Featured Releases

Indikator B: S/T II 7” (General Speech Records) Here at Sorry State we’ve been big fans of Croatia’s Indikator B since they started releasing music, and we imported both their demo cassette and first EP for distribution in the US. Now their follow-up EP has a higher-profile domestic issue on General Speech Records, which is fitting because these four new tracks are scorching. If you’re a fiend for 80s European hardcore, it’s hard to imagine how you couldn’t love this record… it just sounds so incredibly, authentically old school. Indikator B doesn’t achieve that with a vintage-y sounding recording (though I do love how the record sounds), but more with their general style and approach. The songs are lean and primarily ripping fast (with great, powerful drumming), but Indikator B has a knack for injecting the perfect amount of melody into their songs. That includes both the riffs and the vocals; I love the way the vocalist has two or three notes he can hit, and the simple melodies and strong phrasing always serve as a perfect counterpoint to the riffs. And as General Speech notes, there’s more than whiff of that cold and dark feeling that characterizes so much 80s eastern European punk, particularly on the last track, “Ukopani,” which slows things down and sees the guitars moving from power chords to a moodier, more atmospheric sound. It’s so straightforward that if you don’t have a taste for the era and style Indikator B is steeped in this might fly over your head, but if you love this stuff like I do, there are vanishingly few modern bands that scratch that itch like they do.

Excess Blood: Porcelain Doll 7" (Unlawful Assembly Records) I was really looking forward to this debut 7” from Portland’s Excess Blood, as their 2024 demo on Stucco has been one of my most played demos of the past several years. Whereas a lot of demos fall off the playlist within a few months, I kept returning to Excess Blood, enjoying it more with each listen. Thankfully, the debut EP does not disappoint. Listening to Porcelain Doll brings into better focus what stands out about Excess Blood: I think it’s that they take a sub-genre I can be ambivalent or even skeptical about—post-punk / goth / death rock / whatever you want to call it—and really bring their own voice and flavor to the sound, mostly by giving it a big infusion of hardcore muscle. Yes, they have the spooky vocals, chorus guitars, and two-handed hi-hat beats you expect from a band with those genre tags, but they also have a lot of raw screamed vocals, cool syncopated rhythms, generally fast tempos, and a percussionist who really smacks the fuck out of their drums. Further, each of Porcelain Doll’s four tracks brings something unique to the table. The title track comes first and it’s the spookiest of the bunch, with a vibe that’s like a hardcore-informed version of early Bauhaus. The second track, “Cathedral Park,” is a speedy hardcore tune with a cool choppy drumbeat in the verse and a big singalong chorus keeping it super exciting for its entire 75-second duration. “Turned to Stone” starts with a bass line very similar to Joy Division’s “Transmission,” but as it spreads across its three and a half minutes you get memorable guitar riffs, more cool vocal melodies, and an atmosphere that shifts between menacing and wistful. And then the final track, “Clamor of Please,” is something totally different, a punkier Misfits-esque song with a melodic riff and an upbeat, fun-sounding punk rhythm. Through all these permutations, Excess Blood sounds confident and powerful; it doesn’t seem like all this eclecticism stretches their abilities, but rather hints at their capabilities. It makes me yearn for a full-length that does all this and more, but at the same time I hope they don’t rush it, as the density of inspiration here is a big part of its power.

