Featured Releases

Nu-Viles: A Taste of… the New Wave 7” (Vinyl Dog Records) Vinyl Dog Records—the label started in 1993 by Mike, singer for the Stitches—returns to the fold after a long hiatus, and their first release back is a ripper. The Nu-Viles are the perfect band for Vinyl Dog to return with because they pick up a few threads from the label’s heyday—the 77-influenced neo-beach punk of the Smogtown and the Stitches and the keyboard-damaged squall of Le Shok—and bring them together with the new wave of No Way Records-style hardcore which has been popping up worldwide, but particularly in California. For someone like me who loves all that stuff, this is a perfect recipe for blazing, memorable punk rock. It’s hardly de rigueur for hardcore bands to release proper singles with just one track on the a-side, but “Lead & Speed” is a great song that deserves to be highlighted as such. Lyrically, the song leans on the age-old analogy between speed the drug and speed as in going fast, while musically the song embodies the rush you get from both. It’s catchy as hell, but it’s not really poppy. In fact, there aren’t even any words in the chorus. Each verse ends with the words “lead and speed,” but as they hit what you expect to be the “chorus” part, the vocals and guitar both drop out and the bassist takes center stage for a crazy little run. Maybe it’s because I play bass, but writing a song with no words in the chorus and a bass riff as the hook is just awesome to me. The two songs on the b-side are a little more standard in their structure (i.e. they have proper choruses built around vocal hooks), but they’re just as fast and exciting. This may be a deep-cut reference, but the Nu-Viles remind me a lot of Rabies, one of the first bands Sorry State put out. Maybe it’s the singers’ similar SoCal accents, but they have other things in common too, particularly the busy bass lines. If you liked Rabies you’ll love Nu-Viles, but the Nu-Viles are even faster, nearly hitting Gang Green-type tempos, and the Screamers-esque keyboards lurking toward the back of the mix give it even more density and an extra unsettling edge. Throw in a classic-looking sleeve and you have one hot punk single.

Man&Error: 2025 cassette (self-released) 5-song cassette EP from this project from Berlin, Germany. It can be tough to get small-run cassettes like this from overseas for a decent price, so shout-out to Iffi at Static Age Musik for the assist on these. Man&Error’s Bandcamp calls this “3 songs in 3 weeks by 3 friends in summer 2025” (the fourth song is a cover, and the fifth song is a alternate mix of the cover song), and while it’d be a shame if it’s all we ever hear from Man&Error, I love how these songs have the feeling of a fun summer project, light and airy and definitely not overthought. The instrumental parts are very simple, with the three originals built around simple drumbeats and just a few notes, though there’s still space within this framework for originality and dynamics, like how the main riff in “Away with the Faeries” is mostly just a slide down the guitar neck or the slightly dissonant harmony toward the end of “Bargain Bin.” But while the music has a naiveté about it, the vocals are accomplished and expressive, properly sung with a bluesy tinge that makes me think of PJ Harvey. For points of comparison, I’d put this somewhere between the Young Marble Giants / Raincoats school of minimalist post-punk and early indie-pop like the Shop Assistants and Dolly Mixture. Alongside the three originals, Man&Error cover the Petticoats, a relatively obscure post-punk/indie-pop band who only released one single, but you might also remember their contribution to the (also rather obscure) Scaling Triangles compilation, which got bootlegged in the recent past (and we sold a good number of copies of that at SSR). It’s one of those comp songs that Man&Error covers, so if you feel a twinge of recognition when you hear their version, that might be what you’re remembering. At any rate, if the above references pique your interest, you’ll no doubt find this EP charming and enjoyable.

