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Please send vinyl (preferred), CD, or cassette releases to MRR, PO Box 3852, Oakland, CA 94609, USA. Maximum Rocknroll wants to review everything that comes out in the world of underground punk rock, hardcore, garage, post-punk, thrash, etc.—no major labels or labels exclusively distributed by major-owned distributors, no reviews of test pressings or promo CDs without final artwork. Please include contact information and let us know where your band is from!
This LP is a collection of songs recorded between 2016 and 2018. VACATION is from Cincinnati, and reminds me of a lot of the ’80s Ohio indie rock bands. The music is lo-fi and fuzzy. The vocals are distinctive and quirky, employing interesting phrasings. The songs are catchy, but not quite singable. Not that I won’t try. I also enjoy that if you go back to VACATION’s earliest recordings, they maintained a similar sound and style. It’s pretty cool.
This album is a strange beast. It’s loud, unstoppable and integrates savage moments from out-for-blood, no-mercy hardcore à la the Youth Attack roster; evil noise rock without the high-brow irony; blast-beat chaos from those hand-drawn, creature-covered basement tape death metal bands; feverish psychedelia; and mixes all together as it becomes this weird pulp what’s only purpose is to fuck you up, while it avoids being an embarrassing mess where you only hear the influences and not the unique vision of a band. Dej Bůh Pěstí is self-confident terror that reveals the ugliness of human minds. It’s great with how much ease the band drops their different ideas throughout the songs, whether it be tempo changes, spoken word-ish ramblings, squeezing all life out from the guitars. Crawl out from your pathetic comfort zone and check out VOLE from Prague!
Prince Edward Island, Canada brings you the second cassette release by WARSH. This is incredible! Sophia’s barked, overly reverberated vocals are relentless, which is unsurprising given the subject matter. This band is pissed for all the right reasons. WARSH mostly plods along noisily within the mid-tempo range, but cranks it into overdrive on a few of the songs on this tape. It reminds me of a more raw, unhinged version of CONDOMINIUM. I semi-recently was on my first extended tour of northeastern Canada and we took a ferry up to Prince Edward Island. It was fun and all, but we certainly didn’t play with bands like WARSH. Oh, how I wish we had, though.
Brno’s ZEMEZLUC (“Earthworm”) has played powerful straightforward hardcore and chorus-laden punk since 1986(!), and this new sixteen-song album (their first in almost five years) translates to “How Much, To Whom?” There’s so much joy to this record, as it’s just veterans who effortlessly know what they’re doing, throwing out really great riffs and innovative guitar parts and putting forth marching rhythms and strong anthemic choruses. Sung in twisting and scowling Czech, this centers on a mid-tempo pace and is a testament to the well-crafted songwriting that it holds in doing so, as opposed to relying on speed or brutality of impact. Everything is just really well placed; even if you don’t understand Czech, you still want to sing along by the time the songs round to the shout-along parts. The lyrics have that fascinating, deeply thought-out Eastern European existential resistance. A powerful LP for returning fans, and an easy starting point for new ones. Great record!
ACRYLICS have made a full-length LP, playing with much more atmosphere than I recall either of their singles or their demo having. Although the band is still ferocious, still massive sounding (more massive than ever, in fact) and still has the coolest FLAG homage riffs (without really sounding too much like BLACK FLAG), they’ve added a couple of instrumental interludes, some synthesizer, lots of pedal effects and some studio trickery, all of which add texture to the sounds. Songs like “Harm” and “Losing Sight” are moodier and more expansive than anything on prior ACRYLICS releases, while “New Face,” “Awake,” and the previously released “Structure” feature the more familiar gut-punch hardcore. It’s hard to put into words how great this record is. Sinking In is clearly the result of a lot of hard work. Nothing about the record—the songs, recording, artwork, lyrics—feels like an afterthought.
AKTITUD 69 is actually MASSACRE 68 from Mexico, and these songs, despite being released in 2019, were recorded not long after the band’s great ¡No Estamos Conformes! LP (probably in 1991). Why does the cover have an AKTITUD 69 label stamped over probably a MASSACRE 68 logo, why did it take this long for the songs to resurface, why the name change? These questions should be answered by investigative journalism and not by dumb record reviews. MASSACRE 68 was in line with the tupa-tupa cave beat, occasionally chaotic-fast/ocassionally groovy-three-chords hardcore that was not afraid to torture some of the high strings with solos. Topping it with their singer who has the voice of a maniac leader, spitting his furious rants. For context, their contemporaries were XENOFOBIA, SEDICION, M.E.L.I., ATOXXXICO, and SOLUCION MORTAL. Since this is all lost and found, there is no question that they rip. It’s fast, intense, frightening hardcore that flirts with tension building, epic atmosphere, and other unusual parts that vary from sheer brain hammering. They both can, and enjoy, performing this record. But song after song, something is lacking. The sound of an album is the invisible instrument of the band. Shit-fi quality supports a great hardcore record—Zonas Marginadas sounds large, as it has the ambition to meet the virtual standards that no one actually ever sets, but when it’s pursued in a manipulated environment, it always traps the music. Although here, the urgency is able to sneak fractions of songs out from the engineering dungeon. This is the interesting conflict of the album, as it struggles to sound self-confident in a foreign role, but the best parts are when the music is about to fall out from the band’s hand, because they forget about themselves. It is still enjoyable, but the length of the songs, the distance between the band and how their record sounds, and some of the writing solutions degrade it to background hardcore. Those who hate the lo-fi noises of early recordings should get this because AKTITUD 69 is a great band who has an OK record for you.