Burned Up Bled Dry: Next Stop… Dead Stop... 12” (Prank Records) Next Stop… Dead Stop… is the debut LP from Fayetteville, Arkansas’ Burned Up Bled Dry. Burned Up Bled Dry has been a band since the 90s, when they toured heavily and released a couple of 7”s, but they went through a long dormant period, getting back together a few years ago and apparently getting right back to work on new material. It’s an unusual timeline for a band to work on, and when you consider that alongside their relative isolation from the national hardcore scene in their deep south locale, perhaps it’s unsurprising that Next Stop… Dead Stop… sounds absolutely nothing like anything else happening in hardcore right now. One of the first things to strike me about Next Stop...is the way it balances musical ambition and maturity with its down-in-the-gutter punkness. The runtime of 26 songs in 25 minutes clues you in this is ripping, but the album isn’t just a string of one-minute ragers. There are a bunch of those, sure, but there are also several ultra-minimal songs (four tracks clock in at less than 15 seconds!), a couple of more stretched out dirge-y or mid-paced songs, and basically all points in between. You have no clue what’s coming at you in the next track, yet as a whole the album feels meticulously composed and sequenced. This makes for some brilliant moments, like when the longest track, “Don’t Care,” finally releases you from its turgid grip after nearly four minutes and the band drops into “Not Your Nightmare,” the album’s catchiest, most fist-pumping punk track. Alongside the wide variation in song length and structure, Burned Up Bled Dry’s palette of sounds and influences is also far wider than most hardcore bands’. I’d say the core of Burned Up Bled Dry’s sound is blasting / grinding crust in the tradition of Extreme Noise Terror, but at least half the music on Dead Stop draws from other wells. I hear elements of hooky, fist-pumping d-beat punk (like the aforementioned “Not Your Nightmare”), OG grindcore (“Death Ruse” could be an outtake from From Enslavement to Obliteration), 90s metallic hardcore (some of the breakdowns wouldn’t be out of place in the early Victory Records catalog), early metalcore (panic chords and warped metal licks that make me think of pre-_Jane Doe_ Converge), and some raw black metal. The distinctions between some of those subgenres are subtle, and maybe some of them aren’t even influences, but listing them gets at how rich and varied Next Stop… sounds. That’s particularly true rhythmically; most bands have two or three gears they can operate in comfortably, but Burned Up Bled Dry is uncommonly dextrous for a hardcore band, and they’re experts at shifting between these gears. Beyond the craftsmanship, though, something about Next Stop… Dead Stop... feels honest and passionate in a way much contemporary punk doesn’t. From the first note, I feel like the band means what they’re saying, that they’re pouring their souls into what they’re doing. So much punk today is overly stylized and beholden to its influences… I often feel like I’m listening past a band’s actual music in order to hear whatever rare Japanese or Scandinavian 7” they’re trying to channel. Burned Up Bled Dry seems to know exactly who they are and what they think of our fucked up world, and it’s hugely refreshing to hear them just let it rip.

Bikini Mutants: Let’s Mutate 12” (Sealed Records) Sealed Records once again dips into the 80s UK anarcho scene’s sub-underground and comes up with this obscurity from Yeovil, Somerset’s Bikini Mutants. Having only released a cassette during their original run, Bikini Mutants’ music was previously known only to the deepest 80s anarcho heads, though they have a pretty big claim to fame in that their bass player, Deb Googe, went on to play in My Bloody Valentine. While Bikini Mutants mostly gigged around the anarcho-punk scene (they were good friends with the Mob), as Sealed’s description notes, their music owes less to heavy punk and more to the post-punk, UKDIY, and indie pop worlds, with a delicate, ethereal sound, scrappy execution, and a healthy reggae influence. It’s a mix of influences tailor-made to my taste, but beyond just having a cool style, Bikini Mutants also has a lot of personality as a band. The bassist leans on repetitive, reggae-tinged grooves of the type I could listen to literally all day. The guitarist plays with a very light touch, leaving a lot of space and silence in their lines, and when they do come in, the playing is often abstract and textural in a way that, I imagine, owes a lot to Keith Levene of Public Image, Ltd. The drummer sounds like the most musically accomplished member of the band, playing grooves that are repetitive but dense with syncopated accents… very cool stuff. And the vocals are unique too: breathy, ethereal, and strangely introverted. While the vocals are quite melodic, the singer often holds notes for a long time in a way that makes the vocal lines fade into the rest of the song rather than demanding your focus. Tonally, songs range from the delicate and ethereal (fans of Marine Girls or Young Marble Giants will love this side of the band) to more abstract and heavier moments that remind me of a less produced, more feminine version of PiL’s Metal Box. While the basement-level production quality means Bikini Mutants weren’t likely to trouble the charts, their music remains a testament to what an explosion of creativity that UK anarcho-punk scene was, nurturing brilliantly idiosyncratic groups like Bikini Mutants whose music feels miles away from punk stereotypes. As usual, Sealed’s packaging and presentation here are top-notch, with a beautiful sleeve design and a thick booklet that seems to compile every scrap of paper ephemera featuring the band. Let’s Mutate is a deep cut, but well worth your time, particularly if you have a well-developed taste for the sounds of the 80s UK underground.

