News

January 27 2022

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Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State newsletter! Things are bumping along here, with a steady stream of new releases coming in to keep us occupied. That Personal Damage tape has been dominating my playlist for the past several weeks, and I’m stoked to turn a few people onto it hopefully. We also have the usual slate of staff picks, descriptions, and other new release updates, so let’s get to it.

Personal Damage: Ambush cassette (1753 Recordings) This new LA-area band is back with their second tape, the first of which was turned into a flexi last year. Personal Damage knocked me out the first time I heard them, and I think this new tape might be even better than the first one. Personal Damage’s style is in that “snotty punk at hardcore speeds” mode I associate with current bands like Chain Whip and White Stains, but a bit less hardcore and more punk rock than those bands. The band that always comes to mind when I listen to Personal Damage is the Circle Jerks. Like the Jerks, Personal Damage’s songs are compact (ranging from thirty seconds to about a minute and a half), but pack that small space with a lot of melody and tight arrangements that make the songs sound explosive. Again, like the Jerks, Personal Damage isn’t afraid to get a little poppy when the moment requires, as they do on the (very unexpected) cover of Peter Tosh’s “Stepping Razor” that closes out Ambush. If you like it short, fast, and catchier than omicron—Angry Samoans and early Gang Green are two more solid reference points—get on this train quick.

Coming Soon

We have a few things that are on the horizon for the Sorry State label, but not quite ready for a full-on announcement, so here’s a quick tease. We have about half of a fresh pressing of Golpe’s album in-house now, but we’re waiting for more poster inserts to be printed before we can put them up for sale. There are two versions, both on color vinyl and one limited to 100 copies, so watch for that to go on sale soon. We also have test pressings for a couple of upcoming releases for Invalid and Hüstler. Hopefully we can get those approved for a late winter / early spring release. And besides that we have a few tape releases that are at the duplicator or just ready to be sent off. It’s looking like 2022 will be Sorry State’s busiest year yet as a label, so I hope all of you are down to come along on the journey.

Usman is back to Italy again with this week’s edition of Hardcore Knockouts. I must admit that this pairing stymied me… I just couldn’t choose and didn’t even cast a vote. Sorry, Usman.

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 the What Glory 7” by Thisclose. Thisclose is one of those bands that sounds ridiculous when you first hear them, but at some point it clicks and you realize the songs are good, the riffs are cool, and that they’re better off for finding their own take on the classic d-beat formula. I’ve never liked Grave New World—I just find the songs repetitive and annoying—but I dig Thisclose.

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

  1. Torso: Sono Pronto A Morire 12” (Sorry State)
  2. Reckoning Force: Broken State 12” (Not for the Weak)
  3. Tempter: S/T 12” (Quality Control HQ)
  4. Game: Legerdemain 12” (Quality Control HQ)
  5. Karma Sutra: Be Cruel with Your Past... 12” (Sealed Records)
  6. Home Front: Think of the Lie 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus)
  7. Dissekerad: Inre Strid 12” (Desolate Records)
  8. Guerra Final: S/T 7” (Desolate Records)
  9. Asylum: Is This the Price? 7” (Sealed Records)
  10. Fragment: Mind Convulsion 7” (Desolate Records)

Here is our list of top sellers at Sorry State for the past 30 days. It’s crazy that Torso keeps selling years after it came out. Aside from that, the charts represent a pretty good cross-section of what we’re carrying at the moment. As always, congrats on your good taste, everyone!

Not for the Weak Records just dropped off their new release at Sorry State HQ this morning: a new 7” from Swedish punks Axe Rash. This is a co-release with Denmark’s Adult Crash Records, so you know it’s good. More on this one later, for sure.

Iron Lung dropped FOUR new releases on us today as well. My pick from the litter is this killer hardcore punk 12” from New York’s La Milagrosa, but the others are no slouch either: a tape from Italy’s Comunione, a 12” from Iceland’s Born, and a new cassette album from Grand Invincible. We also restocked a few older Iron Lung titles, including Insect Warfare’s World Extermination.

Scat Records continues its Spike in Vain reissue campaign with a reissue of the band’s obscure debut cassette, Jesus Was Born in a Mobile Home. We also restocked Spike in Vain’s classic album Disease Is Relative. Get that if you haven’t already, but if you’ve already worn out that weird hardcore classic, grab the cassette to hear more from this brilliant group.

Symphony of Destruction Records from France has three new titles for us. Prospexx and Kold Front bring us some excellent cold wave (remember, Symphony of Destruction is the label that introduced us to Riki!) as well as the new album from long-running LA melodic punk band Generacion Suicida.

Speaking of LA, new label No Norms Records brings us the debut cassette from LA metal punks S.O.H. I love that cover art, and the music ain’t too shabby either.

Check the Featured Releases section below for the full description, but the excellent Raleigh zine What Goes On has a new issue out now!

January 20 2022

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Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State newsletter! Sorry we didn’t get a newsletter out last week. After doing our big year-end roundup for the previous newsletter, I was totally fried. May or may not have had a mini nervous breakdown early in the week, but never mind that… we’re back in gear this week with a ton of cool new stuff to share with you. Like this new Dissekerad LP, which is a fucking ripper if I’ve ever heard one. It doesn’t stop there, either, so read on for all the info!

Dissekerad: Inre Strid 12” (Desolate Records) God damn, the new Dissekerad is a scorcher! This Swedish hardcore band, which features Poffen from Totalitär on vocals, released their first record back in 2013 and has continued pounding out 7”s and 12”s ever since, with new records appearing at a frequency that belies their brilliance. This new one, Inre Strid, might be the crown jewel, or maybe it’s the one I’m most excited about it right now because it’s fresh to my ears… either way, it’s a ripper! There are a lot of bands in the world who attempt this style of Swedish mängel (I might even be in one…), but Dissekerad’s take is just perfect, traditional with the furious d-beats and sinister riffing you expect from the style, but with enough flourish and personality that you know it’s them from the first note. I like that Dissekerad isn’t afraid to mix in a little metal, with a midrange-y guitar tone, a lot of fast tremolo picking, and the occasional wild guitar solo, but there’s none of metal’s grandiosity… everything serves the relentless, bashing rhythms. While highlights abound, my favorite moment is the straight up bonkers riff that drives “Idioter,” a hideous barrage of slides and pull-offs that perfectly combines savagery and precision. Inre Strid is all fire, though, and a must-hear for anyone who likes their hardcore mean and nasty.

Coming Soon

We have a few things that are on the horizon for the Sorry State label, but not quite ready for a full-on announcement, so here’s a quick tease. We have about half of a fresh pressing of Golpe’s album in-house now, but we’re waiting for more poster inserts to be printed before we can put them up for sale. There are two versions, both on color vinyl and one limited to 100 copies, so watch for that to go on sale soon. We also have test pressings for a couple of upcoming releases for Invalid and Hüstler. Hopefully we can get those approved for a late winter / early spring release. And besides that we have a few tape releases that are at the duplicator or just ready to be sent off. It’s looking like 2022 will be Sorry State’s busiest year yet as a label, so I hope all of you are down to come along on the journey.

Since we took last week off, we have a couple of hardcore knockouts to share with you. We’re in Sweden for one, and Italy for the other. Both feature one record I love and one record I need to spend more time with, so I’ll control my usual impulse to tell you my opinion on these match-ups.

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 the Bad Reputation 7” by Annihilation Time. I know most people ride for II as the ultimate Annihilation Time record, but I always loved the band’s two 7” EPs. This EP sounded so fresh when it came out, their first with Jimmy on vocals and the first to lean into the rock and roll influences that would come to dominate their sound. This one still sounds great to me today.

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

  1. Karma Sutra: Be Cruel With Your Past… 12” (Sealed Records)
  2. Torso: Sono Pronto A Morire 12” (Sorry State)
  3. Game: Legerdemain 12” (Quality Control HQ)
  4. Home Front: Think of the Lie 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus)
  5. The Chisel: Retaliation 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus)
  6. Reckoning Force: Broken State 12” (Not for the Weak Records)
  7. Asylum: Is This the Price? 7” (Sealed Records)
  8. Tempter: S/T 12” (Quality Control HQ)
  9. Tower 7: Peace on Earth? 12” (Roach Leg Records)
  10. Anti-Cimex: The 7” EPs Collection 7” box set (Sonarize Records)

It’s been a few weeks since we gave you a chart of the best-selling releases at Sorry State, and there’s been a shake-up in the rankings since we last checked in.

Neon Taste Records has a few new items for us this week. If you liked that Imploders 7” they released (it was one of Seth’s picks for his favorites of the year), the band just released a new live on the radio tape that features a handful of new tracks. There’s also a fresh repress of the killer Bootlicker LP, this time on purple vinyl.

From Unlawful Assembly we just got in a repress of the Alambrada 7” (I saw this on a lot of year-end lists) and a new 7” from Fashion Change. Quantities on both are very limited, so scoop them quick!

Invertebrates is a new Richmond band featuring a bunch of Sorry State family, including two members of Public Acid. We’re down to our last couple of copies of this tape, but if you miss out, you can watch for a repress of the tape on Sorry State in the coming months!

We just got in a heap of releases from Loopy Scoop Tapes, including several releases from house band Zhoop.

Necro Heads from Pittsburgh have a new 7” and it is a total shredder… classic, early 80s-style hardcore.

We just got the new issue of Destroy Everything, a punk-related art zine curated by Winston Smith, designer of the classic Dead Kennedys album sleeves. It’s a full-color mag and a total visual feast!

One of my favorite current bands, Personal Damage, has a new cassette out and it shreds! FFO of Circle Jerks and Angry Samoans.