XUI: Mai Chét (Die Tomorrow) 7" (self-released) We first heard from Oakland, California’s XUI when they released their demo tape in 2022, and since then they’ve released a steady drip of EPs, incrementally refining their fast-and-ugly hardcore attack. XUI sings in a combination of English and Vietnamese (the back cover of Mai Chét says “XUI is Vietnamese for ‘Bad Luck’” across the top), which gives their anti-war, anti-authoritarian lyrics extra weight. The inside cover relates contains some shocking statistics about the US war against Vietnam, presenting them in Discharge-esque, flat reportage-style alongside the slogan, “the fighting ends / the suffering continues.” Heavy stuff. Musically, Mai Chét is a bit different from XUI’s last EP, Realities. That record had a frantic sound with a lot of unexpected rhythmic shifts, looser playing (particularly on the fast parts), and a more blown-out recording, but Mai Chét has groovier, more in-the-pocket playing and a clearer, more balanced mix based around a fuzzy, vintage-y guitar tone. The music rides the line between early USHC and mid-80s Scandi-beat, but the vocals (which are still pretty blown out) have that post-EP Brannon / YDI-type hiss to them, which has a whiff of black metal about it, giving off an evil (rather than tough or confrontational) vibe. All this adds up to a record that feels authentically old-school, but doesn’t sound precisely like anything else I can think of. In fact, I keep listening to Mai Chét over and over, trying to figure out a precise point of comparison and coming up empty. To get in the ballpark, let’s say Crucifix and DC Youth Brigade might be halfway decent reference points, but with several years as a band and numerous releases under their belt, XUI has reached the point where they sound like no one but themselves.

Plastic Tones: Can You Keep a Secret? 12” (Kick Rock Records) France’s Kick Rock Records (Befa from Deletär’s label) and Japan’s Vox Populi Records team up to bring us the third album from this Finnish power-pop band. We’ve carried Plastic Tones records in the shop before, but only in small quantities and they always disappeared before I got a chance to spend much time with them, so I won’t be able to tell you how Can You Keep a Secret? stacks up against the rest of their discography. I can, however, tell you that it’s a killer power-pop record. The bulk of its nine songs mine a vein of sun-bleached, shimmery pop with a hard rock edge. While there are keyboards and polished production, riffy electric guitars are at the center of the arrangements; consequently, this brings to mind the more “rock” end of early 80s new wave like Kim Wilde or Pat Benetar. Sheer Mag works in a similar space (and I can hear touches of peak-era Fleetwood Mac in both Plastic Tones and Sheer Mag), but Plastic Tones feel even more pop, particularly when their sugar-rush choruses hit with their soaring melodies and stacked vocal harmonies. The middle part of the record (tracks 2-8) is just hit after hit, every song building to a hugely climactic chorus. While there’s enough grit that Can You Keep a Secret? fits on a label known mostly for d-beat, I could see fans of a modern indie rock band like Alvvays loving Plastic Tones too. Interestingly, the album is bookended with two tracks that stand out from the others. The leadoff song, “We’re All in This Together,” has a different lead vocalist than the other songs on the album, and while it’s not that much different than the others structurally, the melody is subtler than in the other songs and its impact isn’t as immediate. As for the last track, “You Can Do Whatever You Wanna Do,” that’s also not a huge departure, but it’s at a much faster tempo than the other songs on the album, giving this song a punkier edge that I love (think Nasty Facts) and ending the album on a high note. While Can You Keep a Secret?’s polish may be too much for some of the Sorry State crowd, if you have a pop sweet tooth and a soft spot for early 80s new wave, this record is like a one-way ticket to your happy place.

Subversive Intent: S/T 12” (Rebirth Records) Rebirth Records brings us the debut LP from San Diego’s Subversive Intent. If you listen to the hardcore punk podcast 185 Miles South, you probably know about Subversive Intent already because that podcast’s host Zack plays guitar in the band. That’s relevant info because Subversive Intent pulls together a lot of threads that get talked about on 185, where it’s even money whether they’ll be repping Anti-Cimex, Madball, or Negative Approach at any given moment. Compositionally, Subversive Intent’s songs are grounded in the early 80s hardcore classics, with primarily fast rhythms, lots of d-beats, and riffs steeped in Discharge. The label’s description references Battalion of Saints, and I hear that influence in a lot of Subversive Intent’s riffing… just check out the opening part of the song “Subversive Intent,” which besides that killer opening riff has the album’s hookiest chorus. But while this record takes a lot from early 80s hardcore and d-beat, I also hear things that remind me of late 80s and early 90s hardcore: a couple of big breakdowns, the singer’s youth crew-ish shouted vocals, and some metallic lead guitar flourishes. The production is also tighter and more contained than a lot of modern d-beat. It sounds great (mixed and mastered by Ricky Olson, who did the Ultimate Disaster LP whose sound everyone, including me, raved about), but Subversive Intent doesn’t get into the fizzy, fried tones of, say, Destruct or Public Acid. With 10 tracks in about 12 minutes, this one flies by with the speed and energy of the classic 45rpm 12”s from the 80s we all know and love. Totally ripping.

