Featured Releases: August 28, 2023

Fashion Change: Smoking Kills 7” (Iron Lung Records) Brilliant new 3-song flexi of arty hardcore punk from this Seattle band. I love the wild collision of influences—brutal death metal vocals, searing, Kyushu-style noise punk, Meat Puppets-esque warped punkedelia—it’s a real buffet of strange underground sounds. It all sticks together, though, thanks to top-notch songwriting and playing, particularly the brilliant drumming, which finds all these ways to be unexpected and creative while keeping everything stripped down and primitive as fuck. If you have a taste for adventurous underground sounds from Spike in Vain to No Trend to S.P.K., you’ll love the warped darkness of Smoking Kills.

Isolant: Oblivion 12” (Social Napalm Records) Social Napalm Records’ first release after Savageheads’ phenomenal LP from last year is a total left-turn musically. The label’s description refers to Isolant as “industrial crust,” and in a lot of ways it sounds like some strange fusion of Ministry and Amebix, borrowing the former’s layers of harsh, distorted percussion and the latter’s epically chugging riffs. However, what sticks out to me about Oblivion is how stretched-out and psychedelic it is. Its seven-plus minute songs never seem in a hurry to get anywhere, but they’re constantly morphing and developing, fading from quiet and meditative passages into huge crescendos, making the music seem almost geologic in scale. While those crust elements are present on Oblivion, I think the people who enjoy it most will be those who appreciate its wideness of scope, who find as much pleasure in droning as thrashing.

It Thing: Constant State 7” (Feel It Records) Australia’s It Thing knocked me out with this two-song power-popper. It’s high-energy, heavy rock and roll punk with a singer who has a huge voice. I’d put It Thing’s music in a similar bucket to Split System because it sounds like an update on the old Saints / Radio Birdman sound, perhaps with punkier rhythms and hardcore-ish tempos, but built around hooky, Stooges-influenced riffs. However, the singer takes it somewhere else… their raspy, slightly bluesy voice reminds me of Kat Arthur from Legal Weapon, and the choruses (particularly on “Constant State”) are total earworms. These two tracks are bursting with energy and begging to be sung along with.

JJ and the A’s: S/T 7” (La Vida Es Un Mus) Blistering, hooky punk from this Copenhagen / Barcelona band on their debut 6-song 7”. The label’s description mentions the Spits and Rip Off Records and I hear that in the jittery 16th notes, but it’s tinny in an almost industrial way that makes me think of Metal Urbain or the Screamers. As important as the frantic rhythms and noisy textures are the hooky vocals, which are bathed in distortion but brimming with melody. I also love that there are six songs here... they’re in and out quickly, but cover a lot of range, from the bashing hardcore tracks like “Show Me” to the more tuneful “Head in a Vat” and the brooding “The Shrew.” Energy, hooks, distortion… what’s not to like?

Spirito Di Lupo: Vedo La Tua Faccia Nei Giorni Di Pioggia 12” (Iron Lung Records) This debut 12” from Italy’s Spirito Di Lupo has been getting a ton of buzz, and with good reason… it’s a brilliant record. Musically adventurous but with a distinctive and unique voice, Spirito Di Lupo has staked out a lane of arty anarcho punk all their own. The vocals, while stripped down and very punk, do a lot with rhythmic cadences and dynamic interplay between the two singers. The music, though, covers a lot of ground… Spirito di Lupo can be angry and brutal, but they can also be haunting, delicate, melodic, and so much more. When you pair that musical adventurousness with the album’s raw, live-sounding recording, you get something very earthy and organic sounding. I picture the members of Spirto Di Lupo living together on an anarchist commune, tending the fields and the grounds during the day and embarking on musical explorations long into the evening. If you’re looking for comparisons, I’d put Spirito Di Lupo in the company of bands like Straw Man Army, Subdued, and Rigorous Institution, all of whom have a similarly organic sound and a way of using classic anarcho punk as an inspiration rather than as a script.

80HD: Destabilize 12” (Artifact Audio) On their debut vinyl, New York’s 80HD move away from the overt Heresy-isms of their demo tape, forging their own sound while keeping the focus on the band’s numerous strengths. Chief among those is drummer Sasha Stroud’s insane chops, and this time around rather than the dramatic shifts between big punches and blistering fast parts, the songs tend to ride steadier grooves, which leaves more space for her explosive fills and accents. Sasha also handles production duties on Destabilize, which has a clearer and brighter sound than the demo tape. This record sounds huge yet organic, just like a great hardcore record should. The clearer production also lets the vocals shine more, and they’re kind of crazy, oscillating between a Sakevi-influenced growl, a hardcore bark, and a shrieking howl… the way the vocal style changes from part to part or even sometimes line to line is wild. I think 80HD is at their best when they are straight tearing your face off with maximum speed and aggression (see “Lookout!”), but even when they ease off the gas and try something a little different (like the synth-infused closing track, “Feel”) they are commanding.