Featured Releases

Exclaim: Fusillade 12” (General Speech Records) General Speech Records brings us a compilation of two cassettes by this obscure 80s Japanese hardcore band from Akita City, Japan. Aside from those cassettes, Exclaim’s only release during the 80s was a track on the Shodoku Gig compilation LP, and (much like previous General Speech reissue subjects Deef) until this reissue, only the deepest Japanese hardcore heads would have known them (I certainly did not). God bless General Speech, though, because this is cool as hell! The lore GS gives in their description is that Dogma Records (G.I.S.M., the Comes, Gastunk) advertised an upcoming LP from Exclaim that never came to fruition, and the tracks from Fusillade show they would have been a perfect fit for the label. Maybe Exclaim isn’t quite as good as the Dogma releases by G.I.S.M., the Comes, or Gastunk (what is?), but they certainly would have been of a piece with the label’s early output in nearly every other respect. Exclaim just has that sound you fell in love with if you’re a huge fan of the aforementioned bands: the driving, Motorhead-ish rhythms, metallic yet haunting lead guitar, vocals that alternate between gruff growls and spooky melodies, and atmosphere for days. The nine tracks from the original Fusillade cassette (which comprise the bulk of this LP) are the primo stuff, with a powerful recording that rivals any of the genre’s classics, while the final four tracks on Fusillade, originally released on a cassette called Final, have a thinner sound and are more musically complex and ambitious (Exclaim seems to have been following a similar trajectory to early Gastunk). I’m glad to have them together in one package, though, especially since General Speech always keeps its releases at the nice price. A little bit of useful context (a band photo where they look cool as hell, reproductions of the original lyric sheets and cassette j-cards, and a brief interview with Exclaim’s drummer Susumu) rounds out the package. Essential listening for anyone who has binged on the 80s Japanese punk classics and remains thirsty for more.

Gimic: New Traditions 12” (Drunken Sailor Records) I was a big fan of this Bristol, UK punk band’s first two 7” EPs, but as much as I liked those records, I had a feeling Gimic would really blossom on a full-length. New Traditions proves my intuition correct. Gimic’s sound is both wide and dense, and the LP’s longer runtime gives the band an opportunity to spread out and allows the listener to soak more deeply into Gimic’s world. And it’s a very unique world! Gimic’s music encompasses all these adjectives that typically don’t go together: raging, earnest, frantic, intricate, melodic, frightening, sublime, delicate… I could keep going, but you probably get the point. The interplay between guitar and bass is a defining aspect of their sound, the two sets of strings winding around one another into these beautifully tangled knots, occasionally locking together to pummel you like a true old-school hardcore band for a couple of bars before careening off in their own directions again. The drummer somehow finds their way through this maze, striking a great balance between giving the songs a strong rhythmic backbone while also letting the string players’ unique dynamic shine. And then there are the vocals, which take enigmatic, impressionistic lyrics and force them through a hardcore sieve, coming out the other end as an unholy scream that you feel in the depths of your gut. If you want to jump in at the deep end of Gimic’s pool, give the track “Disintegrate” a listen. The guitar riff is something else, and particularly when you lay it on top of a nearly-as-complex bass line, the effect is enough to make you dizzy. But then they get to the chorus, Harry finds one of the album’s most memorable vocal melodies, and for a moment Gimic summons the bulldozer anthems of Leatherface’s almighty Mush. While the density and complexity is thrilling, so far my favorite moments on New Traditions are when Gimic backs off the gas just a little on tracks like “Dark, Darker” and “New Traditions,” the latter of which evokes Slint’s sinuosity… but maybe I just like those songs because they give my smooth brain a little more time to process everything Gimic throws at it. God knows Gimic’s music is challenging, and a lot of listeners won’t be up for it, but if you want something that will knock you on your ass with both its technical density and its emotional intensity, New Traditions fits the bill like few other records.