Static Shock brings us a three-song cassette from the new Berlin-based band Glaas. Dense, compelling music that rides the line between punk and post-punk.

Two North Carolina classics, Corrosion of Conformity’s Animosity and Technocracy albums, have official represses on Metal Blade. We hate the high prices on these, but the music is untouchable. And the Technocracy reissue features the bonus tracks with Mike Dean on vocals, which are some of my favorite COC recordings.

And finally, the new issue of My War zine is out now, featuring interviews with a bunch of folks including Ian Mackeye and ME, Daniel from Sorry State. A logical pairing, right?

January 6 2022- 2021 Year in Review

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Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter! This week’s newsletter is twice as long as usual because, besides the stuff we always do, for this issue’s staff picks we’re running down our favorites of 2021. Between the killer new stuff that has arrived this week (Reckoning Force!) and our (very different) year-end lists, you should definitely find a few cool pieces of music you didn’t know about until now.

Reckoning Force: Broken State 12” (Not for the Weak Records) A lot of bands make their way by catering to a micro-scene or a clique, but every so often a record appears that tramples all over those quibbling divisions, tapping into deeper, more primal wells of energy and power. The Slant LP Iron Lung released in 2021 was one of those records, and Broken State, the debut 12” from Virginia’s Reckoning Force, strikes me as another. Reckoning Force pulls elements from several corners of hardcore history. I hear some straight edge hardcore in the vocals and build-ups, but most songs are built around quick-fingered riffing from the Totalitär school, and several tracks have catchy, early 80s SoCal punk-style guitar leads (see “Foul Company” and “Last Stand”). I get the impression Reckoning Force isn’t working from anyone else’s template, though, just grabbing whatever tools are most appropriate in their pursuit of total rippage. And boy, does Broken State rip! After a brief ten-second buildup, Reckoning Force slams the gas pedal to the floor and doesn’t let up. Like their fellow Virginians Wasted Time, Reckoning Force’s songs are intricate but not labored over, expertly crafted yet brimming with spontaneous energy, and performed with a jaw-dropping precision that, rather than zapping hardcore’s trademark in-the-moment intensity, ratchets it up to impossibly high levels. If you’re after a pure jolt of energy, I can think of few records that deliver it as effectively as Broken State.

Sorry State’s 2021 Releases

Here are the 9 physical releases Sorry State put out in 2021, which was quite a feat thanks to the omnipresent production backlogs everyone saw this year. Six of these have already sold out, and a seventh is down to fewer than 10 copies. Thanks everyone for a great 2021! If any of these appear in your Best of 2021 lists, please remember to tag us! We have a LOT more in store for 2022, so stay tuned.

This week’s edition of Hardcore Knockouts comes to us from the Netherlands. Both are rippers… as you can see in my year-end roundup, I scored the Mornington Crescent EP this year, but I would love to get the Agent Orange records too. Maybe one day… in the meantime my trusty Jezus and the Gospelfuckers / Agent Orange split 12” will have to do.

Since this is the 2021 Year in Review edition of the newsletter, I thought we’d give you a few extra charts. First, here are the top sellers at Sorry State for the entirety of 2021 (excluding releases on the Sorry State label):

  1. Rudimentary Peni: Great War 12” (Sealed Records)
  2. Nightmare: Give Notice of Nightmare 12” (Farewell Records)
  3. Horrendous 3d: The Gov. And Corps. Are Using Psycho​-​Electronic Weaponry To Manipulate You And Me​... 7” (Whisper in Darkness)
  4. Taqbir: Victory Belongs to Those Who Fight for a Right Cause 7” (La Vida Es Un Mus)
  5. Electric Chair: Social Capital 7” (Iron Lung Records)
  6. Violent Christians: New Blood for a Dead City 7” (Roach Leg Records)
  7. Quarantine: Agony 12” (Damage United)
  8. The Partisans: Anarchy in Alkatraz / No Future Demos 80 82 12” (Sealed Records)
  9. Nog Watt: Fear 7” (Final Doomsday Records)
  10. Nervous SS / Ratcage: Skopje Vs Sheffield 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus)

Curious about what sells in our brick and mortar shop versus online? While our shop has a big selection of punk, we also cater to more mainstream tastes, since we’re a neighborhood record store here in Raleigh. The top sellers for the year in the shop reflect that:

  1. J Cole: 2014 Forest Hills Drive
  2. Bob Marley: Legend
  3. Kanye West: College Dropout
  4. Wu-Tang Clan: Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
  5. Mac Miller: Swimming
  6. Mumford & Sons: Sigh No More
  7. Childish Gambino: Awaken, My Love
  8. N.W.A.: Straight Outta Compton
  9. Lizzo: Cuz I Love You
  10. Nirvana: In Utero

And now here are the most expensive collectibles we sold in 2021:

  1. John Coltrane: A Love Supreme (mono, white label promo)
  2. Ron Henderson & Choice of Colour: S/T
  3. Deep Wound: S/T 7”
  4. Jackie McLean: Swing, Swang, Swinging
  5. AFI: Sing the Sorrow
  6. Led Zeppelin: II (Mobile Fidelity pressing)
  7. Negative Approach: Tied Down (first press)
  8. My Chemical Romance: The Black Parade box set
  9. Hottest: Bust / Backseat Lover 12”
  10. Mercyful Fate: S/T 12” (first press)

First up this week, the new Tempter 12” on Quality Control HQ just dropped TODAY! Tempter is a new Richmond metal / hardcore band featuring members of Nosebleed and Candy, among many others. We have the regular black vinyl on the Sorry State shop, but there’s also a limited clear vinyl version available at qualitycontrolhqusa.com. Sorry State does the shipping for the Quality Control US site, so you can order the clear version and get the usual great service you expect from SSR.

Desolate Records just dropped a big ass stack of new stuff on us. At the top of the heap is the new LP from Swedish heavyweights Dissekerad! There are also new 7”s from Guerra Final and Fragment, a new tape from Hellish View, and we restocked a ton of older Desolate titles too.

Fuego a Las Fronteras is a new reissue label from Spain, and we have their first two releases in stock now. Both are discographies for classic 80s Mexican punk bands, Xenofobia and Desorden Publico.

Also in that package from Spain was the new release on Discos Enfermos, the debut 7” from Aihotz, as well as a restock of their reissue of the great Codigo Neurotico 7”.

Iron Lung just dropped a new promo cassette from Italian hardcore band Sect Mark, and we have copies in now.

California’s No Solution has a bunch of new cassette releases, including a Not Shit discography cassette, a Not Shit / Traitor split tape, as well as a couple of cool mix tapes, one compiling oi! from 77-85 and another featuring 80s music from California’s Inland Empire.

We have the two new reissues from one of my all-time favorite Japanese punk bands, Aburadako. One 12” collects all of their early material (their flexi, 12” EP, and live tracks), and the other 12” features a live set. Both have beautiful packaging including cool booklets and obis.

Puke N Vomit Records also just dropped a big round of new releases, including a bunch of cool reissues from Mexico, California, Denmark, Finland, and the UK.

December 30 2021

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter! We took last week off because there was so much to do around here. The store was busy with holiday traffic, and we had a few hot releases come in that y’all gobbled up with a quickness. A few of them, including the Chisel LP, the Tower 7 LP, and the new Boss single, sold out before we could feature them in the newsletter. However, from what I understand, all three records have represses in the works and we have been promised an ample supply of each. In the meantime, there’s still plenty of great new stuff in! As always, you can learn about it by simply continuing to do what you’re doing right now.

Karma Sutra: Be Cruel With Your Past And All Who Seek To Keep You There 12” (Sealed Records) Karma Sutra was an anarcho-punk band from Luton, England that formed in the early 80s (their first cassette, compiled here, came out in 1983) and dissolved somewhere around 1988. I’d seen the band’s name before and never heard their music, but this collection LP on Sealed Records reveals them to be a buried treasure of the anarcho scene. With a long tenure as a band and a lot of lineup changes, Karma Sutra’s sound covers a lot of ground on Be Cruel With Your Past, which takes in everything from the band’s earliest work, which has a heavier sound akin to Amebix’s early singles, to their final recordings, which remind me of post-punk-informed anarcho bands like Zounds, Hagar the Womb, and Chumbawumba. Despite the stylistic shifts, these tracks are marked by strong songwriting, with catchy choruses (particularly on “Intelligent Life” and “It’s Our World Too”), nimble and energetic playing, and more adventurous moments like the flute-infused “Poll Tax.” The more I listen to this collection, the more I’m astounded that something this good has remained under the radar for so long. Perhaps that’s because the band’s best-distributed release was their LP, which isn’t included here, presumably because the members feel it was rushed and was their weakest work. I can’t speak to that, but Be Cruel With Your Past hangs together remarkably well as an album, and if you’re a fan of that old anarcho sound—particularly the more melodic end of the spectrum—you’ll love it. Even better, it comes with a massive booklet that compiles what seems like every scrap of ephemera relating to the band, including photos, flyers, fanzine interviews, the many informational pamphlets, booklets, and inserts that were de rigeur in the anarcho scene, and Lance Hahn’s excellent article from his series of anarcho punk histories that appeared in Maximumrocknroll. With excellent music you almost certainly haven’t heard before, eye-catching packaging, and a booklet that fills out the record’s history and context, Be Cruel with Your Past has everything I want from a punk reissue.

