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HONOLULU HIGH is a three-piece garage band from C-town. Plays the Secret Names seems to be the band’s debut full-length, aside from a previous release of demos. The songs are punchy and distorted cries to days long gone, a drunken high school reunion. These cats are reliving their glory years all over this thing. Kind of reminds me of DIE ZORROS with Guy Picciotto at the wheel.
KRUPPS, from Nottingham, play an often fun sort of music (primitive post-punk) and bring good cheer as a live band (or did, to me, when I saw them), so it’s stuck with me just how miserable-sounding the album-length tape they did before this one, which is their third in total, was. Sport for All turns the dial back a bit towards merriment, helped perhaps by songs playing heavily ironic tribute to Peter Shilton (retired football goalkeeper/hero to Nottingham people of a certain age/unwavering supporter of the Conservative Party/moron) and Saddam Hussain (you know). Alan Martin is a great post-Mark E. Smith off-the-dome ranter waiting to be discovered by a wider audience, and the KRUPPS engine room kicks out just the right kind of stumbling dirge jams for his tale-telling—COUNTRY TEASERS, BOGSHED, pre-album PAVEMENT kinda thing. Real people music, and real great.
Chicago’s LOST LEGION is a fixture in the punk/Oi! scene here, and for good reason. In what is becoming a more and more crowded scene, these guys excel not only in their live performances, but also on the strength of their recorded output, particularly their latest LP Behind the Concrete Veil. Sonically, the record sounds great, the vocals are gravelly and rough, the bass is nasty and overdriven, the guitars cut like a knife, and the drums are locked in from start to finish. It’s a visceral mix of Oi! and street punk with some deathrock and post-punk sprinkled in, resulting in a sound that can certainly appeal to punks and skins of all shapes and sizes. More importantly than all of that, the songwriting is superb. This is a strongly anti-capitalist record that does a hell of a job intelligently exploring themes of human disconnect, anxiety, and internal struggle in a way that feels a little more thoughtful than your average punk record. At least a quarter of the songs reference losing humanity and further drifting away from the natural; on “War Machine,” vocalist Ian admits “I don’t know what you expect from me / I don’t get to think / You built a war machine.” On “Animals We Used to Be,” there’s a sense of nostalgia for a time before “they clipped our tails and they gave us all new names.” Elsewhere, there’s disdain for cellphones (“Staring Down the Valley”) and meaningless work (“Disposed”), and on the anti-police “Silhouettes in Blue Light,” the band forgoes the usual “fuck the police” rallying cry, and instead explores the trajectory of someone inevitably ending up becoming a cop through familial encouragement and evolution. These are commonly found themes in this genre, but are communicated so cleverly here—I highly recommend reading the lyrics as you listen along. This is a great rock album, but it’s also an intimate and personal record that many of us can probably relate to at the moment. After all, isn’t that what this music is all about?
I reviewed MIRAGE’s demo, which was a good introduction but mostly made me wish to hear something more, bigger, refined. Here they are with an LP, released again by Roachleg. The record sounds big and hyper-energetic with enough nasty noise, and the music is hectic: guitars and drums racing with each other while certain riffs reach back and forth beyond power chords, using a lot of feedback, dumb-but-great melodies, and fingers walking on strings as drunk spiders. Loud, often spoken-sung agitation with a bucketful of despair to vary the vocals. They are able to mix the obvious Italian influences well with their own manic ideas. It sounds modern for sure, but the bleak modernity did not infect this record—it is balanced between an homage to a scene far away (both in time and distance) and a present-day hardcore rager. This record is fucking great!
Vancouver deep-wounder powerviolence, with heavy grindcore stances, insanity-driven vocals, and the sweetest characteristic couplings at the start and end of every song, as it should be in this not-music war. Crazy riffage and madmen drums to the core. Sonically harsh and relentlessly passionate execution—you can feel the intensity brought by the band, almost achieving a live gig vibe. Interesting, and could be in a looped spin for some time as the songs average 30 seconds each.
I’m nearly 40 and have listened to a lot of skate punk. It’s extremely formulaic, lots of hi-hat/snare doodle-bap, and typically singing about girls, booze, and boards. Not PUNKY TUNES. For me, they’re incredibly refreshing. This is the kind of punk that attracted me to the DIY umbrella long ago. First off, their singer Marie has a strong voice with a clear tone and excellent range. PUNKY TUNES is a five-piece from France, but they sing in English. They even have their own band theme song! Bands like the BOLLWEEVILS, GROOVIE GHOULIES, and the LILLINGTONS all have songs where they mention the band name in the song, some even spelling them out. PUNKY TUNES does this with the song “Punky Family,” but it doesn’t feel well-worn or tired. This group has a refreshing passion for making good music in a genre that has been trying to stay young and relevant since its beginning. PUNKY TUNES is checking a lot of boxes for me. They’re political on purpose, catchy, dynamic, talented, and it comes through their music that they really give a shit about what they preach. Their website proudly calls out their “anti-fascist, pro-feminist, animal-friendly, LBGT+, Earth protection, and DIY values.” By the way, their 7 SECONDS cover on this record is fabulous. I also highly recommend you listen to their RANCID cover of “Fall Back Down.” Honestly, everything I’ve heard from their catalog is a certified banger.
