Featured Releases

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.

Itchy & the Nits: Greetings From 12” (Total Punk Records) Total Punk calls Australia’s Itchy & the Nits “the world’s most charming band,” and I must admit “charming” is one of the first words that comes to mind when I listen to their brilliant second album. Their songs are simple, upbeat, and refreshingly free of irony, making Greetings From feel like undiluted and uncomplicated fun. While the presentation is straightforward and unpretentious, Itchy & the Nits are nevertheless one of those bands who sucks you into their world, and a big part of this is how the lyrical conceits match the music so perfectly. Itchy & the Nits pair their simple riffs and steady beats with songs about simple pleasures like watching TV and going to the beach. In lesser hands this would read as flat in an uninteresting way, but the way Itchy & the Nits flatten everything into their cartoon world feels thoroughly immersive. Certainly fans of Billy Childish’s “less is more” punk philosophy will love this record (and it’s not far off from the Headcoatees in places), but anyone willing to wander into Itchy & the Nits’ crazy cartoon world will get a huge kick out of Greetings From.

Demonstrate: Prove Me Wrong 7” (Designated Moshers Unit) After a couple of well-regarded demo tapes, this Philadelphia straight edge hardcore band delivers their debut vinyl on Designated Moshers Unit. While the aesthetic is very NYHC, to my ears Demonstrate’s sound splits the difference between early 80s USHC and late 80s New York Hardcore in the vein of what you’d hear on compilations like New Breed and Where the Wild Things Are. The songs’ main riffs are generally very punky, reminding me of bands like the Abused and Antidote, and they are super hooky and memorable, but the songs’ arrangements—which feature mosh parts and lots of dramatic bass breaks—are more in that NYHC vein. For a lot of people, that combination of early and late 80s influences will be like peanut butter and chocolate, but even if you aren’t as into one or the other style (I’m more of an early 80s guy myself, for instance), there’s plenty here to keep you very interested, particularly since the quality of the riffing and songwriting is so high. Which makes sense, because Jim from Dark Thoughts plays guitar in Demonstrate, and while Demonstrate couldn’t sound more different than Dark Thoughts (and I don’t even know how much of the songwriting Jim was responsible for), his knack for hooks and songwriting chops no doubt help to raise Demonstrate well above the pack of bands attempting something similar.

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.

Traumatizer: Nuclear War Machine 7” (Discos Enfermos) After an excellent 2024 debut EP co-released by Neon Taste in North America and Discos Enfermos in Europe, Haarlem’s Traumatizer returns with a scorching new 5-song EP. The first thing you’ll notice when you drop the needle on Nuclear War Machine is the off-the-charts energy level. Some bands just have that knack for capturing punk’s essential energy on tape, and Traumatizer definitely does; their recordings burst with energy and make it impossible to sit still while you’re listening. After I recovered my senses from the initial pummeling and got into multiple listens, though, I started to appreciate how dialed-in everything about Traumatizer is. The recording is noisy and messy-sounding, but not so much that it obscures the hookiness of the riffs. The songs are fast, but tempos actually vary quite a lot, never letting your ear experience that sense of fatigue that can make the energy level lag even for a fast band. Style-wise, there’s a lot of Cimex / Shitlickers-informed go-for-the-throat d-beat in the mix (particularly on the first track… with a vocalist shouting “nuclear war machine” over a frantic d-beat, you’re gonna get those vibes), but there’s also a lot of that Totalitär-esque flurry-of-power-chords thing happening and other little touches that give each song a unique vibe, like the Tank-esque chords in the standout “Dead End.” Yet these slight stylistic wrinkles never detract from the overall sense of Nuclear War Machine as a blistering hardcore record… like I said, Traumatizer are experts at finding those sweet spots between noisy and articulate, straightforward and daring, etc. It also helps that they have a great vocalist with one of those voices you want to hear yell at you. If you love high-energy d-beat hardcore, don’t miss this one… it’s a scorcher.

Mother Nature: Language of a Peaceful Mind 7” (Donor Records) Language of a Peaceful Mind is the new single and third release from this Leeds, UK band, following up their Loving, Joyful, and Free 12” from last year on Static Shock. We’ve carried all Mother Nature’s release at Sorry State and even though I get the impression they aren’t the typical SSR follower’s cup of tea, I really like the band. Their sound is lumbering and sludgy, sitting in a netherworld between noise rock and hardcore, with the pounding intensity of the latter and richer textures and more ambitious musicality of the former. I guess the lineage that it makes the most sense to connect Mother Nature to is the sort of proto-noise rock end of hardcore… bands like the Scam, the Melvins, and of course the later, sludgier Black Flag stuff. Indeed, in many ways the two songs on Language of a Peaceful Mind feel like music that’s meant to fulfill the promise of later Black Flag. I love side B of My War and even more so the psychedelic nightmare rhythms of In My Head, but even though I listen to those records all the time to this day, I always felt like there was something lacking in them, that they’re crippled by mediocre production, the frequent lack of a second guitar track, and Greg Ginn’s absurdly narrow view of the bass guitar’s role in a band of this type (whether he’s the one playing or just forcing someone else to play exactly what he wants them to play). Mother Nature’s music, by contrast, channels that monolithic, quasi-mechanical sense of rhythm, but lets it breathe and allows the humanity to show through. The A-side, “At Peace,” is slightly faster and particularly in the verse has the kind of rhythm that can get a pit moving, but the way Mother Nature sprinkles little details in the cracks and the way the song builds toward something more intricate and delicate in its chorus makes it clear the mosh is entirely beside the point. While I like “At Peace,” I like the b-side even more. It’s grimmer, sludgier, and vibe-ier, and makes plenty of room for awesome musicianship, particularly some excellent Bill Ward-informed drum work and extremely Ginn-esque lead guitar. Like I said, it’s like In My Headwith its strange sterility swapped out for an atmosphere that’s richer and more organic.