Since we were off last week, we have two Hardcore Knockouts to share with you. There was a glitch in Instagram and the results of the AOA / Anti-system poll didn’t get saved, but Usman says he’s pretty sure Anti-System won by a good amount. I mentioned this in my playlist in our Instagram stories the other day, but I think AOA smokes Anti-System. Dirt versus the System is a tougher call… I voted for Dirt but I could have gone either way.

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

Our featured release from Sorry State’s Discogs listings this week is this self-titled CD by Mission of Burma. Collecting various non-album tracks and “radio tapes” (a peculiar Boston phenomenon where bands recorded sessions just to be broadcast on the radio rather than commercially released), this collection features some of Mission of Burma’s best songs. It’s an essential piece of the discography for a totally essential band.

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

CHARTS

  1. Vivisected Numbskulls: Swine in Chains 7” (Chaotic Uprising Productions)
  2. The Chisel: Retaliation 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus)
  3. Tower 7: Peace on Earth 12” (Roach Leg)
  4. Asylum: Is This the Price? 7” (Demo Tapes)
  5. Home Front: Think of the Lie 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus)
  6. Pyhakoulu: In Retrospect 12” (Svart)
  7. Karma Sutra: Be Cruel with Your Past… 12” (Sealed)
  8. Scalple: Skillful Butchers 12” (Sorry State)
  9. Boss: Cash ‘em In 7” (Static Shock)
  10. Game: Legerdemain 12” (Quality Control HQ)

There’s been a lot of shake-up in our chart of best-selling releases at Sorry State since our last update. Of course the sold out releases from the Chisel, Tower 7, and Boss all appear, but our previous Record of the Week, the debut vinyl from Vivisected Numbskulls, comes out on top.

This week we have two new releases from one of the best newer labels out there, Virginia’s Not for the Weak Records. We have the new 7” from Crucial Response and the 12” from Reckoning Force, which is indeed a force to be reckoned with. This record knocked me on my ass, and I’m sure I’ll be telling you more about it next week. We also restocked the entire NFTW back catalog, so check that in case you missed any of their previous releases.

Yesterday I drove up to Richmond and picked up the three new releases on 11PM Records from label head Patrick. We have the new 7”s from Ztuped, Faze, and Last Affront in stock and ready to ship.

We’ve had a couple of killer cassettes come in over the past 24 hours. We have a limited number of copies of the Nisemono tape on Toxic State, which you can read about in Jeff’s staff pick. We also have a killer new one from Jailer, which is a new project brought to us by members of one of our favorites from last year, Sirkka. And speaking of Sirkka, we restocked a few copies of their tape in case you missed that last time.

Australia’s Hardcore Victim Records has a new release from Hacker, and I see on social media that a lot of people are digging it. More on this one next week too!

The great punk reissue label Sealed Records has two new ones for us. The Karma Sutra LP is our Record of the Week, but don’t miss the 7” reissue from OG noise punkers Asylum either.

While the Chisel LP sold out quickly, La Vida Es Un Mus also has two new releases from Home Front and Barrera that we still have in stock. You can read more about Home Front in the Featured Releases section below, and we’ll tell you more about Barrera next week.

Canada’s Supreme Echo Records has given us another archival release from the 80s Canadian metal scene, this time from Kradle. We also restocked Supreme Echo’s reissue of the Neos’ Fight with Donald EP.

Speaking of 80s Canadian metal, Urbain Grandier Records is a reissue label dedicated to exploring that scene, and we have three new releases in stock from them. Metallic Assault compiles obscure 80s metal from Toronto and we also have vinyl reissues of two cult tape-only releases from Necromancy and SFH.

Australia’s Helta Skelta Records is back with two new tape releases from Semtex 87 and Krimi.

Yes, we sold out of Tower 7 LPs in just a couple of hours, but we still have several other new releases from Roach Leg Records, including the new flexi from Mister Node and new tapes from Hysteric Polemix (sold out already!), Sociedad Bastarda, and Dishuman.

Mainstays Total Punk Records have a new release for us from Florida’s Cherry Cheeks. This one has all the energy and infectiousness we expect from the label.

Finally, we have two cassette releases from Denmark’s Troop Transport. Troop Transport has a snotty sound influenced by 70s European punk, and they rip!

December 16 2021

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records weekly newsletter! Our format is slightly abbreviated this week since I spent the weekend in LA at the Lie Detector weekend. Check out my staff pick section if you want to read my thoughts about the event! Dominic, Rachel, and Usman held things down at the store while Jeff and I were gone, and the new arrivals continue to come fast and furious. Read on to find out what the world of hardcore punk has in store for you!

Vivisected Numbskulls: Swine in Chains 7” (Chaotic Uprising Productions) With their debut vinyl release, Vivisected Numbskulls have achieved the rare Sorry State hat trick, with three consecutive releases getting the Record of the Week nod. Aside from getting five songs instead of four this time around, not much has changed with Swine in Chains compared to the Numbskulls’ previous cassettes, and that’s a good thing! A big reason we’re so smitten with Vivisected Numbskulls is that they have a sound we’ve never heard before. The songwriting backbone comes from anthemic UK82 punk a la the Exploited, with simple 1-2 rhythms and choruses that beg you to raise your fist and chant along. The songwriting is straightforward yet impeccable, but the real magic happens in the production. Vivisected Numbskulls’ recordings are thick with atmosphere, exuding a creepy and gritty aesthetic that lies somewhere between the most vibe-drenched early 80s Japanese hardcore and Blazing Eye’s evocation of creepy, mid-20th century monster movies. Imagine Bela Lugosi fronting GBH with Randy Uchida producing the session and you’re somewhere in the ballpark. While the seamlessness of the aesthetic grabs you right away, it’s the songs that keep me coming back, and if Vivisected Numbskulls ever play live, I don’t think there will be any shortage of people singing along to “Bloody Face” and “Die in New York.”

This week’s edition of Hardcore Knockouts sees Usman showing off a couple of Japanese pressings of UK82 classics. Blitz smoked the Exploited, which is understandable I guess, but the Exploited fuckin’ rocks.

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 the Suburbanized 10” from Birth Deformities. This is an underrated record from the tail end of what we call “the No Way era” around here. Birth Deformities was a shuffled-around version of Cülo with Nick Sick (R.I.P.) on vocals. As you might expect, it’s full-bore, fast as fuck hardcore with a catchy edge. Definitely worth a measly four bones in my book.

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

GIGS!

DECEMBER 27
SCALPLE AND SCARECROW IN CHAPEL HILL

DECEMBER 27 - JANUARY 1
SCALPLE AND SCARECROW TOUR

JANUARY 8
HÜSTLER IN RICHMOND

JANUARY 29
LASSO IN SAO PAULO

CHARTS

  1. Poison Idea: The Beast Goes East 12” (TKO)
  2. Scalple: Skillful Butchers 12” (Sorry State)
  3. Yleiset Syyt: Umpikujamekanismi 7” (Open Up and Bleed Recordings)
  4. Vivisected Numbskulls: Swine in Chains 7” (Chaotic Uprisings Productions)
  5. Pyhakoulu: In Retrospect 12” (Svart)
  6. Dorothy: I Confess b/w Softness 7” (Sealed Records)
  7. The Chisel: Enough Said 7” (Wardance)
  8. Nightfeeder: S/T 7” (Black Water)
  9. Socio la Difekta: Kreski 7” (Beach Impediment)
  10. Lasso: S/T 7” (Sorry State)

As usual, here are the top 10 sellers for the past month at Sorry State.

The latest Static Shock releases just landed today! We have the new release from Ataque Zero (yet another great group from the hardcore hotbed of Bogota, Colombia) and a fresh pressing of the modern classic Cellar Dweller LP by Impalers. We even have a few copies of Ataque Zero on limited white vinyl, so grab one of those quick if you want one.

Game’s Legerdemain came out digitally a few weeks ago, and now the vinyl is in stock and ready to ship! We’re stocking the USA exclusive version on white vinyl.

Open Palm tapes just sent us the new Blinding Glow tape, which I really like, as well as two tapes by Myutanto. Myutanto plays house music, which is something I’m not super knowledgeable about, but I enjoyed both tapes.

Everyone has been raving about the new Rik & the Pigs album on Lumpy Records, and we have copies in stock now!

Merry S.H.I.T.mas everyone! The fine folks in S.H.I.T. never fail to bring something special to the holiday season, and this year we have this ripping new two-song 7” on the mighty Iron Lung Records.

Symphony of Destruction Records brings us the debut from Portland synth-punk group Ritual Veil. This is the same label who brought us the vinyl version of the first Riki EP way back when, and Ritual Veil sticks out from the synthesizer-wielding hordes in a similar way.

For those of you who missed out on the Sorry State exclusive white vinyl, we now have regular black copies of the new Poison Idea live album The Beast Goes East in stock now. These have the same beautiful artwork and incredible booklet as the SSR version, they’re just on black vinyl rather than white.

Anti-Police Terror is a new double LP compilation on Mental Crash Records. It features tons of hardcore punk heavyweights from across the globe, including Irreal, Life, Varukers, Tom and Boot Boys, Deseos Primitivos, Sex Dwarf, and many more. It also features a 42-page booklet and all the proceeds from the comp go to support the Anti-Police Terror project in Oakland, California.

December 9 2021

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records weekly newsletter! This week we pushed our newsletter schedule up by a day, so I’m typing this on Wednesday evening. Tomorrow morning I’m flying to LA for the Lie Detector fest. Public Acid is playing, so Jeff and the crew will be out there too, and I’m looking forward to seeing a bunch of bands that I’ve either not seen before or not seen enough. I’m hyped for Electric Chair, Bloodstains, Tortür, Blazing Eye, and Deseos Primitivos, but it doesn’t look like there’s a clunker on the bill. I took the plunge and got a rental car, so I’ll be cruising around to record stores and vegan food spots while I’m in town, too. If anyone has a line on any must-see attractions, let me know! And of course if you’ll be at the gigs, say hi! For those of you who aren’t going, there are plenty of killer records in this week to console yourselves with, so keep reading for the lowdown on all that.