Still Life collects sixteen tracks drawn from a handful of mid-to-late ’80s releases by Chicago duo ALGEBRA SUICIDE, who combined deadpan spoken vocals/poetric recitations from Lydia Tomkiw with stark, spindly guitar lines, shadowy keyboard textures, and percolating drum machine, all arranged by her then-husband Don Hedeker. The resulting sound-based performance art managed to avoid the trap of artifice and pretension, despite any assumptions that a phrase like “poetry-music duo” might conjure, with sonic parallels to a number of European minimal/cold wave acts, UK experimental pop hometapers (think SOLID SPACE and the like), and even some of the less confrontational projects that evolved out of the No Wave scene in New York. Hedeker’s droning and pulsing musical accompaniment offered the perfect backdrop for Tomkiw’s lyrical observations, which she delivered in a dry, Chicago-accented monotone that only further underscored the hypnotic impact of the pair’s songs—sometimes shimmering and melodic, sometimes icy and mechanical. If you’re at all interested in some of the more eccentric corners of early minimal synth or ’80s-era art-schooled post-punk but haven’t explored the ALGEBRA SUICIDE discography yet, this anthology is a really useful starting point for further research.
A two-song cassingle. AN INVITATION appears to be a one-man-band from Richmond, VA who was in that band SATAN’S SATYRS. This is some truly sleazy, nasty, heavy-metal infused rock’n’roll. Vocally it kinda sounds like VENOM to me, while musically it ranges from sludgy and plodding to riff-heavy and driving. Pretty cool, but I think I need to go take a shower now.
Primitive Species from 2017 was a refreshing fusion of obnoxious techno-like intensity and primitive hardcore punk energy. ARSE’s identity sounds like a drunken, stumbling warning of something very ugly and violent coming your way. You can also dance to it if that’s your thing. Safe Word doesn’t bend radically from the face-melting formula previously introduced, but they do tend to flirt with more traditional “rock tropes,” and it works surprisingly well. At times when riffing out like SUICIDE or FLIPPER, the neanderthal singing reminds you of why you’re still here. During its eleven minutes on the turntable, Safe Word actually creates an album-like quality. I suppose ARSE is kind of what PISSED JEANS wish they were: great songwriting and musical abilities performed for dumb people.
The explosion of hardcore in the USA in 1981 occurred at just the right time in a socio-cultural context to recruit to its ranks a legion of incredibly talented and creative people. When we review the canon of the first few years of hardcore in America, we are astonished at how much truly great, empowering, and influential music was created in a short period of time. Like the original explosion of punk in the UK, it was just the right place and right time. Here were a lot of very talented and energetic young people who were just waiting for some creative window to open that they could jump through. ARTICLES OF FAITH were one of many of those first wave of hardcore bands. Their first two 7″s captured them at a perfect point where the raw energy of hardcore was bursting forth, and before their creative talents lead them to more complex compositions and explorations. Their later material draws in a lot of influence from GANG OF FOUR and other post-punk types, but on What We Want is Free, we have that raw enthusiasm of a band’s first release, charging hard out of the gate with no such pretensions. The recording is lo-fi, the layout is cut-and-paste, but the energy and zeal radiate from the record like blazing bonfire. Musically, this is straight-ahead ’82 hardcore, but played with some chop and panache that reveals a greater underlying musicianship, not unlike their then labelmates DIE KREUZEN, or perhaps New Strings For Old Puppets-era REALLY RED. Vic Bondi wrote some great lyrics; he had a way of capturing complex social or economic issues and condensing them into a “less is more” lyrical delivery. That is to say, you can read a lot into what he is trying to say with very few words. “What we Want is Free,” “Bad Attitude,” and “My Father’s Dreams” focus on the yearning to be free from the constraints of a preordained conformist career in the capitalist system. “Everyday” is the same message of the bleak dehumanized reality that awaits those who do conform and get stuck in society’s rat race. The second 7″ Wait was also reissued; that one is a real masterpiece musically and lyrically. Taken together they are a testament to the enduring power of the genre.