Powerplant: Bridge of Sacrifice 12" (Arcane Dynamics) Powerplant finally brings us the follow-up to their much-loved 2019 LP People in the Sun, and they swing for the fences, delivering one of the most exciting, original, and challenging punk records I’ve heard in some time. While Powerplant didn’t disappear in the years since People in the Sun, the EPs they released didn’t exactly mark a clear trajectory to the second album, so I didn’t know what to expect from Bridge of Sacrifice. It turns out it’s an album full of surprises, smashing genres and moods together in a way that feels bold and inspiring. The first thing you’ll notice is that black metal is a big part of the mix. Maybe that’s always been in the background of Powerplant’s sound, but it’s a big part of Bridge of Sacrifice, which features lots of blasting drums and vocals that are both growled and demonically hissed. Sometimes these elements appear together in straightforward black metal part, but more often black metal’s corpse is raided for parts, with these tropes re-contextualized within Powerplant’s swirling, psychedelic blend. One thing I really love about Bridge of Sacrifice is that you never know what’s coming at you next. There’s the black metal stuff, the plaintive, emotional punk we know from People in the Sun, but also quirky, Wall of Voodoo-esque new wave, huge vocal hooks that wouldn’t be out of place on a New Order record, touches of alternative rock, blissed-out space rock, and a big helping of gothic metal that’s like some strange, distant cousin of Type O Negative or Danzig (listen to the a-side closer “Transactions” and tell me it’s not chock full of Danzig III!). But while Bridge of Sacrifice is thrillingly diverse, it never seems scattered or schizophrenic to me. I think that’s partly because Powerplant has such a distinctive voice that, no matter what they do, they’re always gonna sound like Powerplant. But I think there’s also some low-key musical genius / mad scientist shit going on that allows them to weave all these crazy parts into songs that feel epic and sprawling, yet unified. Not that it’s an easy listen. The combination of abrasive and tuneful elements can jar, and if you’re just not on board with one of the many genres Powerplant flirts with, there will be moments on the record you simply don’t like. But for the wide-eared listener with a craving for novelty and a love of brilliant pop hooks, Bridge of Sacrifice delivers thrills you won’t find anywhere else.

Schimmel Über Berlin: Eisenmund 12” (Static Age Musik) While continuing to release a steady drip of punk and hardcore, over the past few years Berlin’s Static Age Musik has established a productive sideline releasing some of the most interesting (and German-sounding!) post-punk music around from artists like Cosey Mueller, Aus, and Die Letzten Ecken, all of whom have been big favorites around Sorry State HQ. Now they’ve added to that list with this excellent debut from Schimmel Über Berlin. Working with a similar set of post-punk influences as many other bands—Killing Joke, Bauhaus, Siouxsie & the Banshees, the Cure—Schimmel Über Berlin distinguish themselves from this crowded field with genuinely first-rate songwriting, playing, and production. The first thing that leapt out at me was the brilliant guitar-playing, which walks the line perfectly between being catchy and inventive. I hear a lot of PiL’s Keith Levene in the playing, with the guitarist exploring every aspect of the instrument’s expressiveness, melodically, rhythmically, and texturally. My favorite is when the guitarist takes a very odd, almost Devo-esque sequence of notes and, through sheer repetition, turns them into a hook, which works beautifully on “Der Gute Sohn.” If that’s a little too out there for you, though, they’re just as good at rock bombast, which you hear on another standout track, “Schreck,” which proves that even when Schimmel Über Berlin is at their least adventurous, they’re still exciting. The rhythm section is also very strong, capably weaving between upbeat, driving songs like “Schattenriss” (which has a similar riff and groove to Killing Joke’s “The Wait”) and moodier, tom-drenched pieces like “Eisenmund” and “Weise Fee,” which are in that early Banshees / Faith / Seventeen Seconds kind of space, like the soundtrack to a very slow-moving ritual sacrifice. I also love that while the rhythm section is super heavy, the mix leaves a lot of space in the middle register, giving the recording a cavernous, haunted vibe which works beautifully with these songs. As for the vocals, you’ll love them if—like me—you’re a big fan of Cosey Mueller or Die Letzten Ecken, as they lean on a similar style of speak-singing that feels cold, distant, and very German, though Schimmel Über Berlin’s singer can also drift into simple and serene melodies… even better is when the two approaches are overdubbed on top of one another, as on “Eisenmund.” I have to admit this lane of post-punk-inspired music is so crowded that I’m leery of new bands in this style, but Eisenmund is so well-rounded, so expertly conceived, and so rich with depth that it’ll grab you from the first listen and keep you spinning.

