Featured Releases: July 27, 2023

B.O.R.N.: Belligerent Onslaught Relentless Noise cassette (Chaos and Chill) With the new tape from Bloody Flag and a new LP from Physique coming out in the past couple of months, it’s been a very good summer for Disclose-inspired hardcore. However, don’t let this tape from Birmingham, Alabama’s B.O.R.N. pass you by! B.O.R.N. has the sound down just as well as their peers from more well-known scenes, with the brittle, fucked tones, the pounding d-beats, and the shredded vocals all dialed. The songs are excellent, with a bit of Public Acid’s metallic touch in the riffing, but the star of the B.O.R.N. show for me is the lead guitar. Every time the guitarist lets loose on this recording my ears perk up… rather than sounding like someone who has spent years watching guitar tutorials on YouTube, they have this great sense of style with strong melodies in the leads but a loose and slinky delivery… I picture a half passed-out Slash busting out these leads with a cig hanging out of his mouth. B.O.R.N. is great at toeing the d-beat party line while leaving room in their sound for their unique voice to come through, which you can hear on the cover of Disclose’s “Conquest” that appears here. Excellent stuff.

Los Invasores: Demo 1987 12” (Esos Malditos Punks) Much-needed vinyl reissue of the full 1987 cassette from this under-documented band from Uruguay. While Los Invasores never released vinyl during their original run, I knew I’d heard their name before, and Discogs informed me that Lengua Armada released four tracks on a 7” in 2006 and France’s Crapoulet Records reissued these songs on cassette in 2014. Jack Control handles the mastering on this latest version, making this rough, vintage recording sound as powerful as it can. As with a lot of Latin American punk, the year of recording doesn’t tell you much about the band’s style, as Los Invasores’ sound is more rooted in 70s punk, with some of the intensity of early 80s hardcore. I hear a lot of the Clash in their sound (as well as Spanish Clash disciples Eskorbuto), but what stands out is the reverb-drenched, surf-inflected guitar sound, which gives the best tracks a darkly melodic feel that reminds me of Agent Orange’s Living in Darkness. You can hear this most clearly on the brilliant first track, “Historias de Falsos Amigos,” which left my jaw on the floor the first time I heard it. If you’ve spent as much time as I have with Living in Darkness (or if you dug that recent Bloodstains 7” everyone was talking about earlier this summer), stop what you’re doing and listen to this song right now. For me, the track is the undeniable highlight of the record, though the second song, “Al Borde del Bien Y el Mal” is excellent too, though very similar to “Historias,” right down to the quirky, angular break. If Los Invasores had put out a single before 1980 with either of those two songs on the a-side and two of the best tracks from the rest of the session on the flip, it’d be a record people pay hundreds of dollars for. It’s too bad Los Invasores missed their shot at collector scum immortality, but I’m glad to see this excellent session in circulation and on wax where it belongs.

Paranoid Maniac: Watchlist EP cassette (self-released) In terms of its lineup, Raleigh’s Paranoid Maniac is basically a new incarnation of Sorry State’s Das Drip, taking that band’s final lineup, swapping out the vocalist and adding a second guitarist. While the ultra-fast tempos carry over from Das Drip, the music’s tone has changed, growing darker and more sinister. I know that, as the band was getting started, Paranoid Maniac guitarist Rich was fascinated with 80s Japanese punk like Kuro, the Execute, and Sodom, and while I’m not sure a total outsider would pick up on those influences, when you compare Paranoid Maniac to Das Drip you can hear how they have shaped the sound. Besides those creepy vibes, the new guitarist Alex also puts his stamp on Paranoid Maniac’s sound. Das Drip featured a lot of crazy guitar/bass interplay, and Alex jumps right into the melee, the string section reminding me of a group of multi-headed hydras locked in battle. The result is arty and intense, like an early Saccharine Trust record spinning at 78rpm and blaring at a painful volume. It’s not for the faint of heart, but I think it’s brilliant, and one of the most intense and original-sounding recordings I’ve heard for some time.

Snooper: Super Snooper 12” (Third Man Records) We’ve carried a few tapes and 7”s from Nashville’s Snooper, and while we liked them and they sold well, I never would have predicted the group’s debut LP would arrive via Jack White’s Third Man Records. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether it’s a good fit, but I think this is a killer record that deserves a wider audience than just the subscribers to some fringe YouTube channel. While Snooper has pretty much all the trappings of the now-established egg punk sound, Super Snooper feels wider in scope than I might have expected. Take a track like “Pod,” whose foundation is built on similar jittery rhythms to most of Snooper’s other songs, but the long, melodic lead guitar lines in the verses pull against the hyper-compressed rhythms in a way I find captivating. (I should also mention that said guitarist is Connor Cummins, whose axe-slinging also elevates the music of Sorry State’s own G.U.N.) While tracks like “Bed Bugs” and “Powerball” have a similar fun-loving charm to Judy & the Jerks, Super Snooper’s highlight for me is “Running,” the 5-minute closing track that finds Snooper wrestling with a motorik groove to brilliant effect. I also appreciate the crisp and bright production, a contrast to the often super lo-fi egg punk aesthetic. I hear Snooper’s live sets are incredible, and I hope to experience that at some point. For now, though, Super Snooper stands on its own as one of the more coherent and addictive full-lengths the egg punk world has birthed.

Thatcher’s Snatch: White Collar Man 7” (Hardcore Victim Records) Australia’s tastefully named Thatcher’s Snatch return with their second record, and this three-song single feels like an even more on-the-nose homage to the UK82 era than their debut. I wasn’t sure what to think about “White Collar Man” when I first heard it, with its sludgy tempo and prominent backing vocals, but it’s an undeniable earworm, and every time I hear it, I like it more. I’m struggling to think of examples, but I feel like it was a UK82 trope to place a band’s catchiest song, typically the mid-paced one, on the a-side of the single… I can picture Thatcher’s Snatch running through their set for a small time indie label exec and when they get to “White Collar Man,” the exec shouts, “that’s the hit!” The flip, though, is reserved for two smashers in the vein of the first EP with shouted choruses a la the Exploited, but the sprightly playing here is a cut above the very young bands who put out records on labels like No Future and Riot City. An engaging and powerful take on the UK82 sound.

Faucheuse: demo cassette (Symphony of Destruction Records) Debut EP from this new band from Bordeaux, France, featuring several people who play or used to play in Bombardement, including the band’s first vocalist. My first reaction when I heard Faucheuse’s tape was that they sound like a d-beat version of Denmark’s Night Fever. Like Night Fever, Faucheuse has the chops to play music way more complex and demanding than punk, but rather than using their music to escape into a land of warriors and wizards, they channel their skills into making the most precise and ripping hardcore punk they can muster. The guitarist takes the manic style of Swedish groups like Herätys and sprinkles it with glittering shards of rock riffage, the bass player walks up and down the neck like they’re pacing a padded cell on a fistful of Adderall, the singer screams their way through several octaves, and the drummer keeps it grounded with a steady, pounding d-beat. The energy is infectious… this tape lifts you off the ground with the first track and doesn’t let you down until it’s over. Seriously, just give this a listen and fall in love.