Featured Releases: April 22, 2024

Innuendo: Peace and Love 12” (Roachleg Records) Vinyl debut from this hardcore band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Innuendo has a unique take on hardcore punk that combines the pulled-back, mid-paced approach of bands like Social Circkle with the grimy, nihilistic breed of hardcore that descends from the Negative Approach 7”. Songs like “Suffer for Peace” and “Walk Away” have California-sounding riffs, their catchiness accentuated by the laid-back cool with which the guitarist strums them, a stark contrast with most hardcore guitarists’ style of playing as fast and as hard as possible all the time. Yet even though the riffs are so catchy, the music never sounds syrupy, even when they do something anthemic like “Nuke This Place” (which makes me think of the Formaldehyde Junkies’ similarly anthemic “Nuke the Frats”)… the singer’s raspy, Dez Cadena-esque vocals and the band’s habit of playing like they’re being dragged through the mud ensures that. The balance of sweet and sour on this one is just great… you gotta love this style of dirty punk with fist-pumping hooks.

Gall-Bladder: Merciless Pendulum cassette (self-released) From what I understand, this demo cassette from Gall-Bladder is kind of a Sirkka side-project, with the US-based members of that band (i.e. everyone except the vocalist Sanja) swapping instruments. The sound is still hardcore punk, but Gall-Bladder ends up sounding quite different from Sirkka. After a somewhat melodic 70s punk-ish sounding intro that reminds me of Puffer’s raw but hooky punk, there’s a long snare roll and then Gall-Bladder launches into the full-bore hardcore, never letting up from there. The sound is desperate and chaotic, reminding me of Discharge without sounding like they’re imitating Discharge. The mix is smashed together with all the instruments coalescing into this monstrous roar, and the chaotic guitar leads especially remind me of Bones. The leads are most Discharge-y element of Gall-Bladder’s sound, but even those go off on their own tangents, like the way the crazy tones on “Applauded Absurdity” make me think of a nuclear warning siren. Gall-Bladder’s music is fast and energetic, but it’s also dark and bent, and while these four songs are undeniably hardcore punk, they’re not without interesting surprises. An excellent demo.

Balta: Mindenki Mindig Minden Ellen 7” (La Vida Es Un Mus) Mindenki Mindig Minden Ellen is the second EP from this noisy Hungarian punk band on La Vida Es Un Mus. You might remember their first EP, Rendszerszintű Agybaszás, which we named Record of the Week back in December 2022. If you love hardcore punk that is maximally noisy and chaotic, you are going to love Balta right off the bat… the tones on this record are insane. The recording is raw and blown out, with a guitar sound that’s fried into a static-y oblivion. It seems kind of obvious to compare Balta to 80s Italian hardcore given their raw and chaotic sound, but they particularly remind me of Indigesti because there’s a relatively straightforward hardcore band lurking beneath the noise, tape hiss, and chaotic delivery. The vocalist sounds like a mix of the guy from Indigesti and Pat Dubar from Uniform Choice, and when there’s enough of a lull in the chaos to get a handle on what’s going on (like when they play the catchy main riff in “Ez A Zaj”), you might even find yourself humming along for a second. But those moments are few, with most of Mindenki Mindig Minden Ellen devoted to undulating waves of chaos. I particularly love when loud guitar overdubs tumble into the mix, performing the function of your standard lead guitar break, but it’s really just more noise at a higher volume and slightly different frequency. This nine-song ripper will be a thrill ride for anyone who loves unrelenting, harsh noise.

Dollhouse: I Hate You Don’t Leave Me 7” (Toxic State Records) Toxic State Records brings us the second 7” from this New York City punk band, and I think it may take many people by surprise. Dollhouse sounds like a classic Toxic State band in a lot of ways: their predilection for pogo and shuffle beats, strained vocals, the artsy vibe, and lyrics and imagery that view childhood through a sinister lens. But while I think of New York punk bands as favoring primitive recordings, I Hate You Don’t Leave Me sounds clear and heavy, with a level of studio polish that reminds me of 90s pop-punk and melodic hardcore. The guitar riffs lean in that direction too. While the melodic lead guitar on “Be Nice to Me (Part II)” wouldn’t have been out of place in a Sad Boys song, the title track’s big guitar hook sounds like something you’d hear on one of Screeching Weasel’s Fat Wreck-era LPs. Some of you may interpret that as a slight, but I love those records, and I think “I Hate You Don’t Leave Me” is a great song too. Even the vocals, which are pretty limited in terms of melody, find patterns that make you want to sing along on the title track and “So Hollow.” As someone who owns just about every record by Crazy Spirit and Dawn of Humans AND Screeching Weasel and Pegboy, I think this is a great—and very unique—record.

Public Interest: Spiritual Pollution 12” (Erste Theke Tonträger) Second album from this Oakland post-punk group that, I believe, is the solo project of a member of Marbled Eye. Not a million miles away from Marbled Eye’s brooding post-punk, Public Interest sounds to me like late 70s / early 80s Manchester filtered through 2000s Australia. The heavy drums and the way the bass carries so much melody puts this firmly in the Joy Division school of dark post-punk, but as with Aussies Total Control and Low Life, there’s a golden-hour-at-the-beach quality to it too that keeps the darkness from fully taking over. Maybe it’s the way most of Spiritual Pollution stays at such an even keel, avoiding a lot of the obvious dynamic shifts in tempo or volume that so many other bands use to keep the listener’s interest. Public Interest doesn’t pander in that way, instead requiring you to acclimate to their environment before you notice the interesting details. I particularly like tracks like “Residue” and “Burning of Time,” where the guitars have more of a chiming, Smiths-influenced sound, weaving melodies that wind around the bass lines in interesting ways. Given Public Interest’s staid demeanor, it may take a few listens for Spiritual Pollution to sink in, but it has plenty of charm for those who give it the required time and attention.

Ritual Warfare: Poison Death Noise 7” (Sewercide Records) Sewercide Records brings us the second 7” EP from this raw underground metal band from their stomping grounds of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Poison Death Noise, despite being only a 7”, is a smorgasbord of raw underground metal sounds. I know nothing about who makes Ritual Warfare’s music, but I picture a total metal fanatic who does nothing but smoke weed, listen to primitive underground metal from the 80s tape trading days, and meticulously revise their own metal masterpieces. While all four tracks on Poison Death Noise channel the raw excitement of outlier 80s metal like NME’s Unholy Death LP, they’re also intricately composed, coming off like mini symphonies influenced by the entire history of underground metal. The title track that leads off the record is fully of knotty rhythmic shifts, its fried production values making it sound coherent despite the music swaying between full-bore death metal and moshy, thrash-style breakdowns. The second track, “Detest,” is just as impressive, starting with scorching guitar work on the death metal intro and moving to a chorus that features a climactic yell of “you fucking piece of shit!” through Sakevi-style distorted and delayed vocals before launching into a blazing guitar solo. You might think the song is winding down, but it’s only halfway done, building a new foundation of Norwegian-style black metal before an extended guitar solo that cycles through numerous movements and musical ideas. They put some work into this guitar solo, and it shows. Yet despite how ambitious Ritual Warfare’s music is, it always sounds raw and direct, just like my favorite under-the-radar 80s classics. A fucking scorcher.