Life Expectancy: Sold cassette (Iron Lung Records) Liverpool’s Life Expectancy returns with their second cassette on Iron Lung Records, and it is a howling morass of blackened d-beat bleakness unlike anything I’ve ever heard. While there’s a fairly straight up, Doom / Discharge-style hardcore band at the core of Sold, what separates Life Expectancy’s music is their ability to evoke the uncanny through their production choices, which sculpt the noisy detritus of your typical raw-ass d-beat recording into a Goya-esque blurred nightmare vision. While you can usually pick out a riff and a (d-) beat somewhere in the onslaught, those elements are way, way in the backseat… it’s like you’re looking through a pane of dirty, frosted glass, down a long, dark hallway, and way down at the end of it there’s a blackened d-beat band practicing by candlelight. But the draw isn’t just, “oh, this is raw and fucked-up sounding;” the noise textures are a thing of beauty in themselves. I find myself straining my ears to figure out what I’m hearing. Is that a human voice? A squeal of feedback? Part of the riff? A demon sucking the world into a hellish oblivion? I can’t figure any of it out, but I love the process of trying as this whirlwind of noise swirls around me. I understand, though, that there’s a lot here not to like. Many of you will say, “you can’t even hear the drums! (or the guitars, vocals, etc.)” and dismiss it outright. Others will be looking for a Physique / D-Clone style attack with harsh tones but precision dynamics. But for those of us who appreciate—even crave—the drone, who will submit and let these waves of noise carry us off into a black, violent sea… nothing is going to scratch that itch like this.

Reek Minds: Eternal Reek 7” (Black Water Records) We named Reek Minds’ last record—their Malignant Existence LP on Iron Lung—Record of the Week, and this new EP (which finds them moving to their hometown label Black Water) is even better! If you’re already a Reek Minds fan, this is a no-brainer since everything you loved about the band is still here: the performance is super energetic, the production is heavy and crisp, the riffs and guitar leads are blazing, and the vocalist still oozes charisma, with an articulated growl that sounds like a death metal-informed Jerry A. Where I think Eternal Reek bests Reek Minds’ previous records is in the increased variety of tempos and rhythms. They’re still pretty much always ripping fast, but they really shake things up with these crazy whiplash changes in rhythm. They’ll be charging along at a groovy, Poison Idea-esque tempo, then out of nowhere they’ll drop into their trademark super fast scissor beat / blast, or vice versa, and every time they execute one of these changes I swear I feel weightless for a split-second. Those scissor beat parts are so wild… the drummer lays into the snare so hard that it almost sounds like the beat is turned around backwards, which makes it even more thrilling when they snap back into the pocket with a groovier punk beat. With six songs in nine minutes, the thrill ride doesn’t let up for a single second.