With two EPs in the rearview mirror, REARVIEW RHONDA looks ahead to their first LP Glutton for Bad Energy. Hailing proudly from Bloomington, Indiana, Stefanie Boucher leads this gang with vocals and a bass, having the venom of BIKINI KILL on songs like “Disconnect” while balancing with softer tendencies on “Catapult,” which features clean guitar strums and a slower gait, even including a saxophone and synth near the end. Endless riffing throughout backed by splashy drums and Stephanie’s carefree attitude keeps this CD on repeat for me—a truly great debut full-length.
The label’s Bandcamp page describes this act as “anti-dance,” but I don’t know about that. This sounds pretty dance-oriented to me. The songs are long and repetitive, so it seems like they’re designed as such. I could see this being pretty hot at your local underground goth club. I don’t mean to be the MRR snitch here (no pun intended), but I would barely even consider this punk-adjacent. I guess it has sort of a PiL feel to it, but it sounds more like SHE WANTS REVENGE or something you’d hear on ’00s alternative radio. Not a lot of interesting stuff going on here. It’s dry and a tad boring. Who knows, maybe I’m just in the wrong setting. Might sound better at a dark warehouse party after a couple drinks. In my present state, though, it’s a slog to get through.
A ten-song novelty rock opera written during and about the end of a relationship. I’ll pause this review for a moment while the reader recovers from the involuntary massive eye-roll that I, myself, also experienced when I put together exactly what this album was. Now that you’re back with me, I gotta say, my initial perception softened greatly once I was a few songs deep into this album. SEA URCHIN does a surprisingly good job meandering from subgenre to subgenre incredibly fluidly, often within the course of a single song. From ’50s rock’n’roll to pop punk to stoned-out heavy ’70s hard rock, they hit all points in between. Is it brilliant? Probably not. But is it as goofy as it initially seemed? Absolutely not. Songwriting and musicianship are pretty spot-on, and some of these songs are actually killer. Specifically, the song “Rock!” is wildly heavy and doesn’t sound like it was recorded in the last 50 years. How I found myself getting a little emotional during a song entitled “I Beefed It (On My Motorbike)” is absolutely beyond me—perhaps in part due to the fact that as a youth, the first cassette tape I ever bought with my own money was MEAT LOAF’s Bat Out of Hell II, and this song legit sounds like Jim Steinman could have written it. I don’t think I would go see the musical, were it all to be realized, but then again, getting to see some of these songs performed live might be worth it.
San Antonio-based SEX MEX, the solo project of Clark Gray turned full touring band, brings us another compilation of previous 2023 releases. This definitely has the vocal distortion and itchy synth lines of a bedroom project, so much so that when I dropped the needle on the opener “New Girl,” I thought my turntable was playing at 45 rpm. Settling into the reality of this fast, lo-fi mania, I found genuinely catchy power pop songs, ultimately preferring the A-side that contains three of the four tracks from the Double Bubble Blowout cassette (the fourth track is on the B-side). The B-side features songs from the We’re a Happy Family cassette, as well as “Better Off Dead” and “Electric Chair” which both made the preceding album Sex Mex 22. And while “Electric Chair” keeps making the cut for these compilations, I think songs like “Bloody Lip” and “Sadie” set a higher bar for the band. Looking back on SEX MEX’s discography, Clark Gray is really trying to build an iconography of his face on the album covers with sort of a middle school Myspace aesthetic, and the music itself seems to be a lot of repacking of songs and albums, to the extent that in April of this year, they put out Repackaged, which is just that. All of these things make me dislike this band, and then I listen to the music and get lost in the bubblegum ecstasy of some glitter-and-balloon party that I can’t help but enjoy. You decide.
A shambolic, wild sound. The sound of a punk band knocking over a dish rack. Some songs tear ahead with basement show abandon, while songs like “Void” feature a slow, almost FLIPPER-like lurch. The band sounds all over the place, but I suspect all those bum notes and ringing crash cymbals could be intentional. Either way, the sound is convincing and compelling, although a half an hour is a long time to keep things at such a fever pitch.