One of the best and at the time most inventive USHC 7″s gets the reissue it deserves, had Alternative Tentacles not already compiled all of AOF’s material onto Complete Volumes 1 & 2 in 2002. Is this a necessary move? I’m leaning towards yes. The ferocity of “I’ve Got Mine” and “Buy This War” can’t be understated and probably warrant the reissue in order to teach new-age bootleg shirt kids, egg punks, and chopped and screwed enthusiasts what hardcore is supposed to sound like. The album art comes across simple, almost completely inept until you open the meticulously made insert containing the lyrics to “Wait.” Bondi may have said some of the worst no-no words in the American Hardcore doc but he’s got some of the most brilliant lyrics of the era on show here.
A reissue of two songs from the LP sessions (“Uh Oh” and the title track, which I think is a different version) with the addition of my favorite AVENGERS song “Cheap Tragedies,” which was on the Rat Music for Rat People comp. It’s so catchy and eternal! Crazy it was just a throwaway comp track! The lyrics are powerful and relatable, yet totally mysterious in a way that feels universal somehow. The AVENGERS are so corny and inspiring simultaneously, they wrote perfect punk anthems, and anthemic songs can veer into that territory in the blink of an eye! But these songs are incendiary glimpses into what is possible when the world is on fire and everyone around you is ready for a new idea.
Previously released material from a band who I chose not to listen to cause I thought the name was too stupid. A-side is their smoothly recorded 7″ and the B is their demo plus an extra track, all in the vein of RAW DEAL, the ICEMEN, BREAKDOWN and OUTBURST. This is hefty moshing hardcore with screeching lead guitar and is in my opinion the Parmesan of demo-core. There are some memorable choruses like “Pass the Buck” but overall the vocals come through in the quickened verses allowing you to give it 100% in the pit when CHEESE gets thick ’n’ heavy. The inventive riffing and patterns on “Glass in Your Foot” and “Aggravated Mopery” make me feel this is some of the best hardcore I’ve heard in years.
Bruised-heart vignettes delivered in punchy bursts of two minutes or less, economical in approach but with plenty of emotional weight. On their second LP (though definitely not a “long-player”), BLUES LAWYER continues to work a certain jittery and anxious FEELIES-esque jangle, stripped of the latter’s tendencies toward slow-burning rave-ups and instead pared down to the most concise form possible—”It’s All a Chore” spins out fully-realized in exactly 28 seconds, like the musical equivalent of one of those wind-up chattering teeth toys. There’s also a few tricks picked up from the VASELINES, particularly in the bittersweet harmonies between guitarist Rob Miller and drummer Elyse Schrock, some nods to the insistent pop strum of Flying Nun’s BATS/CLEAN/CHILLS holy trinity, and plenty of romantically-minded concerns expressed through pure buzzsaw energy much like the BUZZCOCKS, all reimagined within the context of the struggle to get by, and the (in)ability to connect with other people that shapes modern life under late-stage capitalism. There’s not a single wasted moment here, and it makes more of an impact at about seventeen minutes than a lot of albums twice its length.
CÃOS is a Brazilian post-punk band with members of DUPLO and CLAN DOS MORTOS CICATRIZ. Released by Meia-Vida, a punk, noise, and electronic label from Curitiba, Brazil, this is their fourth and last release, a goodbye record. Spoken word, out-of-tempo vocals with nihilistic themes, sometimes more folk, sometimes fast and schizo. It may remind you of bands like DEATH IN JUNE, WIPERS, and INSTITUTE, but I guess it’s best to listen for yourself.
The aural taunts from Maine’s CELEB H-SHAKE continue long past logic on this, their 74th release this week. Is it better than prior efforts? Well, it’s newer and bigger. But mostly… Of course, ’cause it’s dog food suicide music, perfect in every way, and I crave it endlessly. I wanna melt it down and eat it from a bowl. All of you thudding, knuckle-drag fucks really wanna get confrontational and shitty? Lick this taint and absorb some real nightmarish genius. Limited to 100 copies? Straight up fucked.
Finally, all the material from this lovely post-punk band from Lincoln, England has been compiled into one release. Despite the CIGARETTES only being around for a few years between 1978-81, they explored an impressive range of sounds and influences. There’s the harder, rougher songs like the opener “They’re Back Again Here They Come” and of course the banger “You Were So Young”’ that remind me of ’70s Aussie punk like RAZAR and the VICTIMS. Then there’s the more pop-punk tracks that sound like they could be love songs if it weren’t for the scathing lyrics that wittily poke fun at Capitalist ideals like the nuclear family and the rise of consumerism. A couple of the tracks really don’t need to be there but perhaps there are some fans out there who would appreciate them. Listening to their discography it’s obvious they were a smart band, dedicated to a DIY approach similar to DESPERATE BICYCLES and ART ATTACKS. The release is made up of the band’s two singles, unreleased tracks they had planned for their third single, tracks from a local compilation and the recordings from their John Peel session. Packaged up nicely with a poster, badge and sticker—what a treat!