Pura Manía: La Banda Es La Ley 12" (Roachleg Records) If you’ve been paying attention to the Sorry State newsletter for a while, you know we are fanatics about Pura Manía. I think everything the band has released so far has gotten Record of the Week, and their latest album, La Banda Es La Ley (“The gang is the law”) continues the streak. What do I love so much about Pura Manía? For starters, I love the way they balance their musical ambition with being dirty, grimy, and fucking punk; they’ve got both feet planted in the gutter, but they’re looking at the stars! As an aging punk whose tastes have grown (arguably) more sophisticated over the years, yet remains addicted to punk’s rawness and energy, it’s like Pura Manía gets me. Their music is dense, each song a maze of criss-crossing melodies and rhythms, but thoughtfully—perhaps even obsessively—arranged, moving from part to part in ways that feel natural but not obvious. These are songs that reward close, attentive listening, yet they don’t demand that kind of listening—they’re not precious or pretentious, and they have the energy and directness to tickle the pleasure centers of my punk brain from the very first listen. The individual components of each song—the melodic lead guitar lines, the driving but hooky bass lines, the vocals that move from searing and punk to kinda silly and cartoonish (those rolled R’s!), the infrequent but thrilling eruptions of synth—are so exciting on their own (and frequently have me saying, “whoa! that part was sick!” when I’m listening), but they’re supercharged when they’re stitched together into these miniature punk symphonies. Ditto for the album as a whole, which climaxes with the closing track, “Amor de Coladera (Veneno Y Glam).” This song sounds like nothing Pura Manía has attempted thus far, with a kind of woozy, sun-bleached rhythm and a lead guitar line huge enough to power a hit Oasis single. It might have been too much, but vocalist Cabeza balances it out with his most outrageous and punk performance on the record (really taking the rolled R’s to the next level LOL). The song also has a climactic bridge that almost brings a tear to my eye. You might call it a guitar solo because the guitarist takes center stage and it’s in the spot where a guitar solo usually sits, but it’s not just a bunch of wanky, show-y bullshit… it builds upon and elaborates the song’s central melody in a thrillingly sophisticated way. Pura Manía’s guitarist has the chops to be a classical composer, yet instead of wearing a tuxedo, he’s pouring all that thought and feeling into these grimy-ass punk songs. I fucking love it. And just like with the band’s last record on Roachleg, the artwork is as exciting, innovative, and completely fucking punk as the music, with a stunning jacket hand-screened on chipboard and a risographed lyric insert. Another brilliant and essential record from this band that never repeats themselves and always finds new ways to raise the bar.

Institute: S/T 7” (Anti-Fade Records) I wrote the official label blurb for this release, and while I hate writing about the same record twice, I wanted to send up the bat signal and make sure the Sorry State faithful know the new Institute is straight fire and should not be missed. If you missed their recent 12” Ragdoll Dance on Roachleg Records, you might not know that Institute sounds wholly revitalized at the moment. Not that they ever sounded less than vital, but nowadays they sound almost like a new band—hungry, like they’ve got something to prove. And if the three tracks that appear on this 7”—each of which has its own vibe, groove, instrumental palette, and structure (see my official blurb for more details on that)—are any sign, the band is still chock full of fresh and exciting ideas. And while the music here is brilliant, the lyrics are just as noteworthy. I’ve seen a lot of hand-wringing lately about whether and how punk will meet the current political moment, and I can think of few bands writing about the current political climate as compellingly as Institute. Rather than cosplay songs about long-dead politicians or retreads of the same topics Discharge made it safe to write about four decades ago, on these three tracks, Institute writes about things happening right now, and they write about them in a way that’s as direct, confrontational, and powerful as the 80s political punk bands that inspire them. For me, this 7” has it all. I’m not sure how long it’ll stick around since it’s billed as an Australian tour EP, but if you’re one of us who believe contemporary punk can rise to the level of the genre’s classics, you’re gonna want this record.