London/Freiburg punks TRENCHKOAT’s latest LP from Kentucky’s Big Neck Records. Eclectic mix of twelve tracks ranging from POISON IDEA-like ’80s hardcore punk to something RIKK AGNEW would have written with his mid-tempo songs. At times, there is some dark RUDIMENTARY PENI-ness with rather screechy, almost black-metal-sounding vocals that unfortunately sit pretty high in the mix. Still, a hard-to-describe, unique-sounding release with a cool approach. Looking forward to more future output from this band (maybe even a remixed/remastered version of this release).
Lo-fi, bedroom-recorded, bass-and-drum-machine outsider music project from Milwaukee, WI. The six songs, which are sandwiched between weirdo noise/experimental intro and outro, seem to dabble in a wide array of different punk subgenres. I get the impression that the attempt is some sort of anarcho RUDIMENTARY PENI-style craziness, but it doesn’t always come across like that in any way other than the strained vocal delivery. There’s a couple interesting songs, though. In particular, “Bed of Lettuce” is wittily written and would appeal to a bunch of modern egg-punk lovers. It is a bit of a departure from the rest of the strong, politically leftist lyrics of the originals, not that you’ll hear me complain about that—I also hate war and fascists and billionaires and the monotony of capitalism. All in all, it’s interesting, and not entirely UNPLEASANT, aside from the choice of covers. The MONSULA (’90s Lookout! Records) cover ends up sounding way more emo than early pop-punk-inspired. I’m unfamiliar with the other cover song, which is of a band called the THOUGHT of whom I couldn’t find any info, but the cover feels like a drum machine rendition of a folk-punk song.
VILE CHERUBS were one of the great teenage punk bands of the latter half of the ’80s, an out-of-time unit whose moment has finally come. Recorded by GRAY MATTER’s Geoff Turner in his garage (a.k.a. WGNS Studios), this LP remixes and remasters the legendary The Man Who Has No Eats Has No Sweats cassette onto its proper format. It’s frankly astonishing that a pack of high school kids could lay down these moody, intricate songs with such convincing authority and keen aesthetic sense. Hot off Revolution Summer’s aftermath, VILE CHERUBS looked through a glass darkly, and liked what they saw—Nuggets filtered through Flex Your Head. Bassist Seth Lorinczi channels John Entwhistle’s domineering style, providing big fat lines for the band to latch on to, while guitarist (and latter-day sonic restorer) Tim Green cranks the YARDBIRDS’ amps with hardcore’s take-no-prisoners attitude. Yet Lysergic Lamentations transcends being “merely” ripping punk with garage trappings—VILE CHERUBS peered hard through the 13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS’ kaleidoscope, opening up their third eyes with youthful abandon and delivering a lost classic ripe for rediscovery.
With a name like this, I was expecting some kind of corny Deutschpunk band, but I was wrong, and, if the feeling is never pleasant, I was still glad to deal with a band from Slovenia, as it is not a scene I often have the opportunity to explore. WASSERDICHT seem to have been active from 1994 until the mid-’00s, and this is their comeback record, so I assume they must be, or have been anyway, quite famous at home. The band belongs to the generation of ’90s bands like PIZDA MATERNA and other Balkan bands like NULA, HOCU? NECU!, or BAD JUSTICE, a little-known wave (if you are not local) that clearly deserves to be documented. I have to confess that upon seeing the cover, I was not expecting to like Prihajamo v Miru (meaning “we come in peace”), but this is a decent effort. WASSERDICHT plays heavy, beefy, direct hardcore with great gruff vocals reminiscent of ’80s Swedish bands like SVART PARAD or AVSKUM. I think the band is solid when the music goes fast with an old school touch (an almost Scandinavian vibe at times) as that is where the band sounds the most intense, but the slower songs lose me a little. The lyrics are all in Slovenian, which contributes to making the record sound even angrier. Pretty good indeed.
I was unaware of AGONISTA before this review, which goes to show that there are still many fish in the sea indeed, and one is never far from a good surprise (or a terrible one, unfortunately). It would be far-fetched to claim that this band, located between Tijuana and San Diego, had a wheel to reinvent, and I think I like the idea of the band more than I do this album. AGONISTA can be said to belong to the long-running Tijuana crust tradition (or “crust mafia,” as COACCION put it), and from this perspective, I understand what they are trying to achieve—a blend of ’90s Scandicrust with some rocking metal influences (the vocal style points in that direction) and a touch of dark post-hardcore. I’m getting a big ’00s vibe here, as the songwriting is clearly more diverse than your average crustcore band in terms of pacing and transitions. Like COP ON FIRE covering STATE OF FEAR and DRILLER KILLER at an ’00s post-hardcore afterparty. The band is really tight, but the production is too clean for my liking, and Grey and Dry’s sound is lacking in raw punk brutality for a Scandicrust album (from my perception of and expectations from the genre, anyway) and doesn’t really do justice to the songs. I’m sure it would appeal to those who prefer a modern hardcore production in their crust, though. The lyrics are both in Spanish and English, which I enjoy as they reflect the band’s in-between-ness and bring some political context.