Sin Offering: Guilty 12” (Beach Impediment Records) Three of hardcore’s best current record labels—Beach Impediment, Sound Grotesca, and Side Two—team up to bring us the debut vinyl from Sin Offering. I’m tempted to start by calling Sin Offering a “death rock” band and noting how much they remind me of Christian Death, but (despite the fact that I just did it) I feel like leading with that sells Sin Offering short. There’s a lot of unoriginal, super budget-sounding death rock / post-punk out there, but Sin Offering doesn’t feel like it’s coming from the same place as those bands. One big way they separate themselves from the pack is by infusing big doses of metal and hard rock into their sound. Take the main riff to “Ingenue,” which wouldn’t be out of place on a Dokken record. While that riff is the most rocked-out moment on Guilty, much of the record is chunky and metallic, somewhere between Amebix and Samhain in its balance of heaviness, rocking propulsion, and gloomy atmospherics. Alongside that focus on atmospherics, most of the album lumbers forward in this zombie walk tempo that keeps everything tense and menacing. The vocals definitely recall Christian Death (the official blurb uses the phrase “girl Rozz Williams”), creepily moaned as if they’re the singer’s last words, and while you won’t walk away from your first listen humming the vocal melodies, they contribute a lot to the haunted vibes. The lyrics are great too. I also love Guilty’s packaging, which expands on the music’s hauntological themes with creepy Victorian imagery and fonts, layouts, and paper/printing choices that feel like wedding invitations from a dark mirror world. While Sin Offering’s music might not be as immediate as face-ripping hardcore or sugar-rush pop, they’re great at building an immersive world and using their music to take you somewhere new and exciting.

Face-Off: S/T 7” (Donor Records) The UK’s Donor Records continues their hot streak (having recently released scorchers from Mother Nature and Tormented Imp) with this debut 7” from Yorkshire’s Face-Off. While Mother Nature and Tormented Imp both had an arty bent, Face-Off is undiluted hardcore punk. The a-side starts with two rippers, “Lethal Dose” and “State Surveillance,” and while they’re both pitched straight down the middle for lovers of classic USHC, the energy level is off the charts… they really captured lightning in a bottle with this recording. The b-side mixes up the tempo, but even though the tempos decrease slightly over the course of the record, the EP gets more intense as it goes on rather than less. Style-wise, Face-Off reminds me of the full-bore assault of Jerry’s Kids, but with touches of Tear It Up’s desperation and enough groove to give it a slight west coast US feel, but none of this feels belabored… the focus is squarely on the explosive energy. The packaging is great too, with classic stippled punk illustrations on the sleeve and a cool lyric insert that uses a bunch of different fonts and graphic elements to visually underscore the themes of paranoia and information overload in the lyrics. All in all, a brilliantly executed, highly addictive hardcore punk EP.

The Carp: Tangled Up with the Two Tailed Rat 12” (Total Punk Records)The Carp follows up their 2024 debut on Total Punk (which we named Record of the Week when it came out) with their second album. As you’re probably aware, the Carp is part of the Cruelster cinematic universe, the band having started on a whim when Cruelster’s bassist couldn’t make it to one of their practices. While there are a lot of similarities between these related bands, each project has its own identity, and the Carp is (nominally at least) the oi! band, with a simpler, punkier musical approach and a lyrical focus on themes of work and class; the insert for this record has the slogan “working class rock music” emblazoned across the top. “Working class rock music” isn’t a slogan that speaks to me particularly (there are way too many fucking terrible oi! bands out there), but the key thing to understand is that this whole oi! / working class thing is heavily filtered through guitarist / vocalist / lyricist Nathan Ward’s extremely unique perspective and artistic voice. I am a total Nathan Stan, and one of the highlights of my sad little life is when one of Nathan’s bands releases a new record and I get to sit down with the lyric sheet and try to decipher Nathan’s trademark scrawl in order to find out what’s going on in that beautiful brain of his. Tangled Up with the Two Tailed Ratscratches that itch, with Nathan’s trademark potpourri of surrealistic imagery, conspiracy talk, keen political / social insight, and LOL-evoking one-liners. While the lyrics are the highlight for me, the Carp’s music hits hard too, with its skewed take on classic street punk and a few tracks (“I Crave the City” and “Fuck Alex Karp,” for instance) whose hooks land with even more impact than usual. If you loved the first album, you’ll love this one. If you haven’t yet found your foothold in this little world, this is as good a place as any to dive in and get acquainted with one of the coolest and most unique things happening in the contemporary punk world.