London Clay: Private View 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus) La Vida Es Un Mus released this full-length debut from London Clay late in 2025, but it seemed to fly under many people’s radars. Which makes sense, I suppose, because Private View is a wallflower of a record. While most records burst into the room screaming “LOOK HOW COOL I AM! LIKE ME!,” Private View sulks in the corner intriguingly, reading a book that’s too smart for you, daring you to engage. I contend that Private View is a beautiful, fascinating record, but it reveals itself slowly. The notes I made while listening to Private View are full of words like “smudged,” “smeared,” and “blurred,” and when you compare London Clay with the crispness of groups like Modem or Fatamorgana (ostensibly similar bands, in that they feature feminine vocals and primarily electronic instruments), the difference is striking. With those artists, the beats are insistent and the melodies are crystalline, so clear it’s like they beamed them straight into your brain. But there’s something tantalizing about the way London Clay buries their melodies in distortion and delay and the way the singer murmurs into the microphone like she’s afraid of being overheard. The object of my desire—that glorious pop nugget that lies just below the surface of these songs—drifts in and out of focus, but lives mostly in a space that’s just out of reach. On “Faraday” it’s right there, while “Clifton Rise” teases you for nearly five minutes before it delivers its blissed-out, shoegaze-y crescendo. And then there’s “The Obelisk,” a patience-testing eight-minute track (song? piece of musique concrète?) whose rhythm track loops a screeching 70s/80s-era dot matrix printer… the song makes me feel like I’m trapped in an office that doubles as an outer circle of hell. The handful of similar records I can think of—the Fall’s Dragnet, SPK’s early singles, the new Puppet Wipes album from last year—also have their difficult moments, and those moments are important. By pushing you away with “The Obelisk,” “Clifton Rise” shines that much brighter. The packaging extends this aesthetic beautifully, particularly the half-size zine that accompanies the vinyl. Page after page of mostly text-less collages grounded in the Crass / Poison Girls aesthetic (and similarly beautiful), but with a Situationist-like inscrutability. So, if you’re the kind of uncomplicated person who can get out of your own head and just enjoy a dumb pop tune, then maybe Private Viewisn’t for you. But if you’re a worrier, if you like arty films, and if your most valued experiences with art tend to start with disorientation, then maybe it’s worth making space in your life for London Clay.

System Maintains: 3 Song Demo cassette (Sex Field Abomination) One of the most exciting new labels in recent memory—Richmond’s Sex Fiend Abomination—brings us a short but brilliant 3-song demo by this punky metal band from Charlotte, North Carolina. This tape dropped digitally a couple of months ago, and from the moment I hit play I was enthralled. I mean, the band says it all when they describe themselves as “your sketchy uncle’s Metallica and Bathory tapes played through a wrecked boombox,” but that pithy description doesn’t get at how unique that combination is and how great System Maintains is at throwing the right ingredients into the cauldron to create this poisonous brew. Regarding the “broken boombox” part, the production here is a perfectly vintage-sounding, fuzzy scrawl akin to what contemporary punk bands who record on 4-track are producing… imagine the blown-out roar of Cicada or Shaved Ape, but metal. When the whole band plays at full intensity, it bleeds together into a wall of fuzz, but there’s enough room in the production for the key riffs and vocal lines to stand out, particularly since the songs are often arranged so those parts get highlighted as instrumental breaks. As for the songs and riffs themselves, they are fucking killer. I had an epiphany at the gym after listening to this tape like 5 times in a row and pondering how they can write such great riffs… then it hit me: the killer riff that starts “Final War,” the first song on the tape, is just a slightly reworked version of the intro to Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” And then the riff they play immediately after that—which also totally shreds—I’m pretty sure I recognize from a D.R.I. song. Some people might worry about this, but not me. As I like to say, there are only 12 notes, and I don’t need every band to reinvent the wheel. Even if there is source material for some of these riffs, the way System Maintains absorbs them into their neck-deep vibe—and creating that vibe is, I think, the real standout strength of this demo—completely transforms them. This is just thrilling, and by the time its 5-minute runtime is up, I’m so stoked that the only thing I can think to do is play it again… and again, and again…