Relentlessly pummeling hardcore punk from New York City. Three songs of absolutely stomping, crushing hardcore. This just plain rules! For the Killed by Death aficionados amongst us, at times the vocalist of B.A.D.G.E. sounds remarkably similar to the singer of TEDDY AND THE FRAT GIRLS, but on top of a revved-up powerhouse of a band rather than the plodding, somewhat nonsensical classic KBD track. Truly, the only drawback is that there are just three songs.
Two things that I find impressive about this album: first and foremost, the fact that this is a two-piece. Very curious what octave pedals they’re using here, because it feels incredibly full. Secondly, the drummer is fantastic and tight as hell. Otherwise, this band reminds me of those No Idea acts that sound more like FOO FIGHTERS than HOT WATER MUSIC. The kind of band that you might see open for FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH or something similar. I might just be biased because the record kicks off with one of those “fuck your scene, fuck your style, fuck you” songs, and I really cannot stand that type of attitude. If you like that sort of thing, this LP is up your alley, because it’s constant throughout.
A demo tape put out by Toxic State, who have broadened their spectrum and no longer solely focus on NYC, therefore I am no longer sure where this band is from. But as regional sounds have disappeared, this does not matter that much anymore. CRUCIFORM mixes a snottier, thinner, and not as distorted guitar sound that is reminiscent of KBD hardcore and dumb, brain-hammering drums from the outsider lanes of hardcore. It’s a great mix of what is best in USHC—it’s hectic, dirty, a bit chaotic, but not super radical. Sound-wise, it’s closer to CRAZY SPIRIT; it’s nasty, yet you can hear almost everything. My favorite parts are when the already fast music turns even faster and frantic. Hard Nuke York vibes.
This is an absolutely devastating debut from Portland’s ferocious CUT PIECE. Eleven tracks of concise punk that writhe with impassioned anger and pull from sources rarely tapped. Lightly overdriven, chorus-imbued guitars trace the perimeter of a sonic terrain that undulates with departing bass lines, desperately frenzied drums, and searing vocals, binding everything together within a unified field. A bleak coldbeat energy is co-opted by less dour anarcho and peace punk influences, like a melding of PART 1, ZOUNDS, and POISON GIRLS, piped into a modern context. Both imaginative and immediate, Your Own Good feels like a natural synthesis of vision coming from members of heavy hitters such as RED DONS and ERA BLEAK. Every cut is top-shelf, but I found myself particularly drawn to the discomfiting vibration of “Walk the Dog,” and the sax-laden closer “GUGI.” This one will undoubtedly be in heavy rotation for a good while.
This six-song EP is a fucking ripper! Between the lightning-fast hardcore and femme vocals, it’s everything I want from a punk band. Most of the songs are just over the minute mark, so be prepared to play this on repeat. Somehow, DEATH CULT DEPRIVATION manages to fit tidy guitar solos and quick licks into these scorchers. The closing track “Fucktory” even has some sick breakdown action hidden amongst the melee. This limited 300-copy pressing is bound to go fast, so don’t sleep on it!
DISTORTED INFLUENCE was a five-piece crossover band of the likes of the ACCÜSED, CLUSTERFUX, POISON IDEA, etc. Supreme Echo has meticulously put together the band’s story and laid out each track the band recorded (released and unreleased), packaged along with artwork and interviews. The Cold LP is an early ’90s blast from suburban Victoria and a relic of the scene the band embodied. The quality of the songs is there and still locked in time, only to be unearthed again. Like everything Supreme Echo puts out, I gobbled this up.
Leipzig-based 8-bit mayhem egg-punkers who even loop coughs and sneezes for one of their tracks. Quite interesting egg-punk filled with electro sounds, dubbed and effected voices talking to each other, and really good synths and keyboard work. Hits all of the spots in the “never seeming to stop” sense in each song.
From Providence, Rhode Island, GNARNIA plays a sharp and fast nod to “OG heavies DEAD KENNEDYS, BLACK FLAG and GERMS” (from their Bandcamp page). Both Thin Ice, from 2023, and Crimetown, from 2024, make up this 12” vinyl and play through pretty quickly, with only a few songs over the two-minute mark. “Breakballs” is probably the catchiest of the album (Crimetown side), with a gang-like energy in the OP IVY realm. The following track “Underwater” comes out of nowhere and sounds like a 311 song with jam-band guitars, reverb dialed high, and a slow tempo—which, to be fair, does break into a ripper with the distortion pedal stomped back on. That said, these references aren’t meant to dissuade you from GNARNIA’s clever economy of ’80s-inspired hardcore.