Ardenti Crucis: Deeper the Thoughts, Darker the Fear 12” (Asilo Oniron) If you’ve been reading my staff picks for the past year or so, you know I’ve been educating myself on Greek punk, so when this debut record from Thessaoloniki, Greece’s Ardenti Crucis crossed my desk, it piqued my interest. While Ardenti Crucis’s music doesn’t have much to do with the 80s Greek punk that’s been a main focus of my off-the-clock record listening, I think the Sorry State faithful will dig this hard, so I imported a small stack of copies. It’s hard to sum up the sound of Deeper the Thoughts, Dark the Fear with just a few words because it tramples all over the established boundaries between genres. The album starts with a synth-based intro that sounds a lot like Visage’s synth-pop classic “Fade to Grey,” but that instrumental intro gives little indication of what’s to come. Once the proper songs kick in, they’re generally fast and punky, with an oi!-ish vocalist who has a slightly tuneful shout, but the instrumentation is dense and unique. Ardenti Crucis’s rhythm section is fantastic, and there’s so much going on with those parts of the songs that at first it’s tough to focus on anything else. The bassist and drummer are both busy players, but they make it work with strong hooks and melodies rather than aimless wanking. The drumming is particularly strong, keeping a constant, upbeat and punky pulse while filling the songs with interesting rhythmic ideas. There’s this one thing the drummer does that I really love where they’ll switch back and forth between that kind of standard post-punk two-handed hi-hat beat (something I really don’t like when it’s deployed generically) and a more conventional rock beat, sometimes moving between these from bar to bar, always in a way that complements what the guitarist and bassist are doing. The guitarist is similarly versatile, moving back and forth between chords and notes, and the synth provides yet another layer, ripping away with their own complementary melodies and rhythms. While the music isn’t similar at all (aside from a general sense of dark melody), the overall effect is similar to something like Leatherface, where there’s so much going on that it can be tough to parse, yet somehow there’s a central core that comes through the maze of details and makes the songs immediate and powerful. Since there’s so much going on, I could see Ardenti Crucis having some trouble finding an audience. Folks who like the recent wave of “cold oi!” informed by post-punk will find a lot to like here, but there’s so much other stuff on Deeper the Thoughts that it doesn’t rest comfortably in that lane. However, those of us who crave novelty in our punk rock will find this a dense but gratifying album.

