Featured Releases

Paranoiac: Morbid Psycho / Mental Laceration 12" (Toxic State Records) Toxic State Records brings us the debut vinyl from this Los Angeles metal band featuring familiar faces from hardcore and punk bands like Condition, Blazing Eye, Hoax, and many other. Paranoiac breaks the Toxic State mold (insofar as there is one) in several respects: the band is from L.A. rather than New York, they’re the most purely metal band Toxic State has ever put out, and there isn’t even a screen printed jacket on this one (though the art looks killer regardless of printing method). While the presentation is punk, the music sounds like it reaches almost exclusively back to Slayer’s Metal Blade era for inspiration, with an evil, blackened thrash vibe that sounds so classic it could have been recorded at any point in the past 40 years. Despite this being on a small independent punk label, the band is so tight and accomplished they can occasionally sound as precise as Slayer did in their Def American era, particularly on “Mental Laceration,” whose mid-paced groove sounds ripped straight from Seasons in the Abyss. I don’t want to paint Paranoiac as Slayer copycats, though. The drumming is very different (no double kick!), as are the vocals, which have something of Tom Araya’s sneer but a much raspier, almost crusty grit to them. While there’s a lot of “punks playing metal” about lately, Paranoiac separates themselves from the pack with truly noteworthy, high-level musicianship and a sound that’s just different enough from the typical Bolt Thrower and Amebix influences that typically come from this world. Morbid Psycho / Mental Laceration is one of those records you can throw on at a party full of punks and metalheads and both crowds will pound their fists in the air in approval.

Mirage: S/T 12” (Roachleg Records) After a couple of noteworthy EPs, New York’s Mirage deliver their first proper LP for Roachleg Records. Like Sorry State’s Psico Galera, on this album Mirage seems to take a lot of influence from the later work by pioneers of the “furious years” of Italian hardcore. While bands like Wretched, Indigesti, and Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers started out creating some of the wildest, most primitive-sounding music I’ve ever heard, all three bands gradually moved toward sounds that were far more musically accomplished and characterized by a uniquely unsettling atmosphere. Mirage seems to be in the same boat as those bands as they matured, committed to punk’s fundamental intensity and heaviness, but augmented with an ambition to spread their wings and make sounds that are more creative, intricate, and varied. And Mirage shows a huge amount of range here. While most songs feature fast, knotty rhythms you’ll love if you dug the latest Psico Galera record, a track like “Morso Infettivo” proves they can still put the pedal to the metal and summon that sense of wildness that made so many of us fall in love with 80s Italian hardcore. And there are a few moments that are downright surprising, like the instrumental interlude “Mirage I.” “Mirage I” is the first song on the b-side, and when I drop the needle on that side, my head always snaps back for a second as I wonder to myself, “did someone press an Eddy Current Suppression Ring record on the b-side of this by mistake?” But nope, that’s just Mirage leaning into a heavy, almost krautrock-y rhythm and letting a refreshing draft of melody into their world. It’s all wrapped in a recording that’s heavy, bright, and textured in all the right ways and a beautiful, insert-heavy package featuring a ton artwork from guitarist Matt Morgantini. A must-listen for anyone who values both originality and intensity their hardcore punk.

Barrows: Tomorrow’s Fear 12” (self-released) Tomorrow’s Fear is the self-released debut album from Barrows, from Japan’s Tajima province. Mike from Analog Attack was talking about Tomorrow’s Fear in one of his recent videos, and he spoke about how Tajima is a provincial part of Japan without the important punk infrastructure of venues, practice spaces, and record stores you find in larger cities/scenes like Tokyo and Osaka. Barrows’ home base seems significant to me because, despite the heavy nods to Disaster and Disclose in so many aspects of this album, Tomorrow’s Fear nevertheless avoids the feeling that it came off the raw punk assembly line. Yes, it’s bathed in the fried tones of Disclose’s Tragedy, but unlike, say, the new Meanwhile EP we were talking about a few weeks ago (which, by the way I love), Tomorrow’s Fear doesn’t feel like a studious deconstruction and reconstruction of Discharge’s songs (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). Because the riffs and songs don’t feel overly familiar, they hit in a way that feels more visceral and direct; I’m never pulled out of the moment by an impulse to figure out exactly what Barrows is appropriating. That being said, Tomorrow’s Fear is pitched-down-the-middle, no-surprises d-beat raw punk, so if that’s your thing (read: you’re still regularly spinning that killer Ultimate Disaster record from last year), I don’t see any reason you wouldn’t love this.