Pure rock’n’roll madness with a little bit of a Southern/stoner rock edge to it. Reminds me of a less doomy SWORD mixed with MOLLY HATCHET, AC/DC, and a dash of latter-era BUSINESS. Production is incredible and everything sounds massive, especially the drums. Soaring harmonic guitars and sweeping bass-walks. This is great stuff right here. The kind of album I’d throw on during a super hot day while I grill out, drink beer, and take a dip in my inflatable pool. White-trash-core in the best way possible. Highly recommended for those who like to party and sweat their asses off deep into the long, summer evenings.
Four-song debut cassette of dark, moody, goth-infused mid-tempo punk from Richmond, VA. Incredibly catchy songs, almost addictively so. Hell, I’ve listened to these four songs about five times in a row now. The Bandcamp page for MKVULTURE leans into claiming they are both psych and darkwave, but I honestly don’t hear either of those things. I think there’s synth on a few of these songs, but it certainly isn’t the focal point, and the band isn’t anywhere near out-there enough to be self-identifying as being psychedelic. The project comes off as a very sincere moody garage punk band to me, and I really dig it.
If you’re a fan of female-fronted pop music that’s both pretty and quirky, you’ll like this. If you’ve got a little thing for folk music, even better. Imagine taking parts of MAZZY STAR, the BREEDERS, and COURTNEY BARNETT and creating something new. Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe. But I love this cassette.
Hardcore from Spain. Fairly generic riffs played competently over fairly cringe-worthy lyrics and mosh calls. If that sounds appealing to you, by all means, have at it, but personally I don’t think your life would be missing anything if you skipped this one. Next!
Here’s something that’s been bugging me since this Melbourne act dropped their debut, 2022’s Health/Body EP: what up with this band name? It feels like a pun (along the lines of PHIL ‘N’ THE BLANKS), but not one that makes any sense, and of the six whole-ass people in the band, nobody is named Phil. Then there’s the track “Ode to Phil,” one of this record’s gentler tracks and one seemingly about a superhero named Catgirl. Wut? Thankfully, in doing research for this review, I found that Gimme Gimme Gimme (an excellent zine shedding light on Aussie acts) had gotten to the bottom of this! Turns out Phil was a cat the singer lived with (while rooming with Lewis Hodgson of CIVIC) who often cooled off by laying on the kitchen tiles. Feels good to have that cleared up! So, yeah, this album picks up where they left off on that debut EP. Their core sound is very much in the vein of EDDY CURRENT SUPPRESSION RING or UV RACE—chatty post-punk with some new wave and garage around the edges—but, with six folks in the band, they’ve got too broad of a pool of musical influences to ignore. So, you get stuff like the working class psychedelia of the COSMIC PSYCHOS bleeding in, or tracks where they bump up the aggression and new-wave-iness to LOST SOUNDS-ish results, or even a track where they strip back their typically big sound to a something approaching ESG’s minimal funk punk. Personally, I think they sound best when they play it straight—”The Watcher,” which sounds like a more tuneful version of peak UV RACE, is one of my favorite songs of the year. In any event, whatever they’re playing, they sound like they’re having a blast doing it, making for an immensely listable record.
Following in the footsteps of classic ’80s Italian hardcore acts WRETCHED and NEGAZIONE, this demo from Massachusetts’s RABID FEW is a blistering listen. Great riffs, great leads, and memorable vocals; this lot would fit right in at punk fests like K-Town or Have a Good Laugh. While the guitar work and vocals leave nothing to be desired, the drumming is my favorite part here—it reminds me of BOOTLICKER, just pounding, pounding, pounding right up front in the mix. Get into this shit.
France has never exactly been known for its hardcore bands. In fact, I’m sure most of you would struggle a little to name five French ’80s hardcore bands. Sure, we never had any shortage of terrible Oi! bands (a sorry tradition), but few inspiring fast bands in the ’80s. SCRAPS were an exception. They played that kind of really fast and raw hardcore thrash with extreme vocals that grew in Europe in the mid-’80ss with bands like LÄRM, NEGAZIONE, HHH, or ASOCIAL. Imagine DISORDER covering GANG GREEN in a Bristol squat in 1984. SCRAPS embraced the super punky “noise not music” philosophy, although they were not as radical as their fellow countrymen, the mighty RAPT, but more direct and vicious than the equally mighty HEIMAT-LOS. The lyrics are mostly in French and tackled the topics of the day (apartheid, animal liberation, the arms race), but also some that focused on French politics, like the rise of Le Pen (famous leader of the far-right whose daughter currently heads the most popular far-right party in France) or torture during the war in Algeria. Angry political words that fit the music perfectly. The LP includes the early records of a band that celebrated its 40th birthday in 2023. That’s what you call dedication and true passion for hardcore punk. This is a pretty essential record if you are into abrasive and fast political hardcore punk, and an essential piece of history. Guaranteed completely Oi!-free.
