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3 New Releases Out Now on Sorry State: Joint D≠, Natural Causes, and Mind Dweller
Oh happy day! 3 new releases are now available from Sorry State Records! Here's the skinny on each:
A highly significant leaked dossier of ripping hardcore, ‘Intelligence’ is dripping with arch rage and lateral hatred. This unrelenting dispatch from camp ≠ sees their quick fire bile launcher trained expertly on insidious fascisms old and new, looking both inwards to their home state of North Carolina and outwards to the murderous effects of American foreign policy, facing down this complex cluster fuck without flinching, reduction or cliché, instead deploying all the class, riffs and wordplay you’ve come expect from these quarters. Fusing the wild-ass pace Japanese hardcore mania with riffs recalling Poison Idea at their moist concentrated dose, Intelligence is both a sonic ultimatum and a helpful compass. Mandatory listening for both those who are just waking up to the nightmare, and those, like Joint D≠, who’ve had eyes on their drones in the sky for quite some time. - bryony beynon
The second big slab from North Carolina’s Natural Causes. While their first record on the Snot Releases label was a rough around the edges affair with raw production and a clear fascination with the jittery, pop-inflected synth-punk of bands like Ausmuteants or Lost Sounds, this second self-titled effort finds the band “maturing” in all the right ways. , whether you’re talking about the brooding, Fall-esque “Average Cost of Living,” the up-tempo garage punk of “Gun,” or the big, careening melodies of “New Hues.” The production here is also much clearer and more powerful than before, revealing far more depth to the band’s sound than what you could hear on the earlier 12”. We tend to love bands that fall in the cracks between subgenres here at Sorry State, and the way Natural Causes combine the atmospheric arrangements and angular riffing of post-punk with the energy of garage-punk, all the while sprinkling the whole thing liberally with big pop melodies, makes them a perfect fit for the label. Recommended if you like your punk loud and aggressive, but still forward-thinking and adventurous.
This LP comes with a beautifully-designed jacket featuring a 2-color print on raw chipboard.
Mind Dweller features members of most of the key Raleigh hardcore bands of the past several years coming together to play a riff-driven style of rocked-out punk that has pretty much one relevant historical antecedent: Annihilation Time. There have been countless bands that have attempted to fuse rock and punk, but like Annihilation Time, Mind Dweller don’t skimp on the rock or the punk, taking the best parts of 70s hard rock and infusing it with hardcore energy. And while a lot of bands go wrong with this style by having vocals that sound like either Eddie Vedder or Joe Denunzio, Mind Dweller’s vocalist takes an RKL-like approach where he sounds punk as hell but also has a range of more than one note. Whether this style is right in your wheelhouse or whether you’re incredibly picky about your rocked-out punk, Mind Dweller have what you need.
Limited to 100 pro-duplicated cassettes in purple shells with a full color j-card.
If you're a Sorry State Records superfan we're also offering bundle pricing if you want to grab all three of these new releases, which not only gets you all three new releases but also saves you a few bucks. You can check out the bundle here.
Now, you may be wondering to yourself, "wasn't Sorry State supposed to release the new Excessive Cruelty record on April 7?" Well, here's a pic of that one:
Looks pretty cool, huh? Well, unfortunately I can't sell it to you because when the pressing showed up at the store yesterday we realized that every single copy is visibly warped. This is pretty much a complete nightmare, but we're soldiering through and trying to move through the claims process and have these repressed. So I'm guessing it'll be at least a month until I can sell these to you, perhaps more. This is far from the only problem we've had with this batch of releases... the new Natural Causes jackets originally showed up without any of the white printing on the jacket (and consequently you may find those misprinted jackets used as packing material in a future order), the Joint D≠ LP probably went through half a dozen artwork resubmissions before it was accepted, and now an entire pressing is warped! Actually getting these things realized and into the physical world has been a real ordeal, so know that when you buy these a truly extraordinary amount of effort has gone into them.