Sparse, bass-oriented art-punk via Durham, North Carolina, accented by prickly guitar and rickety keyboards for an authentically waved-out ’80s feel—think the DELINQUENTS, PINK SECTION, and the oddball femme-fringe of US DIY from the era. Bassist Mimi’s deadpan vocals and the single-note guitar stabs in “Omega” play up some scratchy No Wave leanings, but for the most part, COCHONNE have a sense of humor and off-center catchy charm that’s more suited to, say, a ’79 Athens house party with the B-52’S than an ’81 New York gallery happening with DNA. Other highlights: the synth-squealer “Horror-Scope” and the ramshackle, French-sung “Mensonge Humain,” both of which had me thinking of underrated early ’00s Parisian post-punks-in-the-garage MIL MASCARAS. Oui, c’est bon.
Sophomore entry from this Cedar Rapids unit (get it?), notable in my mind for featuring Andy from the HORRORS, a long-time bash maestro fave. Dick Moves sorta leaps out beyond expectations, defying garage in favor of sleaze-fire hootenanny, noisy with suitably busted hip-hop influences throbbing throughout. Hearty stuff, the kind of a stick-to-your-ribs exploder tailored for the after-hours set.
I’ll be honest with ya, I put this cassette aside while doing my reviews for the month fully expecting it to be the real stinker of the bunch. To my surprise, CRÜX DECUSSÄTA proves the old adage “don’t judge a demo by its cringe-worthy artwork” to be true. Three songs of rip-roaring speed metal, with the final one being a weird hybrid of “Highway Star” by DEEP PURPLE and “Victims of the Vampire” by SLAUGHTER AND THE DOGS. I enjoyed the first two songs, both complete with their SLAYER-style high-pitched-scream dive-bombing before dissipation, but was incredibly skeptical of how they would pull off the third’s mashup. To my surprise, it is actually pretty well done and super entertaining, wisely switching away from “Highway Star” before the extended solo and morphing into “Victims of the Vampire,” taking that to the end and focusing on that song’s much more attainable solo.
This third DARK THOUGHTS album follows the same musical line that everyone already knows: the RAMONES style. It’s amazing how the band can explore something as limited as this simple style. For those who follow DARK THOUGHTS, their trilogy of records complement each other a lot; although this album is very interesting, I still feel attached to the second one, though I’m flirting with the new one. Dee Dee would approve of this band.
DISOWNED plays spattering raw hardcore with the organic tarnish of crust. Rhythmic, engaging riffs snare the neck while brutal, ghastly vocals fill out the spaces, like abysmal death metal laced within anthemic hardcore grooves. The production packs a fucking wallop. So tight. KINETIC DISCORD plays cleaner thrash with a skate punk attitude, harmonizing and bright song progressions. Songs remind me of I-SPY, AGENT ORANGE, and the ADOLESCENTS. Their song “Politicon” is such a ripper. More like POISON IDEA. The split is a surprising contrast, which works.
The only complaint fans are going to have about this record is that it’s too short. For those not already familiar, DYKE DRAMA is the solo project of G.L.O.S.S.’s Sadie Switchblade. The record is dedicated to Barker Gee, a friend who passed away, and pays tribute to him by incorporating riffs and melodies from the incredible music he created. The tracks encompass the tenderness of 50 MILLION, the SPRINGSTEEN-esque sensibilities of BENT OUTTA SHAPE, the infectious melodies of the REPLACEMENTS, and gritty vocals overflowing with emotional sincerity and heartbreak. Barker would have loved this, and if you have any connection to him or to the melodic side of punk, you will too. These songs distill the sweetness of what punk can give us in hard times, whether you’re in the middle of the struggle or just looking back and remembering what got you through.
A super cool reissue of this Wollongong, Australia band’s one and only 7″ from 1979. A group of beach punks inspired by the Lucas Heights Nuclear Facility as seen through the eyes of the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 write “Meltdown,” a catchy, punky love/lust song about nuclear fission. “Bananas” (originally the A-side) is a more odd, poppy punk song, but just as entertaining. The story of how the reissue came about is equally amusing, and fully explained in the insert. The folks responsible for the reissue are obsessed with songs about Three Mile Island. Before now I never knew I would be thankful for that. This is just great.