From the very first second, this record comes at you strong and clear. They’re poppy and high-energy with a female vocalist. I’ll be honest, I had a much different assumption about this band based only on their name and album art. Something about it made me think this was going to be a super-serious, political street punk band. Certainly a style they could do; their song “Collateral Damage” is only seventeen seconds long and it feels even faster! Overall, they trend towards the themes of romantic relationships with a heavy resemblance to the band THIS IS MY FIST! But then there’s also songs like “My Right,” which is about abortion access and is fierce and angry, as it has every right to be! It’s a helluva anthem that screams about reproductive rights being taken away by men who will never find themselves pregnant. Then the very next song is about PMS!! That made me so happy to see. The SHITFITS are on the frontlines talking about feminist issues unapologetically. Plus, they have a song called “Opposites Attract” that is totally “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” with different lyrics.
This first full-length by Bloominton, Indiana band SWAN WASH is dense: gothic moments intermixed with alternative rock from the ’90s, with heavy emphasis on things like L7, the GITS, and BABES IN TOYLAND. When you realize SWAN WASH is a three-piece, you’ll be amazed at the wall of noisy sound they’re capable of producing, with moments as thick as the MELVINS. The nine tracks on this album feature a lot of variance in rhythm and instrumentation, but all somehow come out in harmony. If you’re into dark-toned rock music that edges into a lot of underground sounds, then check this out now.
I know you can’t always judge a book by its cover, but let’s be real, it’s usually a good indicator of what you’re getting yourself into. Usually, cool music is accompanied by cool artwork/presentation. It is what it is. I hate to say it, but the cover of this TRAPPED LIKE RATS EP really didn’t give me high hopes. It’s got a nu-metal vibe that I don’t care for. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the music. The band plays pretty standard hardcore that has a lot of guitar noodling, a lot of gruff gang vocals, and is overall unremarkable. That’s all I’ve got. I don’t find pleasure in writing this sort of review, but that’s the job and someone’s gotta do it. I’ll give these guys credit for hating the cops, but beyond that, this one’s a pass.
This one is a very bizarre listen. This Finnish band has a very lo-fi recording quality, and it also sounds like they really like bashing on pots and pans in rhythm. The fact that “sloppiness” is in the Bandcamp tags should say it all really. It’s certainly pretty out there, but I dig it quite a bit!
Out of press for the last decade, Dirt Cult and Green Noise have collaborated to reissue an absolute mammoth of ’70s punk, the debut album by X. This is desert island, “grab it off the shelf in a house fire” kinda shit right here. One hates to see terms like “classic” bandied about, but this is the rare instance in which the label truly applies. Story goes that these tunes were committed to tape in a nascent five-hour recording session, meant for the purpose of cutting a single. Fourteen blistering tracks later, we have one of the seminal documents of first-wave Australian punk. Aspirations goes harder than 90 percent of what passes for punk these days, and at half the tempo. Unbridled, raw, and absolutely savage, this bass-driven masterpiece laid a blueprint for many bands to follow. “Good On Ya Baby,” “Suck Suck Suck,” and “Delinquent Cars” are untouchable anthems that feature some of the most memorable vocal hooks to have ever wormed into my undeserving earholes. Wildly unhinged guitars being unsanctimoniously tortured dapple the bruising soundscape created by the rhythm section. It really doesn’t get much better than this. If you’re not familiar with the band or this record, stop reading and make that change. This is a heavyweight slab of pure punk perfection.
ZORN releases a knot of stellar, binge-worthy metal/punk. Billed as “Philly’s creepiest cult sensation,” the band brings satanic stage rituals and theater in various forms, such as carrying band members onstage via coffins and other wholesome behaviors. The stage presence is brilliant, as is the crusted, blackened punk spewing from this release. Much comes to mind—I want to look towards BATHORY, VENOM, NEGAZIONE, and some of that D-beat for comparison. The record is tough…tough and long! Lots of value to be had, and it’s on Black Konflik! It has become my master’s call.