Third World Chaos: New Move for Error 12” (Merciless Records) I’ve really been enjoying the punk and metal reissues that have been coming out on Germany’s Merciless Records lately. We wrote about the excellent crossover LP from Deceased they reissued a while back, and we also covered their reissues of the seminal Pinoy band Dead Ends when they came out (by the way, all these releases are back in stock if you still need them!). Merciless’s latest reissue is a cornerstone of Filipino punk: Third World Chaos’s 1984 full-length New Move for Error. Third World Chaos (who were also known, at various points, as Chaos and Ex-Communicate) was the only Filipino punk band to release vinyl, putting out an ultra-rare single on the major label RCA Victor in 1984 (copies of that sell for around a thousand bucks nowadays!) and New Move for Error on the independent Tower Records that same year (which is also a highly sought-after collectible). Alongside playing in Third World Chaos, guitarist Tommy Tanchanco was also a key figure in the Pinoy punk scene thanks to his cassette label Twisted Red Cross, which documented the Philippines’ punk scene more extensively than any other label (they did the original versions of the Deceased and Dead Ends records Merciless also reissued, for instance). I knew virtually nothing about this scene before Merciless started doing these reissues, and one thing that surprised me when I heard these Filipino bands was how much they sound like Southern California punk bands from the late 70s and early 80s. That’s the case with New Move for Error too, which sounds like it could have come out on Posh Boy Records circa 1980 alongside bands like the Simpletones and the Crowd. A lot of that is probably the singer’s accent, which bears some resemblance to a SoCal surfer drawl, but the music fits too, with that laid-back vibe that evokes the beach at sunset. I am a sucker for that sound, but I also hear a lot of Sex Pistols in Third World Chaos, which is always something I love. The Pistols’ music is a sturdy foundation to build upon, and I like feeling that connection to punk’s prime movers. If you love OG 70s punk and also get a kick out of exploring the worldwide underground, you’ll love New Move for Error, particularly given its clear but bare-bones recording (another way Third World Chaos reminds me of those early SoCal bands). Merciless’s reissue reproduces the record’s original layout and sounds great, and there’s also a ton of paper stuffed inside the jacket reproducing the handful of surviving artifacts from the scene. Some of it isn’t scanned super well, but it’s hard to nitpick when it feels like a privilege to see this stuff at all. My fellow amateur punk historians will be sure to get a ton of mileage out of this one.

Destruct / Absolut: Deafen & Disarm 7” (Acute Noise Manufacture) Two of contemporary d-beat’s heavyweights team up for a new 6-song split 7” that, besides providing a welcome new dose from each band, also displays the range of aesthetic possibilities within this narrowly prescribed sub-genre. Destruct delivers three new tracks, and while they’ve labeled their last few releases as belonging to their “Noise Room era” (since the legendary Tokyo-based recording studio has had a big hand in shaping the sound), they’re not a huge departure from the Bastard-via-Disclose style Destruct has been honing since they started. I will say, though, that the pummeling, virtuosic drumming and brilliantly fried guitar and bass tones here are totally dialed in, and Destruct’s side of the split is one of the best-sounding records I’ve heard in some time, a monstrous assault that’ll make your turntable’s stylus beg for mercy. Absolut wisely decides not to compete with Destruct in sounding bigger and heavier on their three songs. If Destruct’s songs are like one of Dario Argento’s vintage 70s giallos, rendered in high-key color and cringe-inducing detail, Absolut’s tracks are like the 1922 Nosferatu film: smudged, distorted, and covered in a thick blanket of atmosphere. While it can be difficult to grasp the particulars of Absolut’s metal-punk sound through the din, the fits of lead guitar that bubble to the surface periodically are fascinating, labyrinthine eruptions of notes that give the most out-there technical thrash bands of the 80s (Watchtower? Forbidden?) a run for their money. While some will prefer Destruct’s traditionalism and others will lean toward Absolut’s progressivism, any true d-beat maniac will love both sides of this raging slab.

