Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter! This week is big, as we have launched pre-orders for our next three vinyl releases on Sorry State Records. We put them up at 8AM this morning and they have been flying off the shelves. The eagle eyed among you will note that there are only 100 copies of Invalid on red vinyl, making it the more limited of the three limited versions… that’s almost sold out as I type this, so rush over to the site to grab one if you want a copy and haven’t secured yours yet. It looks like the Woodstock 99 and Hüstler limited versions won’t be too far behind, so don’t dilly dally on those either.

Last week I mentioned I was racing off to the Chisel gig in Richmond after I finished the newsletter. It was great! Sadly, I stuck around work too long and missed Public Acid, but got there in time to see Quarantine level the place. What a fucking band! Dark Thoughts were great as always and the Chisel brought it… go see them if you have the chance, as they don’t disappoint. Fortunately, there isn’t a gig tonight, but there is a pretty killer one coming up on Sunday with Hologram here in North Carolina that I would advise you not to miss if you’re in the area.

There’s a lot to write about this week, so let’s get to it!

Maraudeur: Puissance 4 12” (Feel It Records) The first time I listened to Puissance, the debut record from Germany’s Maraudeur, I liked it immediately. It’s a style that feels like comfort food to me, bass-forward post-punk with nervous, herky-jerky rhythms, deadpan vocals, and an assortment of plucked guitar notes and synth swooshes occupying the higher frequency range. Not everything I hear in this vein sticks with me, but I kept returning to Puissance 4. There was a complexity there, something I couldn’t grasp with a few cursory listens. Further examination revealed a clear climax at Puissance’s center, with the last track on the a-side, “Slow Dress,” and the first track on the b-side, “T.W.Y.W.Y.S.,” standing out from the pack (though, in retrospect, I wonder if these songs just stood out to me because their lyrics are in English). Maraudeur builds “Slow Dress” around a slinky bass groove that sounds straight off of Wire’s 154, but it’s the lyrics that intrigue me. The singer keeps repeating, “slow dress… where is the slit?” (at least I think that’s what they’re saying… they don’t include lyrics with the LP). I find that lyric so evocative. What is a slow dress? Is it a dress without a slit that forces you to walk slowly? I love that this little slice of life detail is transformed by repetition into a strange incantation, a strategy the Fall (perhaps my favorite band ever) leaned on often. A restrictive dress that makes it hard to move makes me think the singer is at some sort of formal event, and I can’t help but wonder why is this punk singer wearing a fancy ball gown? None of this is in the song as far as I can tell, but it indicates how Maraudeur gets my mind racing. “T.W.Y.W.Y.S.” also leans on repetition, with its refrain of “the way you wear your scarf” forming the backbone of another evocative tale of what happens in a person’s mind as they find someone attractive and then wrestle neurotically with the implications of that feeling. The music is just as evocative as the lyrics, too. “T.W.Y.W.Y.S.” stands out as the brightest and poppiest song on Puissance 4, but when you listen, you realize the chords are not what you expect them to be… they’re fucked up and unexpected, yet that pop sugar rush still finds its way through the dissonance. I’m bummed that I don’t speak French well or German at all, because it probably means I’m missing out on great lyrics for the songs in those languages, but at least I can understand what Maraudeur is saying in the universal language.

Listen here!

We’ve only mentioned it about 75 times now, but below we’re gonna tell you about the three new Sorry State releases up for pre-order now! Artwork and descriptions below, and you can head over to the Sorry State Records Bandcamp site to hear a track each from the Invalid and Woodstock 99 records. You can order the vinyl via our Bandcamp site too, but remember the limited color versions are exclusive to the Sorry State website.

Everyone has to swallow the world’s shit, but Cleveland’s Woodstock 99 regurgitates it in technicolor. Their nihilistic and antagonistic take on hardcore punk can recall the Kings of Punk in their prime, but this band is too fucked up to focus on their rage… sometimes they’d rather wander away after a psychedelic riff or poke around in the trash for scraps of 90s pop culture. On Super Gremlin, Woodstock 99 examines the void from all angles, and while it might look frightening or intimidating from some vantage points, from other angles all you can do is laugh. One pill turns you into Jerry A (“La Casa De Fuck You”), and one pill lands you at the denouement of a French noir film (“Budget Inn”), and another one summons DJ Lethal to lay down some sick scratches (“Beatboxing in Viet… Nam!!”). Down them all, chase them with a couple shots of cheap whiskey, and follow Woodstock 99 down the rabbit hole.

The first pressing of Super Gremlin is 500 copies with a full-color jacket, black-and-white inner sleeve, and an 8”x10” color photo print of the band. 150 copies are on clear vinyl.

Invalid’s cassette-only debut, Do Not Resuscitate, came out on their hometown label Cruel Noise Records early in 2020 and, for me, it was love at first listen. Invalid plays hardcore in the tradition of Black Flag’s Damaged, deploying sophistication and craft not to show off, but as tools that allow them to go further and deeper as they exorcise their demons. Invalid’s bulldozer intensity is the first thing that grabs you, but the great riffs and songs keep you coming back, every track containing an improbable hook like the martial chant of “Wake up / eat / shit” in “This Life,” the primal howl of “wasting away” in the chorus to “Escape,” or the instant-classic intro riff to “Stupid Pills.” Fans of records like Direct Control’s first 7”, C.O.C.’s Eye for an Eye, and Unseen Force’s In Search of the Truth are perhaps best primed to appreciate Invalid’s punishing yet catchy and energetic style of hardcore. This self-titled LP contains all eight tracks from Do Not Resuscitate plus six new ones cast from the same mold.