Nightfeeder: S/T 7" (Black Water Records) We loved Nightfeeder’s first cassette here at Sorry State, so we were eager to hear this vinyl debut on Black Water Records, which offers re-recorded versions of two tracks from the cassette alongside two new ones. The comparisons I threw out for Nightfeeder’s cassette were Judgement and Criminal Trap-era Anti-Cimex, and those both still feel spot-on, though the two new tracks lean a little more toward Judgement’s grandiosity. I love the way “1491” comes to a full stop before building to its epic guitar lead, and the rocked-out main riff to “Havin a Hard Time” could have been penned by Zigyaku himself. “Rotten,” though it also appeared on the tape, is a great closer, alternating between blistering early Cimex-style rippage and catchy metallic riffing. Avoiding the self-consciously raw sound favored by a lot of current bands, I’m glad to hear Nightfeeder put their skill and power in the foreground, since the fuller production works great with their anthemic, fist-pumping sound. Too many bands with a sound that was too slick and too metallic made a lot of us sick of this style in the 2000s, but Nightfeeder gets everything right on these four tracks.

We get messages on our Instagram page all the time about hardcore knockouts saying “this is too hard!” When this week’s Hardcore Knockouts popped up on my screen, I had the same reaction. How does one choose between the Stalin and the Comes? I voted for the Comes, but fuck… that was a tough one.

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 CD box set of Datapanik In the Year Zero by Pere Ubu. Datapanik was originally a 12” EP released in 1978 that compiled tracks from Pere Ubu’s great but hard to find early singles. This box set expands that to include nearly everything Pere Ubu recorded between 1975 and 1982. I’ve only spent time with the early Ubu singles and the first two albums, but I’m hoping to tread further into their discography at some point. If you’re looking to do that as well, this cheap used box set is a great opportunity.

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

GIGS!

DECEMBER 13
MUTANT STRAIN IN CHARLOTTE

DECEMBER 27
SCALPLE AND SCARECROW IN CHAPEL HILL

DECEMBER 27 - JANUARY 1
SCALPLE AND SCARECROW TOUR

JANUARY 29
LASSO IN SAO PAULO

CHARTS

  1. Poison Idea: The Beast Goes East 12” (TKO)
  2. Scalple: Skillful Butchers 12” (Sorry State)
  3. The Chisel: Enough Said 7” (Wardance)
  4. Dorothy: I Confess b/w Softness 7” (Sealed)
  5. Yleiset Syyt: Umpikujamekanismi 7” (Open Up and Bleed)
  6. Vatican Commandos: Hit Squad for God 7” (Radiation Reissues)
  7. Nightfeeder: S/T 7” (Black Water)
  8. Lebenden Toten: Near Dark 12” (Black Water)
  9. Various: Bloodstains Across Orange County Vol 1 cassette (n/a)
  10. Various: Bloodstains Across Orange County Vol 2 cassette (n/a)

Here’s our list of the top sellers at Sorry State over the past 30 days. Those of you who missed out on the Sorry State exclusive pressing of The Beast Goes East will be pleased to hear that we have a shipment of the regular black vinyl version arriving on Friday, so watch the webstore for that!

We are super excited the Pyhäkoulu reissue on Svart Records is finally in stock! This is some great, underrated Finnish hardcore and Svart has done their usual bang-up job on the reissue, including great sound and a thick booklet full of archival material. We have a stack of them, but they’re already moving quickly!

We just got in the new Vivisected Numbskulls 7” on Chaotic Uprisings! We loved the Numbskulls’ two cassettes, but these five tracks still exceeded our high expectations.

This week Merge Records announced a new album from indie rock mainstays Superchunk, and they’ve made an exclusive edition on “watermelon” colored vinyl that is only available from North Carolina record stores (you can’t even buy it from Merge’s webstore). Sorry State is a North Carolina record store, so we have a preorder going for the record right now! Besides the special vinyl color, the NC edition also includes an exclusive print from NC art / punk legend Ron Liberti.

It seems like nary a week goes by without a new release on Feel It Records, and this week we have the second album from Chicago’s Man-Eaters! This time around, they’ve amped up the rock and roll elements in their sound while retaining the punk attitude. We even have a few copies on limited yellow/pink vinyl!

We got a shipment from Prank Records with some copies of the Crow: Last Chaos reissue (you may remember there was a huge run on these back when they were first released), a fresh repress of Totlitär’s classic Sin Egen Motståndare LP on fresh vinyl colors, and a reissue of Grimple’s Up Your Ass album.

New York’s Burning Paradise label has a new release from Factory City Children, a solo project from Mateo of Warthog. I think I read that this will be a 7” on Toxic State, but you can grab this version right now! We also restocked the Salvaje Punk cassette in case you missed that when it came out earlier this year.

Japanese reissue label Bitter Lake Recordings has a new release from power-pop group Rommel, and we have a little stack of copies for y’all.

We also just got in the new Skrewball 7” on Crew Cuts records from the UK.

While we got shafted by the vinyl supplier gods on the first pressing, this time around we secured some copies of the new Descendents album 9th and Walnut, which features songs written during their early, pre-Milo Goes to College period. Even if you’re not a fan of the latter-day Descendents, fans of the band’s early years will want to check this out. It’s really good!

Finally, we have this beautifully packed new best-of collection from the almighty Undertones. Of course the first two Undertones albums are classics, but so many of their best tracks only appeared on singles and EPs, making a compilation like this a necessary part of your Undertones vinyl collection.

December 2 2021

Hi and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records weekly newsletter! The holiday shopping season started in full force this week, so we’ve been busy as hell around here. We’re trying to keep the store as stocked as we can (the supply chain issues we’ve all been reading about make that a challenge, but we’ve had a run of scoring some very cool used collections) while the website continues to be as busy as ever. I was looking ahead at what’s on the way for December and it looks to be another gnarly month with plenty of new releases we’re excited about. So read on to see what’s been moving us, and hopefully you’ll find something that does the same for you.

Urin: Afekt 7” (Iron Lung Records) One night a few weeks ago, I was making dinner and had Life During Wartime playing in the background, as I often do. Life During Wartime introduces me to cool stuff I didn’t know about all the time, but I can’t remember another occasion when a track was so good I had to stop what I was doing and consult the show notes to figure out who the band was. Turns out it was a track from this latest EP from Germany’s Urin. We really liked Urin’s first EP here at Sorry State (it was Record of the Week back in August 2019) and we were lucky enough to see them live on their last jaunt to the US, but none of that prepared me for Afekt’s ferocity. The sound is dense, knotty, and noisy punk that sounds like a piece of dying industrial equipment having a panic attack. While it exists in the same universe as the Kyushu-style noise punk we all know and love (Confuse, Swankys, Gai, etc.), it’s also different. The rhythms are knottier and the riffs (well, what you can make out of them), are more complex. While a lot of bands of this ilk are solely about the noise, there is ripping hardcore lurking at the core of Afekt. The noisy parts dominate, though, not just providing texture, but annihilating the more conventional punk sounds. It’s chaotic in an over the top way, but there’s still an electric sense of energy to the recording. (It doesn’t hurt that Urin recorded at Bogota’s Casa Rat Trap and mastered these tracks at Tokyo’s Noise Room, two establishments that know how to make a killer-sounding punk record.) Afekt is so abrasive that it’s likely to scare off all but the most hardcore, but those of us who treasure our D-Clone, Confuse, and Horrendous 3D records will have no problem finding space in our listening diets for this.

New SSR Stickers

When Quarantine shipped us our copies of their LP, their bass player Jeff (@my_fetalbrain on Instagram) included a bunch of his artwork in the box. One piece was his interpretation of an old R Crumb drawing, and when we saw it we knew we had to use it for some merch. I’m sure we’ll do some t-shirts down the line, but in the meantime we printed up a bunch of these stickers, which we’ll be throwing in free with orders for the next several weeks until they run out.

Scalple & Scarecrow Tour

Scalple and Scarecrow are doing a short northeast tour over the New Year holiday! Check out the sick flyer courtesy of the incomparable Keith Caves. If we’re coming near you, mark your calendars.

Usman pairs up another couple of noisy Japanese crushers for this week’s edition of Hardcore Knockouts. This was a tough one. Gasmask is pretty obscure, so I’m surprised they did as well as they did, but LSD is untouchable in my book.

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 the Decolonization EP from New York’s Kaleidoscope. Like everyone else with taste, we’ve been bumping the new Tower 7 album pretty much constantly around Sorry State. It’ll be next week at least before we get in copies (and we’re not getting as many as we would have liked), but in the meantime we have this little gem if any of you are going back to complete your D4MT Labs collection.

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

GIGS!