Democracy: Party’s Over 12” (Unlawful Assembly) Unlawful Assembly released a demo tape from Democracy back in 2021, and five years later the band is back with their debut vinyl. In their label blurb, Democracy foregrounds their philosophical stance to the point where they give almost no information about who they are or what they sound like. I’m still not sure where they are from (I’ve seen conflicting reports of Milwaukee and Seattle), but I can tell you for sure they are against democracy and money and are pro-getting high. As for the sound, it’s a grim, evil-sounding take on hardcore that fits in perfectly alongside other Unlawful Assembly groups like Brainwash Victims, Necron 9, and Cicada. The relentless drumming reminds me of Gai and Confuse, while the vocals are higher-pitched and almost squealed, sort of like an angry insect. The recording is totally fried and often coalesces into a roaring blur, punctuated by moments of wild lead guitar and/or the occasional mid-paced part (and, of course, the standout instrumental track “Healing II,” which adapts Robo’s drumbeat from Black Flag’s “Damaged I”). While Democracy is very far from a “worship” band, folks who appreciate the noise-punk aesthetic of bands like Gai and Confuse are bound to appreciate Party’s Over as it walks a similar line between being wild and raging and having a kind of avant-garde strangeness about it. And it’s a beautifully packaged record too, featuring a jacket screened by the Casa Rat Trap collective in Bogotá, Colombia. A very cool pickup for anyone into the weirder side of raw hardcore.

Love Canal: Warheads on Foreheads 7” (11PM Records) 11PM continues two of their missions—carrying forward the tradition of the hardcore punk 7” EP and documenting the fertile north Florida hardcore scene—with this debut EP from Jacksonville, Florida’s Love Canal. Like a lot of the other bands I’ve heard from this region, Love Canal has a nihilistic sound. This makes sense, because from what I’ve seen of northern Florida, it’s a grim place where the political climate is as brutal as the relentless heat and humidity; I’m guessing the opening track, “Land of Hate,” says as much. The thing is, though, like many of the supreme nihilists of 80s punk such as Flipper and No Trend, Love Canal’s music is alive with texture and nuance. “Land of Hate” is a perfect example, featuring a bunch of tempo changes and some cool and catchy guitar work underneath the vocalist’s violent gestalt. Even when Love Canal references common hardcore tropes like the dive bombs and mosh parts in “Canadian Bacon” the weirdness of the bass tone, the slight jankiness of the dive bombs, and the punk-as-fuck sloppiness of the band’s performance means it sounds anything but generic. Love Canal also has a vocalist who really sells it, imbuing every song with a sense of genuine menace. Warheads on Foreheads is a really outstanding record, angry enough to appeal to the hardcore purists while remaining interesting and innovative enough to grab the intention of those of us who have heard hundreds, if not thousands, of competent run-throughs of the formula.

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.

Consensus Madness: Endeavors 12" (Iron Lung Records) Chicago’s Consensus Madness brings us the long-awaited follow-up to their 2023 EP, once again via the mighty Iron Lung Records. I was in the tank for Consensus Madness before I heard a note, since I’ve been following all four of the group’s musicians since long before Consensus Madness started. I’m sure Endeavorswould have caught my ear regardless, though, as it’s exactly the kind of blazing, hook-filled punk record I love. Despite being composed almost entirely of sub-two-minute songs that rip at hardcore tempos, Endeavors sidesteps hardcore’s penchant for messiness and chaos; it’s all clean lines, driving rhythms, and simple and sturdy chord progressions pounded out as root notes and bar chords with minimal embellishment. This approach does a couple of things. First, it places the focus squarely on the vocals, which are excellent, delivered with a charismatic speak/shout and lyrics that examine the moral and existential conundrums of middle age with thoughtfulness that resists rumination or passivity. Second, the “clean lines” approach means that when Consensus Madness departs from that relentless forward push with a bass line that pulls against the song’s main rhythm or a guitar chord with a touch of dissonance, you really notice, and these subtle moves give Endeavors personality more effectively than a less considered, throw-everything-against-the-wall approach. Long story short, if you love the fast-n-hooky sound of Dangerhouse bands like the Eyes, the Bags, and Rhino 39, this is going to be right up your alley.