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.

Esperanza: Freedom and Equality 12” (Educación Cínica) Educación Cínica, Cromi from Ayucaba’s label, brings us the debut full-length from this long-running band from Hiroshima, Japan. We carried Esperanza’s debut 7” on Todo Destruido way back in 2014, so this one has been in the cooker for a long time! Since then Esperanza has also released records on Hardcore Survives and Pogo 77, but it’s only now that we get more than a brief taste of their music. It’s funny this landed at Sorry State around the same time as Raw Distractions’ debut full-length on La Vida Es Un Mus and a D.S.B. reissue on General Speech, because I hear a lot of similarities between those three bands, particularly vocally. The three vocalists have similar accents and timbres and a similar approach, encompassing both a throat-ripping bark and a triumphant shout that begs you to join in on the anthemic choruses. Also like both D.S.B. and Raw Distractions, Esperanza is a hardcore band with a guitarist who isn’t afraid of melody, working in cool little surfy, Dead Kennedys-esque licks (“Decay”) and melodic solos that recall the catchiest end of the UK82 spectrum (“Oppression”). There’s also something about Freedom and Equality that reminds me of Tàrrega 91’s brilliant album from last year, Ckaos Total. Perhaps it’s the way you can hear a clear influence from Discharge (particularly on the fifth track, “雨”), while at the same time Esperanza avoids the tendency toward density that colors so much d-beat punk, focusing on Discharge’s agitated rhythms and simple, driving riffs. As befitting their name—which means “hope” in Spanish—there’s something wonderfully earnest about Freedom and Equality, a quality the beautiful screen-printed packaging perfectly accentuates. It’s the kind of record that makes you feel proud to be a punk.

Spont Ar Stad: S/T 12” (Discos Enfermos) Discos Enfermos brings us the debut release from this anarcho-punk band from Brittany in northwestern France. When I looked over Spont Ar Stad’s record, one of the first things that stood out was the unfamiliar language. I do my best to be a pretty cosmopolitan guy and I’m a lover of language, but I am totally unfamiliar with Breton, the native language of Brittany. It’s a really interesting one too, a Celtic language that’s more closely related to Welsh and Cornish than French and the other Romance languages. That’s something I’d love to learn more about! As for Spont Ar Stad’s music, it also feels very connected to the world across the English channel, evoking aspects of vintage 80s UK anarcho punk few modern bands pick up on. While most contemporary anarcho influenced bands look to heavier bands like Antisect, Conflict, and Flux of Pink Indians, Spont Ar Stad (which, incidentally, means “State Terror” in Breton) pulls more from Passion Killers and Crisis, bands whose music feels closer to post-punk than the hardcore branch of punk’s family tree. The vocals are often unashamedly melodic and earnest-sounding, but a lot of that post-punk flavor comes down to the guitarist, who has a unique and creative style. I love that weird little slide in the main riff to the first track, “Ur Bed Kri,” and “Polis Peplec’h - Justic Neblec’h” is another highlight with its dense, chiming riff recalling the most inspired moments of Joy Division’s early era as Warsaw. While I think the guitarist is a really interesting player, Spont Ar Stad is not virtuosic by any stretch of the imagination, with scrappy production and playing and skittering drums helping to create that edge-of-chaos feeling that makes things sound really grimy and punk. That homespun quality to the production might be the make-it-or-break-it quality to a lot of listeners, but I love it… you can almost smell the sweat and stale beer of the rehearsal space. But while Spont Ar Stad’s music is simple and direct, it’s hardly artless… just listen to the closing track, “Da Reuz,” which ends the album on its biggest, most memorable chorus before closing with a brief acoustic coda. While Spont Ar Stad is bound to appeal to lovers of old UK anarcho, what’s noteworthy about their record isn’t its style, but the way it seems to tap similar veins of passion and musical curiosity.

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.

Screaming Fist: Santa Plaga 7” (Convulse Records) Oakland’s Screaming Fist released a 7” on Iron Lung Records back in 2019, and now they’re back 7 years later with five more songs. They’re worth the wait, too! If you don’t remember what Screaming Fist sounds like, I’d call them a straightforward hardcore punk band with low-key virtuosic chops. A good contemporary comparison might be the Faucheuse / Bombardement axis of bands in France—groups that have similarly crazy chops, yet remain committed to the old school hardcore punk style—but what I was really reminded of when I listened to Santa Plaga is Vaaska and Criaturas… and it turns out Screaming Fist guitarist Matt Badenhop is an ex-member of both bands. Like all the aforementioned groups, Screaming Fist tends to hang in the space of deep-in-the-pocket d-beat with riffs that are catchy but not overly technical, reserving their more technical playing for those transitional moments that serve as counterpoint to the hooky main riffs, giving the songs a sense of depth and sophistication. I love the off-time rhythm in the intro to “Está Detrás De Ti” and the brief, almost prog-y part before the breakdown in the closing track “Santa Plaga,” and these forays into the technical make it hit so much hardcore when Screaming Fist drops back into one of their mega-hooky riffs. The vocals are also excellent, much more melodic than your standard hardcore vocals, but not skimping on speed or intensity. I also love the way the recording uses double-tracking on the vocals to create a strong sense of dynamics. Hooky, raging hardcore with airtight execution… what’s not to love?