Active Ingredients: Discography 2x12” (Street Rats Records) Kentucky punk label Street Rats Records brings us a double-LP discography from 80s Lexington, Kentucky hardcore punk band Active Ingredients. Active Ingredients first came on my radar sometime in the early 2000s. This was in the dark days before every punk record ever had been ripped and posted on youtube, and one of my most listened-to records was a bootleg 12” featuring four killer under-the-radar 80s US hardcore EPs in their entirety: Mecht Mensch’s Acceptance, Clitboys’ We Don’t Play the Game, the Catatonics’ Hunted Down, and Active Ingredients’ Bringing Down the Big Boys. That record (alongside a similar bootleg with EPs by the Abused, Antidote, Urban Waste, and the Mob) was huge for me, and was a big part of cementing my love for / obsession with 80s US hardcore. Active Ingredients had a sneering and sarcastic take on 80s hardcore, reminding me of bands like Dead Kennedys, Adrenalin OD, and the Angry Samoans both in the snotty vocal and lyrical approach and the hooky, punky music (as opposed to the harder, more Discharge-informed end of the spectrum). Eventually I found an original copy of Bringing Down the Big Boys, but for some reason I never investigated Active Ingredients further, and it turns out they released a lot more music during their original run. I didn’t even realize Bringing Down the Big Boys is their second EP—they also released a self-titled 7” in 1984—and there was also a cassette-only full-length called Fly Again in 1987. All this is collected on this double-LP discography alongside an entire LP side of totally unreleased demo tracks. Hearing all this new-to-me Active Ingredients music is pretty exciting. After a handful of listens to the discography, I think Bringing Down the Big Boys is the moment where everything really came together for the band, but all the other material is well worth hearing. The packaging doesn’t make it clear when the demos were recorded (maybe that information is lost to the sands of time), but it sounds like some of them pre-date the first EP given their more 70s-punk-informed sound. These songs have a similar air of sarcastic menace to the well-known material, and I imagine there are some 70s punk heads who will think this is Active Ingredients’ best stuff. The 1984 self-titled EP is also new to me, and that basically sounds like a prototype version of the second EP (the two records even start with the same song, “Service with a Smile”). The recording isn’t quite as good as the second EP and the band isn’t as tight, but the songs are just as strong. If you already have the EPs, the real gem of this discography is the 1987 cassette-only full-length Fly Again, presented here on vinyl for the first time. While Fly Again isn’t (for the most part) as fast as the EPs, it still sounds like Active Ingredients, but with a slightly riffier, maybe even sludgier sound. Fly Again sounds a lot like Fang to me, particularly given the tone of sardonic menace that runs through all of Active Ingredients’ recordings. Of course you get the requisite ephemera and flyers (Active Ingredients must have played with every national punk/hardcore band that came through Lexington) on the insert and inner gatefold, plus a second insert written by Dan from Street Rats detailing his personal history with the band and how the discography project came together (fun fact: this was originally supposed to come out on General Speech). Active Ingredients fans will be stoked to own great-sounding versions of all this material, but even if you don’t know the band, any 80s US hardcore deep head will get plenty of play out of this collection.

Twit: Spurts 7” (Plastic Roundie Discs) This debut (as far as I can tell) 6-song EP from British Columbia’s Twit is the second release on the immaculately named Plastic Roundie Discs. The label’s description mentioned Suburban Lawns and X-Ray Spex as points of comparison, and while I can see what they mean, when I threw on Spurts it sounded way different than I would have expected. The biggest thing the description leaves out is how 60s garage-informed these tracks are. All the songs are built on big, clanging riffs that remind me of the early Kinks catalog… you know, the same stuff that inspired thousands of American teens to start garage bands in the 60s. The accents of organ and saxophone add to the 60s feel, but the performances are super high-energy and punk. I’m not sure how much people think about them these days, but the vibe reminds me of the early Shitty Limits singles that made me fall in love with the band, while the vocals remind me of Judy & the Jerks, particularly given all the mundane (and food-related) things from contemporary life that get shouted out in these songs. All six tracks are killer and they fly by in what feels like two minutes. The record has great packaging too, including a glow in the dark cover and an insert that’s printed with glow in the the dark ink on white paper, so you have to look at it in the dark in order to see it. I fully condone this type of obnoxiousness… if you’re going to make a physical thing, why not go to the trouble of making it something interesting or unique to engage with? The only issue is that they only made 200 copies. We’re almost sold out and there is no restock forthcoming, so if you see this in time, pick up a copy and be the envy of all your friends.

Vital Stress: S/T 7” (self-released) 5-song debut self-released 7” from this Cleveland band who is on the Sorry State family tree: Jayson from Knowso plays drums and Richard from Yambag (who we haven’t released a record by, but love) plays bass. “Cleveland punk” can evoke a range of different sounds, but Vital Stress reaches way back to the beginning for inspiration, drawing from bands like the Dead Boys and the Pagans. The first track, “Poison Seeds,” is the best example of this, a Dead Boys-style rager that tacks James Williamson-inspired hot guitar licks onto a song that’s driving and menacing, yet has this subtle undercurrent of melancholy melody. Vital Stress has two singers who alternate songs, and their vocal styles bring very different vibes to their respective songs. Jake’s songs have that desperate, hoarse, Stiv Bators kind of thing that you might expect given what Vital Stress’s music sounds like, while Mickey’s songs are seasoned with a touch of sass. The songwriting here is fantastic, with killer rocked-out riffs, dramatic changes that pull you through the songs and keep them exciting, and lead guitar parts that are ripping but also have a strong melodies rather than aimless flurries of notes. I feel like a ton of bands go for this tough 70s punk sound (who wouldn’t want to sound like the Dead Boys and the Pagans?), but few land on something as compelling as these five tracks. Totally killer.