Zipper: Muoio Quando Voglio Io cassette (Autsajder Produkcija) Croatia’s Autsajder Produkcija, the label run by Karlo from Indikator B, brings us another hit of raw and passionate international punk with this debut cassette from Milan, Italy’s Zipper. While Milano is the city that gave us Wretched, Negazione, and Rappresaglia, Zipper doesn’t sound like they’re trying to copy the 80s Italian bands. To my ears, Zipper fits better in the aesthetic lane Autsajder Produkcija has carved out for themselves with their first couple years’ of releases from bands like Indikator B, Poguba, Alambrada, and Muro. The words I used above—raw and passionate—kind of say it all, but there’s something about the way these bands—Zipper included—combine fast, raw punk that’s inspired by (but not overly indebted to) the 80s with just a hint of melody really stands out in the current international punk scene, which tends to be dominated by bands that stick to a very narrow set of aesthetic parameters. On Muoio Quando Voglio Io, Zipper sounds more organic and less considered, their blocky power chords and straightforward rhythms coming off as straightforward rather than simple or dumbed-down, and the vocalist sounding like they’re yelling from their gut about things they’re passionate about rather than trying to put on a certain kind of voice. I wish I could understand the lyrics, but I feel like Zipper taps into the universal language here, making me believe what they’re saying even if I don’t actually understand the words. For those of us obsessed with international hardcore punk, that’s the feeling we’re all after, right?

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.

Stingray: Enemy 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus) La Vida Es Un Mus brings us the third record from this London band. I had only listened to the previous two Stingray records in passing, but that sick-looking Blasphemy-inspired sleeve made me curious about what was going on with Enemy. What I found was a thirteen-minute rampage that’s like a potpourri of metal/punk sub-styles. There are moments that remind me of the Cro-Mags’ Best Wishes, the fist-pumping d-beat of Sacrilege’s demos, bouncy pogo parts that wouldn’t be out of place in the early Toxic State Records catalog, a lot of old school death metal, burly vocals from the Doom / Extreme Noise Terror school, and the occasional sprinkle of unhinged, whammy bar-heavy guitar soloing. LVEUM’s description of Enemy calls it “London on a plate,” and I hear that, both in the record’s dank, cavernous sound and in the way it touches so many corners of the underground. That’s something I associate with UK hardcore; while I think of bands from Italy, Sweden, or Japan as honing a specific, distinctive style, UK bands like Napalm Death, Heresy, E.N.T., and plenty of others seemed to throw all kinds of things into their pot of influences. While that’s certainly true of Enemy, Stingray boils that pot down pretty thoroughly, its concise 13-minute runtime leaving zero room for bloat or unwelcome eclecticism. I’d argue that Enemy delivers on that eye-catching sleeve design… it’s burly, desperate, beautifully ugly-sounding, and bursting with riffs.

Grotto: Targeted Solution 12” (Neon Taste Records) Targeted Solution is the debut record by this supremely pissed-off hardcore band from Calgary, Canada. Some time ago, I remember a band (I’ve sadly forgotten who) describing themselves as “regular hardcore,” as in not d-beat or beatdown or crust or fastcore or youth crew or whatever microgenre people are referencing these days. While “regular hardcore” is obviously self-effacing, I hear a critique implicit in the term, calling out bands for losing the forest for the trees, focusing too much on manipulating the minor signifiers of subgenre like a genetic engineer toying with strands of DNA. The alternative is throwing all that out the window, letting rip, and trying to tap into the universal well of anger and intensity that drew us to hardcore punk in the first place. By that definition, Grotto sounds like “regular hardcore” to me. Like a lot of bands these days, they’re musically accomplished, playing tight and fast and generating a big, burly sound, but they aren’t afraid to reach across those subgenre lines to use everything available in hardcore’s toolbox. There are fast d-beat parts, chunky mid-paced parts, super catchy riffs, some scissor beat parts that sound like a musical seizure, brief heavier and more atmospheric bits… there’s all kinds of stuff going on, but none of it, for a second, sounds like anything but hardcore. While I hesitate to compare Grotto to any particular band because their sound is so not on-the-nose, but something about them reminds me of Cold Sweat. There are lots of things Cold Sweat did that Grotto doesn’t (blasting parts, Black Flag-y lunging rhythms), but there’s a desperate tenor to the music the two bands undoubtedly share. Viva regular hardcore!