DECEMBER 4
TETANUS IN CHARLOTTE

DECEMBER 6
TORSO IN OAKLAND

DECEMBER 13
MUTANT STRAIN IN CHARLOTTE

DECEMBER 27
SCALPLE & SCARECROW IN CARRBORRO

DECEMBER 2-6
TORSO TOUR ON THE WEST COAST

CHARTS

  1. Poison Idea: The Beast Goes East 12” (TKO)
  2. Scalple: Skillful Butchers 12” (Sorry State)
  3. The Chisel: Enough Said 7” (Wardance)
  4. Dorothy: I Confess b/w Softness 7” (Sealed)
  5. Vatican Commandos: Hit Squad for God 7” (Radiation Reissues)
  6. Yleiset Syyt: Umpikujamekanismi 7” (Open Up and Bleed Recordings)
  7. Quarantine: Agony 12” (Damage United)
  8. Unidad Ideológical: S/T 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus)
  9. Vatican Commandos: Just a Frisbee 7” (Radiation Reissues)
  10. Nightfeeder: S/T 7” (Black Water)

Here are our top sellers of the past 30 days here at Sorry State. The people have spoken and you love punk! Us too. Maybe we should hang out or something?

As Usman mentioned in his staff pick, we just got in two new releases on Hoehnie Records: reissues of two great and obscure Finnish hardcore compilations: Lasta and Hyvinkaa.

Denver’s Convulse Records continues documenting that city’s fertile hardcore scene with three new releases. My favorite of the bunch is this demo from Destiny Bond, but Cyst and Devoured by Rats are no slouches either. Besides those Denver cassettes, Convulse also has a full-length record from Romania’s Cold Brats.

We just got in Revelation Records’ new release from Orange County, California’s DARE. We have two different color vinyl versions, so grab those while you can!

Audacious Madness specializes in crust, and they keep that pattern going with this new split 12” from Moscow’s Fatum and Ontario’s Decade.

Inu Wan Wan is a new label focusing on interesting new Japanese music, and we have their first release in stock now: a new album from Japanese goth / post-punk band Gotou.

I’m a huge Naked Raygun fan, so I was stoked to bring in copies of their latest full-length record (and first in a very long time), Over the Overlords. I’m sure I’ll write about this for the newsletter soon, but this is a Naked Raygun record, and like all Raygun records, it has tracks. Check out “Living in the Good Times” for proof this band can still write a belter.

Chaotic Uprising Records brings us two tapes from Antisocial Action, a very gnarly and blown-out noise punk band. These tapes will test your capacity for aural punishment!

We just got in a new promo tape from a new band from New Jersey called Shock Tactics. Featuring members of heaps of other bands, Shock Tactics play an oi!-tinged hardcore style akin to 86 Mentality and Violent Reaction.

We also have a new tape from Brute Spring, a rad no wave / industrial / experimental project out of Buffalo, New York.

November 18 2021

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter! It’s been another busy week here at SSR. Last weekend, the Scarecrew went up to Philly for the Quarantine record release gig, and as expected, it was totally sick. Both Quarantine and ICD10 killed, and I think Scarecrow did OK too. My friend Jake filmed the whole gig and you can check it out on their YouTube channel. Thanks so much to the Quarantine folks, the crew at Foto Club, and everyone who took such amazing care of us in Philly and showed us such a great time. Scarecrow will be back at Foto Club for a New Year’s Eve gig as part of our tour with Scalple. Read more about that below! Another piece of big news is that we have an exclusive Sorry State color variant of the new Poison Idea live album, The Beast Goes East. More info on that below, but note our version is limited to 100 copies and not likely to stick around forever. Besides all that, we have a big slew of ragers for you this week, so keep reading for all the latest.

Hez: Guerra Interior 7” (Discos Enfermos) Guerra Interior is the latest record from this hardcore band from Panama, carrying forward the sound they developed on their previous 12” and 7”, but with even more explosive results. The core of Hez’s sound is a heavy pogo rhythm with dark but catchy hardcore riffing and maniacal, distorted vocals. When I wrote about their previous records, I compared Hez to Blazing Eye, and while they still have some similar elements, they’re really developed their own sound on Guerra Interior. I’m particularly enamored with the catchy lead guitar lines and the brief but exciting explosions of electronic/synth noise, either of which makes the already-intense music bubble over into a froth of wild energy. Hez is great at those kinds of dynamics; see the first track, “Ruina del Hombre,” which tempts you to settle into the groove of the mid-paced parts only to blindsid you with ripping fast hardcore. This is one of those records where just listening to it makes you feel you’re in the middle of a mass of bodies, limbs and beer cans flying in a pressure cooker of energy.

Poison Idea Exclusive Color

When TKO Records, knowing what huge Poison Idea fans we are here at Sorry State, approached us about doing an exclusive color variant of their new P.I. live LP, The Beast Goes East, we jumped at the chance. The opportunity to connect Sorry State with Poison Idea, however tenuously, is super exciting for us, but The Beast Goes East is a package we can get behind. Check out the official description below and note the Sorry State exclusive white vinyl is limited to only 100 copies. Also, below check out some cool production photos of the Sorry State exclusive pressing being manufactured at Cascade Record Pressing in Portland!

For the first time ever, TKO RECORDS & AMERICAN LEATHER are proud to present THEE definitive audio and visual document of POISON IDEA’s historic 1990 North American tour - THE BEAST GOES EAST.

Teaming up with renowned author and Hardcore/Punk historian Tony Rettman, we were able to uncover a previously unheard soundboard recording of PI’s set at City Gardens, Trenton, NJ from the May 06, 1990 stop on their tour. Sourced directly from the house engineer’s cassette, THE BEAST GOES EAST captures a raw, blistering performance from the KINGS OF PUNK, just months before the release of their 1990 masterpiece FEEL THE DARKNESS.

THE BEAST GOES EAST is presented in a deluxe gatefold jacket, designed by John Yates in his signature “Punk Note” style, with liner notes from Rettman, (who was in the audience that night). Bound into the gatefold jacket is a 20-page booklet of previously unpublished tour photos. A color 11.5" x 22" poster is also included.

New SSR stickers

When Quarantine shipped us our copies of their LP, their bass player Jeff (@my_fetalbrain on Instagram) included a bunch of his artwork in the box. One piece was his interpretation of an old R Crumb drawing, and when we saw it we knew we had to use it for some merch. I’m sure we’ll do some t-shirts down the line, but in the meantime we printed up a bunch of these stickers, which we’ll be throwing in free with orders for the next several weeks until they run out.

Hüstler pre-orders shipped!

After a slight delay, the cassette copies of Hüstler’s new EP arrived last week and, as promised, we shipped your preorders right away. As of now, I think we have shipped all but a couple, and everyone should have received tracking numbers. Remember to keep an eye out for the upcoming Hüstler 12” compiling both of their sold out cassettes, out in 2022 on Sorry State!

Scalple / Scarecrow Tour

Scalple and Scarecrow are doing a short northeast tour over the New Year holiday! Check out the sick flyer courtesy of the incomparable Keith Caves. If we’re coming near you, mark your calendars.

More Swedish hardcore madness on this week’s edition of Hardcore Knockouts! I ride for Crude SS, but I think I’m team Avskum on this one, even if I think Avskum’s later material (especially Uppror Underifrån) is even better than these early tracks.

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 Attack & Decay’s Squirrel Sonatas in the Key of C. Attack & Decay were from Michigan and Squirrel Sonatas (released in 1992) is a vinyl version of their 1987 demo tape. While the date on it is kind of late, the music is pure 80s-style US hardcore. My friend Brandon Ferrell (R.I.P.) introduced me to this years ago, and I love turning people onto this cheap ripper whenever the opportunity arises.

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

GIGS!

NOVEMBER 19
MUTANT STRAIN IN CHARLOTTE

NOVEMBER 19
SCARECROW IN CARRBORO

NOVEMBER 20
MUTANT STRAIN IN CHARLOTTE

NOVEMBER 27
ZORN IN PHILLY

DECEMBER 4
TETANUS IN CHARLOTTE

DECEMBER 6
TORSO IN OAKLAND

DECEMBER 13
MUTANT STRAIN IN CHARLOTTE

CHARTS

  1. Anti-Machine: S/T 7” (Toxic State)
  2. Hologram: No Longer Human 12” (Iron Lung)
  3. Scalple: Skillful Butchers 12” (Sorry State)
  4. White Stains: Make Me Sick 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus)
  5. Torso: Sono Pronto A Morire 12” (Sorry State)
  6. Lasso: S/T 7” (Sorry State)
  7. The Chisel: Enough Said 7” (Wardance)
  8. Quarantine: Agony 12” (Damage United)
  9. Kohti Tuhoa: Väkivaltaa 7” (La Vida Es Un Mus)
  10. Vatican Commandos: Hit Squad for God 7” (Radiation)

Now that we’re more than a month out from the most recent round of Sorry State releases, we’re seeing some of your distro favorites make their way up higher on our list of best sellers. As usual, y’all have great taste. Pat yourselves on the back!

First up this week, we have a couple of exciting items from Finland for you. If you couldn’t tell by this week’s staff picks, we’re big fans of Finnish punk here at Sorry State. Jeff and Usman tell you all you need to know about these two rippers in their staff picks, so get the lowdown there and pick up these killers from Yleiset Syyt and Pyhat Nuket while you can!

Just today we got a big box from Iron Lung Records. I am super excited about this new Urin EP. I liked their previous one, but when I heard this new record, I flipped out. They played a track on Life During Wartime a few weeks ago and I stopped cooking dinner so I could consult the show notes and find out who the insanely sick band that was playing was. Besides the Urin EP, Iron Lung has also dropped a reissue from the Electronic Circus, an early 80s English synth project with connections to Visage (one of my favorites) and Gary Numan.

Iron Lung’s Urin 7” is actually a co-release with Germany’s Static Age Musik, who put out the record in Europe. Coincidentally, we just received copies of another new release from Static Age, the retrospective LP from 70s Swiss punks Sperma.