Amdi Petersens Armé: Discography 12" (Havoc Records) DIY hardcore’s retrospective lens turns it attention to the new millennium, and Havoc Records skims the cream right off the top with this discography LP from Denmark’s Amdi Petersens Armé. As I remember it, there were three things that happened in relatively quick succession around 2001-02 that changed everything for me. The first was seeing Japan’s Total Fury on their first US tour. They were the first band I ever saw whose members all dressed as if it were still 1982, and their record and live show were both incredible. The second was Amdi Petersens Armé’s first 7” and US tour (which I sadly didn’t catch… I’m still bummed about it to this day). The third was seeing Direct Control for the first time, which meant this new (old) thing was happening in my neck of the woods and not just in distant, far-off lands. I don’t think I can accurately convey how revolutionary Amdi Petersens Armé’s scratchy guitar sounds and simple, catchy riffs felt at that time. I had been going to gigs for five or six years at that point, and while most of what I was listening to during that time was nominally punk rock, in retrospect it had so many trappings of the bloated era of 70s rock that preceded punk: (comparatively) lavish studio production, (again, comparatively) technical and precise musicianship, slick and professional presentation and marketing, etc. Then, just as the Sex Pistols did in ’76, a new wave of bands like Amdi Petersens Armé called bullshit, wiped the slate clean, and took everything back to its most basic and immediate form. For me, it felt revolutionary, and these bands not only changed the records I bought, but also changed the way I dressed, the way I talked, my politics, and many other aspects of my identity. Amdi Petersens Armé’s music has never really left my turntable in the 25 years since, and revisiting this discography LP in 2026, it sounds just as powerful as it did back then. APA wrote great fucking songs, and if you’re not skanking to “Stalinjugend” or “Skate & Dø,” then we have very different ideas about what makes for great hardcore punk. I’m sure a cynical person could say APA’s music was rendered redundant by the legions of similarly-minded groups who came in their wake (not to mention the early 80s originators who preceded them), but I’d counter that there’s something ineffable in these songs that inspires and captures the imagination. There’s a reason the tracks collected here were ground zero for a whole sub-scene that has flowered repeatedly over the two and a half decades since APA called it quits. While thousands of young punks have been inspired by APA’s music after listening to crappy youtube rips, Havoc Records gives the band an appropriate epitaph by repressing this discography LP, which originally came out on the Danish label Hjernespind in 2013. The LP is beautifully produced, capturing all the band’s essential tracks alongside a huge 32-page booklet full of photos, flyers, and other scene ephemera. The 2013 pressing was downright impossible to get in the States; I wanted one desperately when it came out, but even someone as record-mad as myself couldn’t nail down a copy. (When I finally came across one in a Helsinki used bin in 2025, I snatched it right up.) I imagine that if, like me, you’ve been lusting after this record for more than ten years, you’ve already picked up your copy. For the rest of you, snag this while you can and enjoy getting acquainted with one of the best bands hardcore has ever given us.

Meanwhile: A Conflict of Memory 7” (Kick Rock Records) In conjunction with their appearance at the Kick Rock Festival in France earlier this summer, Kick Rock Records brings us the first new Meanwhile record in 18 years, and boy-oh-boy is it worth the wait! Usman—whose detailed knowledge of this vein of hardcore is something to behold—tells me the sound on this new record resembles Meanwhile’s 2005 EP Ghostface Democracy (one of his favorites in their discography), but the main reference point that comes to my mind is Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing. For all the hundreds of bands whose music is firmly grounded in Discharge, relatively few explore HNSNSN’s layered sound, and fewer still capture anything like that album’s power. A Conflict of Memory, though, gives me a very similar feeling, that distinctive reverb, the multitracked guitars, and the wandering, heavily chromatic lead playing coalescing to make me feel like I’m in the middle of a swirling, violent tornado of sound. As with many bands who follow Discharge’s template so closely, there’s an element of collage to Meanwhile’s composing process that might turn people off, and there are several points on A Conflict of Memory when anyone with a well-worn set of Discharge vinyl will be tempted to shout Discharge’s lyrics rather than Meanwhile’s. However, I’ll assume that if you’ve gotten this far into reading this, you acknowledge the value of contemporary bands elaborating on and iterating Discharge’s work. And, indeed, if you’re one of those maniacs who can never get enough Discharge-style hardcore, just know the new Meanwhile EP rips and you definitely need it.

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.