Reviews

Ribé

Cemented Minds Colostrum 10″

There is no doubt that hardcore punk is a very malleable genre and bands can slowly venture into other sub-genres as time moves along. Loads of hardcore bands slow down on the aggression and tune into their emotions overtime. Hailing from France, CEMENTED MINDS have within their ranks hardcore punk musicians from bands like AMANDA WOODWARD, NINE ELEVEN, and AUSSITOT MORT, but on this project they went into a post-punk mode. Colostrum is their five-song debut, a collage of post-punk melancholia that still retains much of the hardcore energy and can very well please any fan of the aforementioned bands and post-punks alike.

Genital Juggling / Jodie Faster split LP

Don’t judge a book by its cover, lesson one: this fukkn record. The stupid cartoon claymation cover would turn most punks off before they even saw the band names, and I confess that I never would have given this slab a second thought if it were not my punk duty to do so. And holy shit did I eat my thoughts as soon as JODIE FASTER started cranking through five absolute rippers that sound like nothing at all except (apparently) JODIE FASTER. A raw drum attack that reminds me of RUDIMENTS, a penchant for don’t-give-a-fuck combined with serious chops à la SCHLONG, open chord clean guitars like JASPER THREAD, and an overall purity in their ferocity that I haven’t heard since I saw ROLEX last year. I didn’t want to turn the record over. But I did. And GENITAL JUGGLING delivered the same energy on the flip—just as much irreverence in their song construction, but with a SoCal hardcore tinge, and aggression replacing the quirk on the A-side. Listen to all of the records, punks—even the ones you think aren’t up to whatever your bullshit “standards” are—because chances are good that you are wrong. This record is definitely right.

XDeloreanX / XDuhX Split 12″

Great Scott!! A one-sided 12″ of two powerviolence/grind bands from Tuscany’s XDELOREANX and Pisa’s XDUHX. With the X’s bookmarking the band name, XDELORIANX don’t seem to be emphasizing John Delorean’s actual cocaine trafficking charges, but continuing their extended over-the-top tribute to the Back to the Future trilogy. SPAZZ-style short blasts mix curt build-ups and quicker breakdowns with explosions of stop-start hardcore, speeding depth charges of gruff and gnarled vocal tradeoffs about Biff, Professor Emmett Brown, the Twin Pines Mall, Huey Lewis, and other “Pinhead Powerviolence” subjects. Fun, silly, and sharply played, these five tracks are a quick and deft enough jolt for the jokes to wear in and not thin. XDUHX pick up the speed with more of a throttling grindcore bend, with shattering blastbeats and vocal gurgle, punctuated with clearly-shouted Italian samples, oddball musical twists, and quick turns. Seven tracks shifting all over the hardcore spectrum, including defiant classic hardcore, powerviolence dirge and purge, and straight grind, then even tossing in a funk and grind throwdown. A fun “split” with a silk-screened B-side featuring Marty McFly in a punk battle vest with…Vin Diesel? Ray Cappo? Biff? Noise freaks and Michael J. Fox fans move fast: 300 pressed.