We just got in a package from Spain’s Discos Enfermos featuring a reissue of HHH’s Intellectual Punks EP (we even have some copies on limited splatter vinyl!), Hez’s Guerra Interior 7” (our Record of the Week), and a VERY few copies of the vinyl reissue of the 2013 demo by Spanish hardcore band Alerta!.

Maldito Ruido is a new label from California, and we have their first release in stock now: a reissue by Mexican punk band Autarkia. Punks Al Slam came out on cassette in 1993, and this first ever vinyl version was remastered by Mike Kriebel (of those great Beat Sessions cassettes) and sounds great.

Philadelphia’s World Gone Mad Records is back with a new release from Philly’s Dridge. We carried Dridge’s previous cassette, and this LP continues to develop their unique mix of first-wave black metal and dark post-punk.

Merge Records has released two classic early records by New Zealand’s the Clean: their debut single, Tally Ho, and their first 12” EP, Boodle Boodle Boodle. I believe these tracks were available in the Clean box set that Merge released some time ago, but I’m stoked to have these re-released in their original format with the original art. Our copies are even on limited color vinyl!

Finally, we just got our copies of the new album from Sydney, Australia’s Low Life, From Squats to Lots. We’ll also have copies of the new reissue of their hard to find first album, so watch for that hitting the site soon!

November 11 2021

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter! It’s been a busy week at Sorry State. Lots of new releases have been coming in, but we also acquired two pretty gnarly used collections for the store, which have kept us busy. We have nearly a thousand used punk records that’ll be hitting the floor over the next several weeks, including a lot of pretty crazy rarities. If you like drooling over pictures of rare vinyl, follow us on Instagram @sorrystate. Tomorrow is also the big Quarantine record release gig in Philly, so after we clock out today, Scarecrow is going to make our way north. I’m stoked to see both Quarantine and ICD10, whose LP we’ll be releasing in 2022.

Vatican Commandos: Hit Squad for God 7” (Radiation) Once you’ve scratched the surface, the 80s US hardcore era is a deep rabbit hole of discovery with plenty of deep cuts. The Connecticut scene in particular produced a healthy contingent of great, yet under-appreciated hardcore punk bands. You might think of 76% Uncertain, Reflex From Pain, or White Pigs. Another of CT’s major gems was Vatican Commandos. The band’s debut EP, Hit Squad For God, features some badass tattoo flash-style cover art, which is an early work by Vince Rancid, who also did artwork for Raw Power and MDC. Vatican Commandos had some interesting affiliations with a few pop culture figures. Most notably, their guitarist (credited as “M.H.”) is electronic music superstar Moby. Moby’s sole songwriting credit on this EP is the 35-second track, “Wonder Bread,” which astute punkers will remember as the track Vatican Commandos contributed to the Big City compilation. The song starts off with the silly notion of Wonder Bread being fun to eat, but then takes a dark shift in tone and becomes a comment about the danger of processed foods that will kill off everyone in your neighborhood. Most of the songs on this EP share a similar dark sense of humor through the lens of suburban existence, with other ripping tracks like “Housewives On Valium.” Musically, Vatican Commandos play with energetic urgency at the ripping fast tempos we all crave, but with a sense of musicality not unlike their peers CIA. The slower paced tempos are heavy, and it’s possible the Commandos were influential on the mosh-inducing hardcore in the years to follow. Italian-based label Radiation took on the job of getting this record reissued, and thankfully Hit Squad For God is back in print. If you need a dose of long-lost, ripping US hardcore, then make sure you snag this 7”.

Hüstler tapes shipping soon!

The tracking data says we should finally receive Hüstler’s new cassette today (they're here!), and as soon as they drop, we’ll start packing up your preorders! Thanks for your patience! I hope those of you who were lucky enough to snag one enjoy the tape, and everyone else, watch for the Hüstler 12” collecting their two sold-out tapes sometime next year!

Download Usman’s Quarantine Fanzine

A while back, we mentioned Usman interviewed Quarantine and made a small one-sheet fanzine about the band. We shipped out a bunch of copies to lucky Sorry State customers, but we also wanted to make it available online for anyone who missed out. Click here to download a PDF of the zine.

Since we lost last week’s results to the sands of time, Kaaos and Riistetyt get a rematch for this week’s edition of hardcore knockouts. I’m kind of surprised Kaaos won here, as Riistetyt seems like the better known band.

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 CD reissue of Miles Davis’s 1974 album Get Up with It. Get Up With It doesn’t get name checked as often as Bitches Brew or even On the Corner, but it’s always been one of my favorites of Miles’s 70s albums, mostly for the long, quieter, meditative passages. This Japanese double disc reissue should sound great, with no crackle to distract you during those long quiet parts.

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

GIGS!

NOVEMBER 12
SCARECROW IN PHILLY

NOVEMBER 13
TETANUS IN CHARLOTTE

NOVEMBER 19
MUTANT STRAIN IN CHARLOTTE

NOVEMBER 19
SCARECROW IN CARRBORO

NOVEMBER 20
MUTANT STRAIN IN CHARLOTTE

DECEMBER 4
TETANUS IN CHARLOTTE

DECEMBER 13
MUTANT STRAIN IN CHARLOTTE

CHARTS

  1. Scalple: Skillful Butchers 12” (Sorry State)
  2. Quarantine: Agony 12” (Damage United)
  3. Hologram: No Longer Human 12” (Iron Lung)
  4. Lasso: S/T 7” (Sorry State)
  5. Anti-Machine: S/T 7” (Toxic State)
  6. Hüstler: self-titled cassette (Sorry State)
  7. Cochonne: S/T 12” (Sorry State)
  8. Torso: Sono Pronto A Morire 12” (Sorry State)
  9. White Stains: Make Me Sick 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus)
  10. Vains: You May Not Believe in Vains… (Dirty Knobby Industries)

So, y’all like hardcore? This week’s charts indicate you do!

We just got in two new releases on Black Water Records. They’ve repressed Lebenden Toten’s first album from 2008, the great Near Dark, and we also have the debut EP from Nightfeeder, which Usman wrote about in his staff pick this week.

The new release from Sewercide Records, Antibodies’ (confusingly named) LP 2021 7” is in stock now! I saw on Sewercide’s Instagram that this release already sold out from them, so pick up a copy while you can!

We got a few copies of the Chisel’s Enough Said flexi. This was originally available with the Oi! The Black Book fanzine, but since the 7” had become such a hot commodity, Wardance Records made a few more copies available on their own. These are flying out the door already, so don’t sleep if you want one!

The Esos Malditos Punks label also has a couple of new releases, too. First up is a reissue of Mexican punk band Sedicion’s En Las Calles album, and the second is a flexi from the new Mexican band Rosas Rotas, which features former members of Heterofobia.

Harold Turgis is an electronic / noise project out of the UK with a connection to Sorry State favorites Hygiene. Check out this cassette for some interesting proto-industrial-noise along the lines of early Cabaret Voltaire.

Dropdead’s scorching 2020 album has finally been repressed and we have it in stock now! We also have copies of Dropdead’s Demos 1991 LP and restocks of a few other Dropdead goodies.

Audiacious Madness Records has 3 new cassette releases packed with raw hardcore punk. Check out Death Gasp, Realm of Terror, and the split cassette between Forclose and Drogato.

Bad Brains’ great (and underrated) second album, Rock for Light, is finally back in print! This is important because (as far as I know) this is the first reissue of the album with its original mix restored. Most CD reissues of the album feature the 1990 mix, on which they sped up the original tapes. I have no idea why they did that… it sounds like shit! If you have one of those dodgy Caroline copies (this also appears to be the version on streaming services), I encourage you to pick up this pressing so you can hear this beast in all its glory.

October 28 2021

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter! A jam-packed to do list today has me back to my old ways, getting the newsletter out pretty late in the evening (well, east coast US time, anyway). I had to grab some new bass strings ahead of Scarecrow’s recording session on Saturday, pick up the new Sorry State t-shirts, have a Zoom meeting with a friend in Sweden about a cool upcoming project, and of course finish writing the newsletter. Somehow I accomplished all that, though there’s still plenty more on the agenda after I hand this beast over to Rachel for formatting. As usual, we have a ton of new goodies to refresh your playlist, so read on!

Anti-Machine: S/T 7” (Toxic State Records) The latest and greatest from Toxic State is the debut EP by Brooklyn, NY’s Anti-Machine. As we’ve come to learn about Toxic State releases, you can always expect the unexpected. Records on the label can range from noisy raw punk to peculiar arthouse pop, but are always presented with captivating and elaborate packaging. Anti-Machine isn’t antithetical to the Toxic State milieu, but this EP is about as close as they’ve come to releasing a bare-bones, street-level US hardcore band, and the feel is different. Sure, there’s a beautifully screen-printed poster included, but no artsy graphic design. Instead, you get a photo of the band looking cool in leather with beers in hand. Anti-Machine features seasoned veterans from the NY scene, with familiar faces from bands like Sister Anne, Crazy Spirit, Extended Hell, and a lengthy list of others. It sounds like the band walked into the studio already dialed and ready to play at their hardest and meanest. Each track is a cold and venomous powerhouse of wall-to-wall energy. The chaotic intensity, frantic but rocked out riffs, and Walker’s snarling vocals remind me of early Accüsed—not to mention their grindhouse, “driller killer attacked by demons” aesthetic. The bonehead punk on the cover with brains being decimated by a drill is a pretty spot on depiction of how listeners will feel after blasting this EP. If you’re looking to rage full-on Splatterhead style, look no further than Anti-Machine.

New Sorry State Shirts!