The women-led duel and gang vocals on every track of this reunion project are the reason to check this out. After breaking up in the late ’80s and reuniting in 2012, this is the most complete and realized new release from HAGAR THE WOMB. Of course there are a lot of similarities here to POISON GIRLS, early CHUMBAWAMBA, and Penis Envy CRASS, but, at the end of the day, Hagitate just feels like a vanity project not unlike the STEVE IGNORANT WITH PARANOID VISIONS albums that have come out over the last few years. The songs are still good and the band is enjoyable, but they will have a hard time living up to the original period of UK anarcho punk they were a part of. The song “Show Off” pretty much explains that they just wanted to get on stage again and have fun, and while there is nothing wrong with that, it does feel like it can water down a legacy. Sometimes it’s nice to see people form new bands and projects instead of going back to the well. This is a very enjoyable release if you love 30- or 40-year-old anarcho punk, but there is certainly nothing mandatory about it.
Second 7″ from Trento’s IMPULSO falls on the listener as an unstoppable bomb that has your name written on it. Sounds clean as most of the modern hardcore records but it also makes the writing ability of the band transparent. Most of the linear riffs are balanced with interesting switches on the rhythm formula; even the mid-tempo songs are full-speed-ahead-paced but held back on a chain that is about to break. There is a great use of the two guitars and a bouncy groove roams between each part. As if I were standing under a waterfall—this is how packed the devastating flood of these songs hits. The only thing I cannot do is to throw around classic Italian hardcore bands as comparison points. Unlike other current acts who exist from the predecessor’s influences, IMPULSO rather understood what made that scene great and they brought back the idea to be inventive and fuck all rules.
As the title says, this is two cassettes now enshrined on vinyl. The A-side is 2017’s Yes! Like the Dawg and the B-side is 2019’s Just A Couple of Dudes. LASSIE is having a great time blasting out songs like “Phonecalls On My Deathbed” and “Deposit Bottles.” The vocals remind me of DEVO while the music has a amateurish ’60s feel. It’s silly and entertaining poppy garage rock that is also well played and catchy as heck. Just a plain old good time for band member and listener alike.
Eight tracks pulled from the Grand Theft Audio discography CD released back in 1996. LOCKJAW plagued the Portland punk scene in the early ’80s, releasing two EPs and appearing on the Drinking Is Great comp, though the the burly, plodding hardcore on this one-sided 12″ pales in comparison to the likes of POISON IDEA or even FINAL WARNING. Why dig up these mediocre recordings and put them on vinyl now (or to be precise, 2018 when this was released)? Well, aside from the fact that we’re nearing the bottom of the barrel for un-reissued ’80s HC material, I’d imagine this band’s MEATMEN-sans-irony lyrical content appeals to closet alt-right losers who are titillated by Ted Bundy cover art and “button-pushing” tunes like “Crippled Children” and “She’s a Slut.” Yawn.
Puerto Rican punkers living in Brooklyn deliver a debut cassette with seven songs of lo-fi punk rock crammed on a short cassette. Six head-bopping originals and a cover of a song by fellow PR band ACTITUD SUBVERSIVA, which I recognized from their split with TROPIEZO, whom I was a big fan of but regrettably never got to see. This is a real nice change from the overhyped “punk” bands that Brooklyn tends to shit out, and it comes across incredibly sincere and not contrived in the slightest. It seems they only made 50 of these cassettes, so get one quick.
MALARIA! was a German experimental/weird proto-electronic band, and Complied 2.0 collects their singles from 1981-84 and their debut LP Emotions. For those who do not consider MALARIA! essential: they play minimal beat/rigid vocal, heavy-restricted-power-therefore-tension-overdosed music that today would fit rather the vibe of Wire rather than MRR. Each song has a limited amount of tools by which to fill the sound space, and most of the time, there are just one or two additional elements to the music other than the beat and vocals: be it mutant synth, loud piano, sharp guitars, or tortured saxophone. Yet the songs are masterfully crafted and sound much more, exemplifying the idea that you can do whatever you want with whatever you have. MALARIA! was able to reach it, and they still sounded pretty radical. This music will not cheer you up, but this is not gloomy post-punk, it is possessed proto-techno that focuses on people and everyday life within industrialized loud cities and robotic behaviours. It’s several great records packed as one that also emancipates you from scam artists who would swear they are selling you the original copies in near-mint condition, and then you would have to investigate what the hell those weird stains on the cover are. Get this!
This cassette looks amazing. Super slick pro-dubbed silver cassettes, three-panel foldout J-card cover with black print on shimmery silver paper stock. I am learning a lot this month about the dangers of focusing on the aesthetics of demos. The only positive things I have to say about this release have to do with its good looks. I have absolutely no idea what I just listened to. Weird squawks and smacks and bleep-bloops with whiny vocals and/or jazz horns delivered over top of it. It’s some form of avant-garde experimental art project stuff that I guess I just don’t get. The tape is long too, there’s eleven “songs” on it, and they’re not particularly short. I standardly make it a point not to write reviews during the first listen of a demo, but I don’t think I will be able to make it the full way through this tape a second time.