This record is brought to us by 442 Music, DETROIT 442’s own label dedicated to their music and compilations of Detroit-based artists. While I usually struggle to find succinct words for a release chock-full of so many artists, Life Long Garbage is a pretty consistent gathering of lo-fi, scuzzy, and buzzy bands that take no shit, and are, if you didn’t read the album title, all female-fronted. Without listing all the contributions, some favorites are MILKBATH’s “Steamroller” that features some lovely, deep and rich vocals, ROUGH PATCH’s “Shit Day” that describes just that, making you feel alright about your own mess and sung over stripped-down drums and bass, and DEAR DARKNESS’s “You Wanna Beat Him Up” with soaring melodies and big, meaty guitars. After a few listens, I could go on to mention more favorites—all to say, this record contains a lot of powerful women from Motor City making excellent music.
Valencia D-beat duo’s debut release. Fast-paced, drum-driven hardcore punk with crusty dual vocals that guarantees to reach to your heart, exuding a cooperative international scene stance and ethos. Filled with its own groove that gives a refreshing take on this kind of sound. Favorite tracks: “Todo Roto” and “Lágrimas Negras.” Chaotically driven and utterly fun, you can see pogo in their future. Recommended.
BATO returns after a lengthy pause with a mix that includes early US hardcore and a frenzied, Japanese take à la GAUZE. In fact, the whole album is a bit of a musical tent, sheltering a number of micro-styles. Rapid-fire bass/snare beats and spin-kick-inspiring breakdowns all appear with stop-on-a-dime timing and frequent riff rotations. The sound quality is that of a beloved but ragged cassette.
Japanese punkers BLACK AND WHITE have come out with their second LP. Quickly looking at the record jacket, I saw the year 1978 above the label info and was very confused—boy, were they ahead of their time! “What a great reissue,” I thought! Upon some research, I assume this is an homage to ’70s British punk rock that they admit to loving in their online album description, as We Make the Standards and We Make the Rules came out this year, our unholy 2024. Distractions aside, you can definitely hear UK ’78 of the Oi! varietal, maybe the COCKNEY REJECTS mixed with off-kilter TOY DOLLS flourishes and speed. Lots of whole-band harmonies and chants, particularly on the B-side’s “Don’t Think Twice” that opens with a great, cutting guitar riff and roils into the super catchy chorus of “Don’t think twice / It’s alright”—admittedly and DYLAN rip-off, but this song is great. High-energy and endless fun, no downers in sight here, folks.
This EP is a record that does not lie. We’ve all been disappointed with lying records, especially before you could stream everything beforehand. I remember getting a supposedly “crust-as-fuck” LP from an American band once, and it ended up being boring metallic hardcore. It looked crusty, the label said it sounded crusty, the distro said the same, and yet, it was not—the record did not do what it said it would and it was most upsetting. No such treacherous fannying around here: it looks like a stenchcore record, the bands proudly claim they do the stenchcore thing, and indeed, it sounds like stenchcore. Great customer service here. CIMITERIUM is a relatively young band from Melbourne I had the pleasure to see live last year, and they deliver what you’d expect from a band that uses a “battlecrust” logo. Perfectly executed ’00s-style stenchcore with an emphasis on the BOLT THROWER side of the spectrum. Heavy, super gruff, cavernous, downtuned filthy metal crust reminiscent of SANCTUM, CANCER SPREADING, or STAGNATION. Totally unsurprising. Of course I love it. On the other side your date will be with SLAVERY from Praga. They have been going for a while now, and their 2022 LP was a definite success in the always stable stenchcore category. They are thrashier than their Australian tag-team partners, and more epic I’d say, somewhere in the devastated neighbourhood of mid-’00s HELLSHOCK, early FATUM or early ’10s CANCER SPREADING (again). I particularly enjoy the moshing, mid-paced moments here, how aggressive the Czech vocals sound, and the fact that the song really keeps a punk production, warts and all. Another victory for soap-dodgers released on the always reliable Phobia Records.
Belligerence and beauty collide on this foundational text by one of this writer’s personal faves from the last decade of the premillennial era. Former IGNITION bassist and FURY singer Chris Thomson had ventured north to Madison, Wisconsin where he hooked up with Chris Hamley (guitar), Arika Casebolt (drums), and Reg Shrader (bass) in CIRCUS LUPUS. In August of 1990, the new band traveled to Washington, DC to record at Inner Ear with Eli Janney. Most of these tracks ended up on a demo tape, but a few found their way to releases, including their debut 7”. If “Tightrope Walker” isn’t already a classic in your household, now is the time to get on the right side of history. Half of these songs were re-recorded for subsequent LPs, but don’t think these are inferior versions, especially as Tim Green’s remaster makes them hit as hard as they were intended to. Waxing the original version of existential punk slasher “Marbles” is enough of a reason for this record to exist, but if this album gets a younger generation into CIRCUS LUPUS, then the future of punk will at least have a chance to avoid completely shitting the bed.