We just got in a brand new batch of Sorry State t-shirts! This season we’re revisiting the awesome design Thomas Sara made for us a while back, this time with red discharge ink on black shirts. This will probably be the last run of this shirt design, so grab one now if you want one, because when they’re gone, they’re gone! Also, I forgot to mention it, but a while back we also restocked our black canvas tote bags featuring the same design, so grab one of those too while you’re at it!

Hüstler’s new EP Streaming!

As we mentioned last week, Hüstler’s new EP is now streaming in its entirety on Sorry State’s Bandcamp site, and it looks like the release has also made it to streaming services too. We’re still waiting on the finished cassettes, but we’ll ship everyone’s pre-orders as soon as they arrive. While the cassette is already sold out, we have a 12” record compiling both of Hüstler’s sold-out cassette releases at the plant right now.

Confuse or Gai was the question for this week’s edition of Hardcore Knockouts. The obvious answer is BOTH! Shout out to my homie Nick Goode, who I believe coined the phrase “Confuse(d) Gai hardcore.” “Mysterious Guy Hardcore” (a term coined by Brace Belden if I remember correctly) was on the tip of everyone’s tongues a few years earlier, and Nick’s term cleverly referenced that while describing the then-emergent early 2010s wave of noise-punk bands taking cues from Kyushu. Gotta love some punk wordsmithery.

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 CD reissue of Neu!’s first album. We’re getting toward the end of the big CD collection we’ve been listing, but there are still plenty more cool titles to come. Neu! is a huge favorite around Sorry State HQ… when we need to focus on some work, we throw on either of Neu!’s first two albums and the time flies by.

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

GIGS!

OCTOBER 30
ZORN IN PHILLY

NOVEMBER 12
SCARECROW IN PHILLY

NOVEMBER 19
MUTANT STRAIN IN CHARLOTTE

NOVEMBER 19
SCARECROW IN CARRBORO

NOVEMBER 20
MUTANT STRAIN IN CHARLOTTE

CHARTS

  1. Cochonne: S/T 12” (Sorry State)
  2. Scalple: Skillful Butchers 12” (Sorry State)
  3. Straw Man Army: Age of Exile 12” (D4MT Labs)
  4. Quarantine: Agony 12” (Damage United)
  5. Hologram: No Longer Human 12” (Iron Lung)
  6. Sistema En Decadencia: Nuestro Legado 12” (Hardcore Victim)
  7. Algara: Absortos En El Tedio Eterna 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus)
  8. Lasso: S/T 7” (Sorry State)
  9. Zero Magazine photo book
  10. Chubby & the Gang: The Mutt’s Nuts 12” (Partisan)

Here’s your weekly peek into what’s been selling at Sorry State. Interesting to see we’re moving so many Chubby & the Gang LPs, and I was also surprised how quickly we blew through our copies of the Zero Magazine photo book.

La Vida Es Un Mus is back with three brand new releases from Kohti Tuhua, Stingray, and Unidad Ideológica. We even have limited color vinyl available for all three! While we were at it, we also restocked a bunch of LVEUM and Sealed Records titles, including the ever-popular debut single from The Chisel (watch for their LP coming next month), the brilliant singles collection from anarcho punks Zounds, and many others.

You can read about the Languid LP in this week’s Featured Releases section, but we also got new records from Anti-Metafor and Nukke on Sweden’s D-Takt & Rapunk Records. We’re blowing through these, so while I hope the other two stick around long enough for me to write descriptions next week, I wouldn’t count on it!

We just got in this curious bootleg of the soundtrack to 90s skateboard video Sorry by Flip Skateboards. If you’re around 30 years old and grew up skateboarding, this video probably looms large in your consciousness. If that’s the case, pick up this well-done boot and relive your glory days of shredding from the safety of the comfortable seat in your record room!

Feel It Records continues their string of excellent recent releases with the new LP by Cleveland’s The Cowboy, Riddles from the Universe. We even have a few copies of the limited “cosmic swirl” vinyl, so grab that while you can!

Vinyl Conflict Records released the debut full-length from Richmond metal-punks Loud Night a while back and it blew through its first two pressings pretty much instantly. We have the 3rd pressing in stock now, so if you missed it the first two times, you know what to do!

No Label brings us a compilation cassette, Between the Coasts, featuring 12 brand new underground punk bands from the Midwest US. More on this one next week, I’m sure!

The long-running Spanish hardcore band R.O.B.O. is back with a new 7”, Contaminas, holding us over until their third album drops sometime in the near future.

Photographer Jack Pitt brings us this monstrous, 230-page hardcover book, Forever Punk. Forever Punk documents gigs in the UK, Canada, and the US, and features a broad swath of artists from the past decade or so of punk. There’s a heavy focus on the kinds of artists Sorry State carries, and if you’re involved in the scene, odds are good that you’ll see yourself or some of your close friends in this giant tome.

We had an earlier cassette from Kansas City hardcore band D.Y.E., and now they’re back with a new tape called Rules. We also nabbed a few copies of the excellent In the Beginning cassette by fellow KC punks The Freak.

October 21 2021

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter! This week we have a slew of new releases for you, including some hardcore monsters from Hologram and Sistema En Decadencia, among many others. By the way, if you missed out on last week’s Record of the Week, Quarantine’s debut LP, Agony, we should get a restock soon. So, let’s get on with it… I think this week’s newsletter is pretty good if I say so myself!

Hologram: No Longer Human 12” (Iron Lung Records) Hologram’s first EP from 2018 got a lot of play around here, so my expectations for No Longer Human were high. While the weight of expectation can color my first experience of a new record, No Longer Human is such a phenomenal release that this isn’t a problem. When I wrote about Hologram’s first EP, I noted they were one of the most progressive and forward-thinking projects in the hardcore scene, but this record goes beyond genre-bending and into mind-bending. It’s hardcore devoid of cliche, rebuilt from the ground up and taking the least obvious, more difficult route at every fork in the road. The rhythms, while blistering fast, reach well outside hardcore’s confines for inspiration. Critics would describe the morse-code guitar leads in “Bite the Smoke” or the insane mid-paced intro riff for “Deprivation Fantasy” as complex and inventive if a noise rock band executed them at a quarter the speed, but Hologram rips into them with the wild energy of Neos or Deep Wound. It’s not all herky-jerky rhythms, either. Album-closer “See a Pale Light” starts with a dense, creepy sounding melody that reminds me of Sonic Youth at their most sublime, but finds its way into a nasty mid-paced hardcore riff. For all their strengths, these mid-paced hardcore riffs might be where Hologram shines the brightest. The breakdown is possibly the most cliche-ridden aspect of hardcore, but on No Longer Human, Hologram approaches this convention with a freshness I wouldn’t have thought possible, warping classic hardcore through a fractured, acid-drenched prism. As on their EP, Hologram deploys synths and noise sounds too, sometimes on their own (as in “Untitled”) and sometimes combined with the full-on hardcore (such as on “Innate,” where synth whirring occupies the space where you might expect a guitar lead), and these parts are just as inventive and exciting as the music performed on the more conventional (for hardcore) instruments. If you like the forward-thinking hardcore that Iron Lung Records specializes in, No Longer Human should be at the top of your list of things to check out.

Cochonne Feature on Bandcamp Daily

Bandcamp Daily just did a feature on Cochonne! Check it out here and learn about Cochonne’s inspiration and methods for creating their new record on our Sorry State. Just don’t google ‘cochonne’ 😬

Cochonne’s Emergency Now Sold Out!

I hope you grabbed your copy, because Cochonne’s Emergency is now sold out from Sorry State! If you’re still looking for a copy, check Bull City Records (Durham) or All Day Records (Carrboro) in North Carolina. These distros also have copies in stock or on the way: Feel It Records (VA), Total Punk Records (OR), Static Shock Records (UK), La Vida Es Un Mus (UK), Refuse Records (Germany / Poland), Society Bleeds Records (DC), Belltower Records (Mass), Celebrated Summer Records (MD), and Grave Mistake Records (VA). Thanks to everyone who picked up a copy and these great stores and distros for carrying it!

Scalple on Blue Sold Out

As I write this there is ONE blue vinyl copy of Scalple’s Skillful Butchers LP in our webstore, so unless you are quick on the draw, you missed out on this one too. Fortunately, there’s still plenty of black vinyl left, and it sounds just as good. We promise!

Lasso Limited Clear Yellow Almost Gone!

We’re down to fewer than 20 copies of the limited version of Lasso’s debut 7” for Sorry State. Those will disappear soon too, so don’t sleep!

Hüstler’s new EP Out Tomorrow!

Hüstler’s new self-titled EP on Sorry State comes out tomorrow, October 22! We’ll stream the entire EP starting tomorrow, but in the meantime here’s your final warning on the physical copies… there are 5 copies remaining on our Bandcamp site and then that one is sold out too! Don’t worry if you missed out, though, because Sorry State will release a 12” compiling Hüstler’s two cassettes soon.

This week’s edition of Hardcore Knockouts finds us in Denmark. I voted for Electric Deads like most of you because Electric Deads fucking rules, but Enola Gay is no slouch either.

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 Sin Without Doubt, the only vinyl release from North Carolina’s Holder’s Scar. A year after they released this EP, Holder’s Scar released a cassette titled Public Acid and shortly after that changed the name of the band to Public Acid too. This copy is on white vinyl, limited to 100 copies, and only $5 bucks. For a piece of North Carolina hardcore punk history! Wot a bargain!

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

GIGS!