The second album from this Motörcharged metal punk band from Varese, Italy featuring various members from PIOGGA NERA, KONTATTO, DEVOID OF THOUGHT, and more. This sounds a lot like if you took the gruff-beyond-gruff vocals from CRUDE SS, distorted them even deeper on the EXTREME NOISE TERROR spectrum, and then set them atop a far more metallic and rock’n’rage-driven crustcore peak, with riffs galore and sharp quick solos all sewn together with tight playing. A little less raw and more polished than their first album Eternal Headache, both in terms of the recording and the songs themselves, the fourteen tracks speed, crush, and rock, culminating in their take on a classic NABAT song. The lyrics are blunt: attacking war, scene problems, cops and the ever-relatable punk needs of drugs and a hangover-killing next-day hair of the dog. All in fun, there’s a wild “if you’re only in it for the lyrics…fuck off” warning on the lyric sheet, which is a wild inversion of the ’80s and ’90s “if you’re only in it for the music, fuck off.” Sadly, it’s hard to fathom where punk has landed in the 21st century—anyone is drawn to it at this point by the lyrics, but perhaps there are still (and more power to them) ancient diehards keeping close monitor from their squat somewhere in Europe, whom modern late stage capitalism has yet to pry loose. It’s an odd warning, like “hey don’t judge us too closely,” but with a crust skeleton riding a motorcycle on the cover next to a beer bottle on a chain. I think the party was clearly stated from the outset, and it meets it in, ahem, (ace of) “spades.” It is a fun, raging, rocking listen.
I loved the 12″, but this is fantastic! What a record. A wild journey into art punk girl sound that’s exuberant, intoxicating, refreshing, and delightful! Sounds like it coulda come out in 1981 but also the sound of now! The joy of screaming fuck you at the gruesome specter of our current age. The way the three vocalists intertwine their vocals is so cool, sort of reminds me of the women from the B52’S where it’s almost unhinged but also pop?! It makes me think of listening to HONEY BANE and also the first GANG OF FOUR 45 all at once, just rambunctious radical transmissions!!! The lyrics are smart and insurrectionary, it’s such a pleasure to listen to. Just endless kicks and dance offs, but what they’re saying is off the pigs, bringing forth an anti-male-gaze reality you would only dream of!
Musically, NOSFERATU hasn’t changed much since 2016’s Sounds of Hardcore EP, but the recording on Solution A is better and overall I think these new songs are more dynamic and interesting, even though I love the EP. On Solution A, NOSFERATU plays fourteen songs in seventeen minutes. One side flies by, flip the record, and then the next side ends. Repeat. There are a couple of mid-tempo flourishes here and there and a few moody-ish songs like “Under the Sun,” “The Act of Fear,” and the instrumental outro “Solution Absolute,” but overall this is fast and tightly-wound traditional hardcore. The songs are memorable with neat guitar sounds, drums that rarely stop rolling and galloping, and vocals that are snotty and have lots of attitude and reverb. Tracks like “Dictated in Red,” “Attack,” and “Application of Reason” are likely to be stuck in your head all day after a few listens.
There’s just an absolute smorgasbord of styles at work throughout this album, originally released in 1997 and made available again for new millennium punx courtesy of Phantom and Honhie Records. The basic sound is garage-y punk, but there are touches of hardcore crunch and speed, ska, and straight-up rock’n’roll as well. The singer has the kind of charismatic, Jello-esque squeal you’d kind of expect a band like this to feature. A farfisa-style organ comes and goes, not always aligning with the garage-y numbers. The covers, of the FLESHEATERS and “TV Party,” are very representative of the album’s sound as a whole. Personally, I found it exhausting around the halfway point but if this sounds like your jam, then hey, it’s easy to get again, and there are plenty available.
Super sick scrappy punk that sounds like an outtake from one of those killer early ’80s Dutch comps, but also sorta like KLEENEX meets the RATS!? Katie B’s vocals are incredible, wild and snotty and dark and kind of reminding me of a punk-era GO-GO’S or wilder NEO BOYS or or or or even MANNISCH DEPRESSIV. “Close the Door” is the mix tape staple! A one-two punch followed by the killer “Time to Go” on the B-side. It’s a lo-fi pummel classique made by a collection of people who definitely feature strongly in your record collection, so you should just grab it ASAP!