This is tasty. Starts off with a sort of synthy-sounding thing, which is dark and moody. The tempo is measured; steady, but deliberate. Pretty female vocals blend seamlessly with the garage-y, moody pop music. There’s almost even some surfy lead guitar. The second and third cuts are a little less moody and they pick up the pace quite a bit. I like this EP.
A labor of love started in 1994 by TOTALITÄR and BRAINBOMBS’ own Lanchy, DRIVER recorded ten tracks in 2000, five of which are featured here on Fuck You. A stripped-down, no-frills affair with a dirty, lo-fi quality, per the sleeve this was inspired by heavy-hitters like the FIX, DISCHARGE, MC5, POISON IDEA, RADIO BIRDMAN, and “distorted rock’n’roll guitars in general.” The final product is just that, a fuzzy slurry of dis-beat-influenced proto-punk. If that sounds weird, trust me, it works. “Junkie Corpse” is a favorite and definitely delivers on the POISON IDEA influence, while “Deform Reform” has some tasty blues licks that are unexpected but certainly welcome. Overall, I hear more IGGY AND THE STOOGES than anything else, and for that I am thankful. A gnarly little record that I can’t recommend enough.
I have always been drawn to the sound of bands’ demos, or their first album when it’s a mish-mash of the singles and bedroom recordings, more so than polished formal studio albums. Think of the BANANAS’ collection The First Ten Years of… having way more guts and heart than the albums which followed. Maybe it’s that bit of feedback, out-of-tune vocal, or bass flub that gets left in. Often the songs are played off-speed or faster than the album that follows. Don’t get me wrong, FAULTY COGNITIONS stellar album Somehow, Here We Are is already on a lot of top album lists for 2024, but the preceding demo has a gritty charm all its own. The opener “Las Cruces” has the anthemic heart-on-sleeve spirit of SHANG-A-LANG. The only track not included on the full-length, “Thin Blue Line,” bottles the anger of the DICKS as if it’s an homage to the recent passing of Gary Floyd. “Center of the World” shifts to a proto-punk pace like the ONLY ONES. The closer, “Let the Kids Have the Scene,” laments elder statesmen observations in a MENZINGERS-like style. All of this, packaged with cassette art reminiscent of Pettibon’s work on Nervous Breakdown.
GYLT is a four-piece crossover hardcore band from Los Angeles. This release is two feral style hardcore tracks that are over and done in as many minutes. Heavy drums with searing guitar lines and vicious vocals tearing through acerbic lyrics is the fast and dirty description. “Shoved” opens with a little taste of guitar, some quick grunts, and then proceeds to tear it up, while “Spiral” enters with a bit of chugging bass and hits the throttle even faster, and is completed in well under a minute. Too fast for breakdowns and sans any sort of posturing, GYLT might just be my new favorite hardcore band. This two song release definitely whets my appetite for more.
Hardcore out of Montreal with a cowpunk twang. No shit. Catchy as hell with an attitude that matches. Reminiscent of the golden era of GG ALLIN, but much faster with a much better lead guitarist. Fantastic stuff here, and well worth a spin. I’ve played through this like five times in one sitting.
The prolific label Black Konflik from Malaysia is at it again, this time with a new release of obscure Japanese hardcore from the ’80s, namely a live recording (presumably from 1987) of JANKY from Yokohama. The band is something of a minor classic for Japanese punk nerds (also known as “the hardcore nerd elite” in the scene), what with having an extremely rare, and actually very good, flexi released in 1984 on Hold Up Records, crucial criteria in the making of a true hardcore classic that no one really knows. Musically, the band epitomized the early raw energy, speed, and intensity that characterized the genre and made it so popular in the mid-’80s through bands like GAUZE, KURO, and many others. Still, this live recording is tough to listen to and I haven’t been able to sit through it. Radical devout fans might be able to, and I am sure they already grabbed it, but I am not one of them and it just sounds really rough.
NIGHT SLAVES is David Kane and John Toohill from Buffalo, New York. NIGHT SLAVES play a minimalist post-punk style that harnesses its power from synths and other electronics. The four-song Acceleration Prose cassette is full of danceable darkness with screaming organs, noisome, angst-ridden vocals, and crashing drums. The song “Wisdom of a Chain” is perhaps one of my favorite tracks off this recording, with its chaos-ridden synthesizer work, howling vocals, and driving bass drum. Fans of PRIMITIVE FIGURE or CROCODILES might be really into this cassette.
