara, and then disappeared. In looking for more on the band, I came across an interview on the Made You a Tape website with Ian MacKaye and Michael Honch, wherein they unearth the 1987 letter that Michael sent Ian, asking him to send tapes of DC bands he couldn’t find in Rochester. It’s an interesting read, and gives a lot of perspective on this record. I can’t find much on the other members, but Michael Honch played in some bands before and after HUNGER ARTIST, including NUNS ON DEATH ROW and POWERLINE in the ’80s and ’90s before taking a musical break, returning in 2011 with ALARMS & CONTROLS and currently NUMBERS STATION, a two-bass instrumental duo. Returning to focus: thank you, Rabbit Rabbit, for rescuing this one-off gem, what else is out there?

Someday Best III (The Empress) EP

This is a young emo pop punk band from South Dakota. Sound wise, this is along the ways of GET UP KIDS and TAKING BACK SUNDAY. The vocals are pretty off on this three-song release. Like way off, in a hitting-lots-of-bad-notes way. Oh well.

Straight From the Heart Same Shit Different Decade LP

I started listening and was taken aback at how ’90s-worship has reached new heights—now bands are emulating the worst of the decade. The tinny recordings, the slipshod performances, the cringe-inducing and shamelessly earnest vocals….really? We’re doing all of that now, when we know better? I get the DIY basement meets photo-post riffing, but this is almost too much…except…except that it’s real. STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART was from Rapid City, South Dakota and existed then. So now I’m listening with entirely different ears, because the context…? It fukkn matters, punk. All of the descriptors that sound like critiques? They still apply, but if you put yourself in their place while you listen—oh fukk, does it sound right. And,  important. This is the demo and an unreleased EP and some live tracks—this is everything. The shit lands real. It’s not for everyone, but it’s for everyone who had to struggle.

The Persecuted Terrorist USA EP

These Austin punks know how to ruck it up UK82 style, making a mess of it for the squares and keeping their hair charged proper at evening’s end. Nice ’90s-style polico/street/drunk punk style graphics and an attitude right up there with early TOTAL CHAOS. Their singer has one of the best pirate growls as evident on mid-tempo numbers like “So Many Lies,” but they also have a nice SHAM sense of melody such as in the title cut. Numbers like “The Prisoner” would be welcome in any VARUKERS set, and the lyrics, while nothing new, are manic yet cerebral and well-written. I could see these folks on stage with the ELECTED OFFICIALS as well as in an ’80s London squat. A well-thought-out and packaged release.

The Stench The Stench LP reissue

From the vaults, mostly unabashed ’90s pop punk. They occasionally add in some quasi-thrash metal guitars, but there’s no need to split hairs here. The band hits all the expected notes: power chords and palm mutes, treble-heavy bass, and adolescent longing. The vocals are a snotty whine. It all would have been right at home on Lookout! Records. Who knows, maybe it was!

User Unauthorized Pigs Got Ahold of Me / Puerco Me Atrapó 7″

As a rapidly dying old punk, it will always warm my tepid, inflamed heart hearing a melody chastising the racist frat boys we’re supposed to call cops. What will really jumpstart my aorta faster than a hot defibrillator is an anti-cop ode sung by high school kids! Austin’s USER UNAUTHORIZED returns with a venomous EXPLOITED-meets-BLACK FLAG-style anthem that screams “piggy” enough times to make even Manson smile. You get it in English and again in Spanish on the flipside, which may seem like a burn, but trust me you’ll have this masterwork on repeat for days.

User Unauthorized Watch Them Fall EP

Five tracks of very serious, very pissed hardcore from this Austin band that sounds like it could have been released in 1984. This is USHC 101-style punk, modeled after the greats like BLACK FLAG (I hear similarities to “Police Story” in “F.O.S.” and “A.P.D.”), MDC, and MINOR THREAT (there is a distinct Ian vocal approach on “Full Speed Ahead”). So, these folks have their hearts in the right place and follow the standard punk protocol: they hate cops, Nazis, racists, the rich, etc. If this classic hardcore sound is your jam, check this out and stop reading this review. Still with me? I love classic USHC, but I have heard this well-intentioned, passionate record a hundred times. There is nothing new going on here, but to purists, maybe that’s okay. I wince a little at some of the lyrics, though. Check out the spoken interlude on “F.O.S.”: “All of you with your shit taste and your shit fake accents / You don’t give a shit about us / You just care that we’re going somewhere now / You just care about making yourself look all quirky and special / but you’re not fucking special / You’re all the fucking same.” Now, there is a time in my life (a long time ago) when that may have spoken to me, but it just comes across as immature and unsophisticated now. God bless them for keeping the traditional hardcore flag flying, but the genre and songwriting have really progressed beyond this.

User Unauthorized Harsh Truth LP

Hailing from Austin, USER UNAUTHORIZED plays an interesting mix of anthemic hardcore and dark punk. Ripping drum fills punctuate heavy breakdowns throughout, which is interesting because they have a track called “No Breakdowns.” The sound (mastered by Enormous Door, so it’s killer) is clean and very detailed from the clear, harsh vocals to the buzz of the strings and the pop of the cymbals and snare. I do like USER UNAUTHORIZED’s ability to bend songs from classic punk riffs to down-tuned hardcore. Layers of lyrics filled with angst and spite toward, well, authority, in all its stifling and suppressing forms. A lot of these compositions reminds me of an old favorite EP by NO WIN SITUATION, but seething with the attitude of AUGUST SPIES, DEFIANCE, and rhythmically, MIND OVER MATTER. Harsh Truth is a solid mix of old-school East Coast hardcore and popularized West Coast punk. But in Texas. Stay harsh!