Maybe you know the PSYCHOS from their song “Before” on the Big City’s One Big Crowd comp. Maybe you’ve seen old photos of NY street kids rocking PSYCHOS T-shirts with the illustrated colossal man who is either a) caught inside, b) attempting to smash, or c) struggling to uphold the name “PSYCHOS.” Maybe the Back With a Vengeance CD by post-PSYCHOS group TRIP 6 is your most coveted disc. Maybe I’m assuming too much about you, but even if you’re completely unfamiliar with the band, I guarantee you elation upon hearing these primitive hard-as-hell blasts of simplified rock’n’roll, which formed the basis of what we know to be NYHC. The music is raw, simplistic, hard, and extremely catchy. The breakdowns of “Blind Justice” and “Rejected Youth” are the basis of NYHC to come, while you could perpetually skank to the duration of “One Voice.” It’s not as rapid fire as classics like AGNOSTIC FRONT, ANTIDOTE, and CAUSE FOR ALARM, or inventive and odd as the MOB, URBAN WASTE and FATHEAD SUBURBIA, but like some of these aforementioned groups, the PSYCHOS have a definitive style all their own. As expected, the insert booklet and layout of the record is another top quality Radio Raheem production. This stands as a fantastic representation of NYHC at the time: unfashionable, raw, and eclectic. Praise be.
RAKTA seems to be constantly all around the world, dropping new records, changing members along the road while not only maintaining but upgrading their sound. All the events around them did not exhaust but enforced their sound. For proof here is Falha Comum, another LP from one of the hardest working bands in the business. They create an otherworldly environment with multiple layers of spaced-out sounds based on the collision of bass and drums that are primal instruments and electronics that supply the unclassified noise ornaments. Rhythm-centric music covered with alien noises both feels as a ritual and the epiphany itself, thus a whole process that moves you through stations. It travels via a childlike state where due to unfamiliar surroundings and confusing circumstances everything is frightening and enchanting at the same time, but time seems slower due to the eventful ceremony. It works as well as the songs after a point evolve to scenes that blend in to an experience. The spooky, surreal, beautiful atmosphere is almost touchable and through its pigeon holes leaks the haunted, echoed-out howling which reminds us that the environment has been created through people. The density of the record is loading a lot on the listener, yet when it’s over, silence sounds harsh.
Full disclosure: I am not a fan of parody bands, aside from maybe BETTER BEATLES, so an EP of RAMONES covers by four parents singing lyrics about their kids is not really something I’d choose to spin given my limited amount of time on this earth to enjoy music. That said, Teacher’s Pet has competently performed and recorded versions of three of humanity’s best songs ever, so I will cop to bobbing my head while listening, kinda in the same way that you see middle-aged norms at a grocery store or coffee shop unintentionally dancing when a loosely “funky” tune is playing on the sound system while they’re waiting in line. The RAMOMS probably had fun doing this, so more power to ’em, but how about some deep cuts next time around? “Mommy Says” (“Danny Says”) or “Eat That Vegetable” (“Eat That Rat”) perhaps?
Thought process: I know REAGAN YOUTH played shows in recent years without Dave Insurgent, but a new EP? [Flips record over] Oh wait, this was recorded in February 1982? …In Denver?!? So yeah, it’s not that REAGAN YOUTH, it’s the pre-BUM KON band that never properly released anything back in the day. Kind of amazing this exists at all, since the liner notes describe a group without a steady bass player, a set of mostly cover songs, and a lifespan of only a few months. But it’s good! Rudimentary yet lively (and studio-quality) versions of five tunes that later appeared, in revved-up fashion, on BUM KON’s Drunken Sex Sucks EP and/or posthumous LP (co-released by MRR and, in this writer’s completely biased opinion, an under-appreciated artifact). I’m glad to see Donut Crew and GSL rebooted for this worthwhile endeavor.
Fed-up-with-everything hardcore that is in a near-constant state of shapeshifting, yet never loses its momentum or fury for even a second. They can do both stream-of-consciousness songs that are memorable and make sense, along with ones with more discernible structures that are equally memorable and well-written, and are both tuneful and raging as fuck at any speed. The vocals are a nice burly snarl, with a nice raw sound to match. Please, please, please play the Bay Area.
Dare I say that this freaky record sounds a little like CRASS’ “Bata Motel” if it didn’t take itself nearly as seriously, took a bunch of psychedelic drugs, and decided to be on a rock’n’roll EP. Just focus on the vocals and the drums. Some less out-there references land in the neighborhood of a more gleeful version of BLATZ or the CRUCIFUCKS. I think the band says it best themselves: “The songs are about being ugly, being pissed, being not clever or too sad to fuck.” True weirdos fully embracing the meaning of punk and gifting this gem upon us as a mere side-effect of their rapture.