OCTOBER 21
HÜSTLER IN NYC

OCTOBER 30
ZORN IN PHILLY

NOVEMBER 12
SCARECROW IN PHILLY

NOVEMBER 19
MUTANT STRAIN IN CHARLOTTE

NOVEMBER 20
MUTANT STRAIN IN CHARLOTTE

CHARTS

  1. Cochonne: S/T 12” (Sorry State)
  2. Lasso: S/T 7” (Sorry State)
  3. Scalple: Skillful Butchers 12” (Sorry State)
  4. Quarantine: Agony 12” (Damage United)
  5. Straw Man Army: Age of Exile 12” (D4MT Labs)
  6. Hüstler: Hüstler EP cassette (Sorry State)
  7. Personal Damage: demo 7” flexi (Test Subject)
  8. Suffocating Madness: S/T 7” (Active-8 / Roach Leg)
  9. Sistema En Decadencia: Neustro Legado 12” (Hardcore Victim)
  10. Algara: Absortos En El Tedio Eterno 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus)

While Sorry State’s in-house releases still rule the roost, Quarantine’s Agony rocketed straight to the top of the charts. We had a very large stack that was sold out by Tuesday afternoon, but for anyone who missed out, we’re expecting a restock. We also have some other new entries in the chart, all of which have been approved by YOU, the people of Sorry State.

The latest release on New York’s Toxic State Records, the debut EP from Anti-Machine, is in stock now! This band features a bunch of SSR friends so it’s close to our heart, and of course it rips and has awesome packaging! More on this one soon.

White Stains’ Make Me Sick 12” was one of our favorite releases of last year, and while the vinyl has been sold out since shortly after it came out, La Vida Es Un Mus just whipped up a new pressing. It’s out tomorrow, but we have it in stock now, so we threw it up on our website. Don’t be mad at us Paco!

We have two new treats for lovers of Canadian metal! Supreme Echo Records brings us a reissue from early 90s Canadian thrash band Malevolence, and we also have copies of Eve of Darkness, a new phone book (remember those LOL?) sized tome from the same people who brought you the Tomorrow Is Too Late book on Toronto hardcore punk a few years ago.

While the new Death Side 7” / DVD sold out immediately (see Daniel’s staff pick for more info on that), we have a few other CD releases in stock from Japan’s Break The Records, including official CD versions of Death Side’s two full-lengths, a compilation from 00s crasher crusties Gouka, and Skitklass’s ripper Primitiv Kansala.

Dig! Records has a new release from power pop gods Brower. It’s called Live and Contagious and it’s in stock now!

We have THREE new releases from Iron Lung Records in stock now! Besides Hologram’s new LP (this week’s Record of the Week!), we also have a new LP from Nasti and a reissue from 80s Icelandic post-punks Vonbrigdi.

Speaking of post-punk, we have a couple of other cool reissues just in. Suburban Lawns’ full-length is back in print courtesy of Superior Viaduct, and 1972 Records has repressed Maximum Joy’s great Stretch EP.

October 14 2021

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter! Last weekend’s gig here in North Carolina with Warthog, Public Acid, Scarecrow, and Forever Peace & Charm was a total banger. There were hundreds of people in the audience, everyone was stoked to be there, and there are no indications that it was a superspreader event. I love how, at all the shows I’ve been to post-pandemic, the vibes are positive, with everyone grateful just to be there after nearly two years of isolation. Here’s hoping we ease back into the groove, because I would love to see more killer hardcore shows. Speaking of which, I’ll be heading up to Philly in a few weeks for the record release show for Quarantine, which is our Record of the Week. It’s a monster record. Keep reading for that, another Sorry State release announcement, and plenty more!

Quarantine: Agony 12” (Damage United) If you read last week’s Sorry State newsletter, you’re not surprised to see Quarantine’s Agony LP is Record of the Week. We fucking love this record at Sorry State. We flipped out about their demo tape a while back, and when the band slipped Usman a test press this summer, he dubbed tapes for all of us. I’ve been listening to mine regularly, impatient for the vinyl to drop. And now the day has come! Quarantine’s sound is tailor-made for the SSR crew, furious and unrelenting, but finding space in the cacophony for creativity and craft. You might recognize the vocalist from his previous band Chain Rank, and Jack carries into Quarantine his ability to write a memorable vocal hook. For all the bands who garner comparisons to the Abused or Negative Approach, few of them can craft hooks as memorable as the originators… Jack can. The rhythm section is crushing, anchored by Chris Ulsh’s masterful drumming, which combines inhuman power with a speed and dexterity that will leave your jaw on the floor. The guitars, while locking into the rhythm like any good hardcore band should, frequently veer off course, injecting an acid-fried spontaneity that brings to mind United Mutation. There’s so much going on in these fourteen tracks that it’s almost too much, and I spent my first couple of listens staring blankly at the speakers, my brain fully occupied with parsing the chaos. Now that the initial catatonic astonishment has worn off, I chant along, air guitar, and air drum, my body powerless against Quarantine’s relentless rush.

Hüstler new EP available for preorder!

On October 22nd, Sorry State will release a new cassette EP from New York’s Hüstler! You can preorder it on our site right now, where you can also listen to the preview track, “Eat Your Heart Out.”

New York’s Hüstler follows up their demo on Sorry State from earlier this year with a brand new, self-titled four-song EP. If you liked the mix of hardcore punk, death rock, and metal on the demo, you’ll love this new EP, since everything gets turned up several notches. The heavy parts are heavier, with “Interlewd” centered around a triumphantly chugging riff that could power a Warthog song. The shredding parts are more shredding; the instrumental intro even has a neoclassical flair that reminds me of Uli Jon Roth-era Scorpions. The production is noticeably amped up, and the songs are more tuneful, even anthemic. Do I hear some Nine Inch Nails influence on “Eat Your Heart Out?” It’s an eclectic mix, but the result is powerful, focused, and distinctive, an effect the EP’s brevity only intensifies. With this new release, Hüstler has solidified one of the most distinctive and exciting voices in contemporary hardcore punk.

The physical version is limited to 100 pro-duplicated cassettes with full-color J-cards.

Cover photo: Jane Pain : @janepain

Recorded & Mastered by: Sasha Stroud of Artifact Audio NYC

Quarantine fanzine included with orders!

We’re pretty ga-ga over this Quarantine record at Sorry State. Usman liked it so much that he put together this fanzine, which features an interview with Quarantine mastermind Jack. We’ll be throwing these in for free with orders for the next little while, and that’s the only way you can get it!

Scalple and Lasso releases out tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the release date for Scalple’s Skillful Butchers and Lasso’s self-titled EP on Sorry State. We’ve been shipping out vinyl like crazy, but starting tomorrow you’ll also be able to stream the Scalple LP in full on our Bandcamp site. We’re down to the last copies of the limited vinyl for both releases, so I advise you to order soon if that’s your thing.

Cochonne EP Nearly Sold Out!

Speaking of ordering soon, we’re down to our last 10 or so copies of Cochonne’s Emergency EP on Sorry State. These will probably sell out in a few days and we aren’t planning on repressing it. If you miss these copies, a very few copies made it out to distros and a few of North Carolina’s finer brick and mortar record shops.

This week saw the 32nd edition of Hardcore Knockouts. Wow! This week we’re back in Japan, and while I like Ghoul, I voted for the Clay on this one too. What a crusher.

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

My pick from this week’s Discogs listings is this 6-CD box set featuring all of Ornette Coleman’s recordings for Atlantic Records. I love these records, and I consider them essential listening if you’re interested in the more out there corners of the jazz world. We’ve been listing a ton of great CDs on Sorry State’s Discogs site with a lot more to come, so keep an eye out!

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

GIGS!

October 15
Scalple in NYC

October 16
Scalple in Boston

October 21
Hüstler in NYC

October 30
Zorn in Philadelphia

November 12
Scarecrow in Philly

Charts

  1. Scalple: Skillful Butchers LP (Sorry State)
  2. Lasso: S/T 7” (Sorry State)
  3. Straw Man Army: Age of Exile 12” (D4MT Labs)
  4. Cochonne: Emergency 12” (Sorry State)
  5. Genetic Control: First Impressions 7” (Return to Analog)
  6. Imploders: S/T 7” (Neon Taste)
  7. Chain Whip: Two Step to Hell 12” (Neon Taste)
  8. Strong Boys: Homo 7” (Static Shock)
  9. Suffocating Madness: S/T 7” (Roach Leg / Active-8)
  10. Dog Flashback: demo cassette (Foreign Legion)

Our in-house releases are still ruling the pile of outgoing mail at Sorry State, but this week Straw Man Army’s Age of Exile repress continues to pick up steam, while Dog Flashback’s entry to the chart proves that good old-fashioned Midwest hardcore never goes out of style!

Earlier this week, we received a huge shipment of new titles from the almighty Iron Lung Records. Their two new cassettes—the debut from New Orleans’ Paprika and the cassette version of the new Smirk EP—are up on the site now, and we’ll have the new Hologram and Nasti LPs and the reissue from Icelandic post-punk band Vonbrigdi up for sale when they’re released tomorrow!

A classic piece of KBD punk is back in print with this official reissue of Seattle band the Vains’ 1980 EP. You might remember their contribution to Killed by Death Volume 2, or you may know them as one of the many bands Duff served time in before he moved down to LA and joined Guns N Roses.

No Solution has some new tapes for us, including live sets from Rolex, Prision Postumo, and Gunn!

We just restocked Erik Nervous’s killer recent LP, Bugs, and this time the label sent us some limited color vinyl!

North Carolina power violence label To Live a Lie Records just dropped off the new LP from Death Toll 80k.

Finally, Svart Records offers up represses of two classic Children of Bodom albums, Hatebreeder and Something Wild.