The first pressing of Invalid’s self-titled LP is 500 copies with a black and white jacket, two-sided lyric insert, and 24”x36” poster insert. 400 copies are on black vinyl and 100 clear red vinyl copies include an additional screen printed cover.

Both of Hüstler’s cassette releases for Sorry State Records sold out almost instantly, so compiling those two cassettes for Hüstler’s first vinyl record was a no-brainer. Hüstler burst through the gate on their first tape with one of the most distinctive voices in the contemporary underground, smashing together elements of punk, death rock, and metal into a sound that is both anthemic and intense. Their second tape only upped the ante, widening their stylistic scope while leaning into the crowd-pleasing choruses and mosh parts. We’re very proud to present Hüstler’s early years on the format that matters.

The first pressing of Hüstler’s self-titled LP is 500 copies with a full-color jacket, full-color insert, and 24”x36” poster insert. 150 copies are on clear pink vinyl.

Lasso’s European tour starts TONIGHT in Frankfurt, Germany! They’re in Europe for a couple of weeks (see the poster above for dates), so go see them if you have the chance.

This isn’t on our label, but we’re pretty excited about it, so we’re giving it prominent placement in this week’s newsletter. Sealed Records’ reissue of Rudimentary Peni’s landmark first 7” is in stock and shipping now! This reissue is mastered from the original tapes and meticulously recreates the original issue’s layout, including the rare booklet full of Nick Blinko drawings that you only had if you were as big a nerd as I am.

We’d hoped the debut LP from Savageheads (to be released on Social Napalm Records and distributed by Sorry State) would be out by now, but the release has hit a pretty big snag. Social Napalm posted an update explaining the entire situation on their Instagram, and here it is below. We’re still looking forward to getting this LP in your hands as soon as we can!

We’re back in Finland for this week’s edition of Hardcore Knockouts. I suppose I’m not surprised Kansan Uutiset took this one… the music rips, and it has one of the coolest covers ever, plus I think it’s a little more well known than Massacre.

Cast your vote in the next edition of Hardcore Knockouts on our Instagram stories next Tuesday!

My pick from Sorry State’s Discogs listings this week is this 7” from Beauregarde. Who is Beauregarde, you ask? He was a professional wrestler from the Pacific Northwest in the early 70s. More to the point for the Sorry State crowd, when he branched into the record industry, he enlisted the services of a young guitarist named Greg Sage. These were Sage’s first recordings, though they weren’t his last, because a few years later he started the Wipers. A cool piece of arcana that Jackpot Records reissued back in 2014. You can pick it up from us for just a couple bucks.

Remember, you can always combine your order from Sorry State’s Discogs site with your order from our webstore and save on shipping!

1. Rudimentary Peni: S/T 7” (Sealed Records)
2. Straw Man Army: SOS 12” (D4MT Labs)
3. Peace de Résistance: Bits and Pieces 12” (Peace de Records)
4. Hüstler: S/T 12” (Sorry State Records)
5. Woodstock 99: Super Gremlin 12” (Sorry State Records)
6. Invalid: S/T 12” (Sorry State Records)
7. Valtatyhjiö: Lukko cassette (Sorry State Records)
8. Torso: Sono Pronto A Morire 12” (Sorry State Records)
9. Violent Apathy: 11/29/81 7” (Radio Raheem Records)
10. Rutto: Ei Paluuta 7” (Final Doomsday Records)

The latest Sorry State releases just went up for pre-order a few hours ago and they’re already in our top 10 sellers for the last 30 days. Thanks for picking them up y’all!

Possessed’s (proto-?) death metal classic Seven Churches just got a new Record Store Day exclusive pressing on limited green vinyl and we have copies in stock now.

Open Palm Tapes brings us two new releases, an EP from Chicago d-beat band Weak Pulse and a split cassette from two Chilean bands, Sindrome De Abstinencia and Niño Viejo.

From Gutteral Warfare Records we have two ripping new releases from Realm of Terror, a cassette EP called Loss of Hope and a very limited vinyl version of their Accelerated Extinction demo, plus a cassette EP from Desertion.

If you picked up the first two volumes of the Wright Copy series, which compiles gems from Pat Wright’s cassette archives, we have two more volumes in stock now.

We also have the new LP from Macedonian noise rockers Arlekin (Арлекин), which has an insane multi-page illustrated booklet sleeve that you just have to see. (Note: these got dinged in transit, but not too badly.)

You might remember Bay Area hardcore band Sterile Mind from a few years ago, and we have a posthumous release from them featuring unreleased recordings from 2018.

Just in today we have two new releases on Lavasocks Records: a reissue of the classic Bay Area punk compilation The Thing that Ate Floyd and a vinyl reissue of demo recordings by Corrupted Morals.