B-sides and rarities compilations are always a mixed bag, and this collection is no different. Some of the early 7″ tracks suffer more than benefit from their lack of recording quality. “Arm Over Arm” and “Zoo of Death” from 2006 certainly hint at what SCREAMING FEMALES would become, but they’re better off as a curiosity than an example. However, “Pretty Okay” from their 2008 split with FULL OF FANCY might be the standout track on the comp and still makes it into their live set not infrequently. The most unique inclusion is a remix of the droney “End of My Bloodline,” with new rapped verses by SAMMUS and MOOR MOTHER. It’s a killer track, despite sticking out like a sore thumb from all of the other lo-fi garage punk tracks. This would likely not be a great introduction to the band for a newcomer, but there is more than enough quality music here to make this a necessity for veteran fans of the band.
Artsy noise punk from Maryland. Four songs that kinda sound like if PG.99 or ORCHID got rid of the noodly guitar parts and had a more aggressive singer. The band’s Bandcamp informed me that the release is actually called Troublesome Thoughts, as it’s not listed anywhere on the cassette.
Judging by the cover, what would you think? Well, Oi!-influenced hardcore is cognitive dissonance. I get the fetishized ultra-violent skinhead vibe, male gazing a male fantasy but Oi!, after all, is pub rock and power pop about working the worst shift and fighting, and it’s hard rock with your neighbor yelling at its tough sound. These bomber jacket and combat-obsessed bands are more influenced by Romper Stomper than BLITZ. If I were blindfolded and not aware of the title of the record nor the weightlifting dude on the cover, i’d say the following: SNIPER CULTURE sounds like a contemporary hardcore band who were too lazy/troubled to bring their own gear to the show, so they borrowed everything from a CHAOS UK/DISORDER-worshipping band, left all the settings unadjusted, and just started to play their simplified, but arrestingly groovy hardcore. Reminds me of URBAN WASTE who, without context, are more a noise band than New York Hardcore. Repeated listens help dig through the layers of noise. The tempo changes smoothly between lose-your-shit-fast and push-the-whole-room-mid-tempo. Then it all ends with a cover of “Bloodstains.” This is good, and if this is only the beginning, then it is even better.
The connecting concept across both originals here are repurposed shards from the FALL and the HOMOSEXUALS, each serving as springboards for the fast/easy/cheap immediacy on display. Hard to argue with knock-’em-dead shit like that, though it’s merely the seed, not the whole plant, from which SOFT SHOULDER sprouts nicely. All told, it serves their mad scientist tendencies quite well. Have a go, you’ll live longer.
Tough, no-nonsense punk that includes a bit of a lot of things: stompy Oi!-influenced tempos, lyrics pronounced with anarcho-punk conviction, screamin’ psych-metal guitar riffs, fast circle-pit-worthy interludes, and even some freaky sound effects. This record is excellently punk while emphatically defying subgenres and labels. Refreshingly free and original, it shares the sensibility of early punk trailblazers. The closest comparison I can make is that it sounds like a less-panicky and more psychedelic version of DIRT, with higher production value. Even comes with a cool newsprint poster.
STUPID FASCIST are from Green Bay, WI, and are a self-proclaimed “leftist political hardcore band…made up primarily of old school ’80s punks with an impressive back catalog.” I couldn’t find any info on what bands the members used to be in, but regardless it is awesome hearing older punks still fuming with aggression and channeling it into a fast hardcore punk band. Three songs on this demo, which I think are collectively over in about the same amount of time as the cobbled-together “propaganda reel” that starts the tape. The attached note informs me that the band is finishing up work on a debut LP. My interest is piqued. Bring it on!
Satanic VASELINES fans from Switzerland made a record! Playful DIY pop death for girls that are bored of VENOM? The guitar sound reminds me of NÜ SENSAE: kind of dirge skreee but this veers into cool bedroom-sounding naive pop ’80s tape trader sound too?! Less grrrrunge, more a wild journey with Satan! It reminds me of Scottish indie pop groups! Falling apart charm. They definitely have the self-aware cynicism the VASELINES had that is so absent in so many of their followers. This is not twee! Investigate!
Fucking huge sounding, super energetic D-beat-based hardcore, what the fuck is not to like here? Hard to decide what to highlight first, the sick vocals or the crazed drumming or the raw riffage. While there’s a bit more of an experimental spirit in the margins here compared to their earlier releases, confined to some trippy song intros and breaks, please rest assured that the backbone of pure fucking hardcore remains firmly intact. San Diego’s THERAPY are exemplary of the DIY spirit in 2020: performing a ton, putting on gigs, and always hustling for both their band and their scene. It is a tremendous comfort to me that while over-hyped mediocre trend bands will come and go, there will always be bands like THERAPY keeping it real where it counts. Mandatory for fans of the style and for hardcore lifers in general.
