News

S.H.I.T.: Complete Shit 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus) Discography-to-date from this great Toronto band, bringing together their demo, previous four 7” EPs, and their contribution to the Hardcore Gimme Some More compilation. It’s funny, I think that I do this all the time, but I’ll go for a while without listening to a band and then they come out with something new and I think to myself (and, consequently, write in one of these descriptions) “man, they’ve really stepped things up with this release.” I remember thinking (and possibly writing) the same thing about the last S.H.I.T. 7”, which was one of my favorite records of 2017 (though I had actually picked up an earlier cassette version at Damaged City 2016). However, listening back to all of the band’s previous releases on this LP I realize that S.H.I.T. were pretty incredible right from the start. When they first started releasing stuff I remember thinking that they had quite a lot in common with the New York bands of the time (particularly Dawn of Humans), but listening to it now you hear plenty of what made that last 7” so great. It’s easy to describe S.H.I.T.’s general framework—simple pogo beats and heavily reverbed/delayed vocals—but that description glosses over what is perhaps the best part of the band, which is the riffs. I don’t really know how to describe it except to say that the band is an absolute riff machine, and nearly everything they write is insanely catchy and memorable without feeling derivative in the slightest (seriously, where do these riffs even come from?). Further, they have a knack for arranging songs in a way that highlights that obvious strength… the drums are generally pretty minimal and leave a lot of space for the riffs to breathe, and the songs tend to be structured as vamps on a central riff rather than developing or evolving harmonically over the course of the track. The band generally just works out what they can do with a particular riff, simplifying it or adding onto it, layering noise over top of it, adding stops and pauses in the middle… often they give off the vibe that they’re just kind of jamming, though the music way well be meticulously composed and arranged for all I know. It sounds kind of simple and boneheaded when you describe it like that, but if you’ve ever been privileged enough to see S.H.I.T. live you know they can get a pit going like very few others, and unlike many bands they’re extremely adept at capturing that power on their recordings. If you missed any of these releases the first time around then this collection is really a no-brainer, but honestly this material is strong enough when compiled together that it also makes a great place to start if you aren’t familiar with the band. The only way that I wouldn’t recommend picking this up is if you have every single one of the releases that it compiles and you really, really like flipping over 7” records.

Stiff Love: Trouble 7” (Neck Chop) Debut 7” from this new band out of Olympia, Washington. My band No Love played with them on their recent tour and they were great live, but this 7” is even better. Stylistically, Stiff Love have a really cool vibe… there are elements of classic punk, 60s garage, and power-pop, but it skews very far toward the punk, particularly with the fast and loose playing and the raw production on this 7”. I’m reminded a lot of Nikki & the Corvettes’ best tracks, but Stiff Love are even punker than that reference would indicate. The songs themselves are super dense with a ton going on… each one generally has a great main riff, a cool lead that comes in over top of the main riff at some point (they’re a twin-guitar attack BTW), and catchy vocals that are more of a rhythmic yelp than melodic singing. Despite the fact that there’s so much going on the songs never feel overworked, which again probably comes at least partially from the loose playing style (which is totally drenched with swagger) and the rough production. Stiff Love are such great songwriters and musicians that I can easily imagine them taking the path of a band like the Donnas or the Hives… with more “professional” production this is a band that could get really, really big. Or they could just keep putting out records as good as Trouble and they’ll develop their own rabid, cult-like audience. Or maybe they’ll break up and these tunes will get comped on a future volume of Killed by Death and we old-timers will talk about how we remember when you could pick this thing up for six measly bucks. Highly recommended.

ISS: S/T 12” (Drunken Sailor) ISS mania continues with this latest release, which is a vinyl reissue of the band’s first self-titled cassette full-length, which was original released on Rich from Terminal Boredom’s Loki Label in 2015. I’ve been immersed in the world of ISS lately, but I hadn’t returned to this first release in quite a while and I’d forgotten how different it is from what they’re doing these days. Nowadays, I think of ISS’s music as having three essential layers: the sampled drums and original bass line that make up the “song,” another layer of irreverent samples, guitar solos, and other stuff, then Rich’s vocals blaring out insanely catchy lines over top of all that. However, ISS hadn’t really added that middle layer when they did these tracks, so they sound quite minimal next to, say, the 7” they just released on Sorry State. While I would probably say that I like the newer stuff better (though, to be fair, I’m the type of person who almost always likes the newest stuff best), the advantage of the more minimal style of this LP is that it’s much more immediately catchy. The vocals are very clean-sounding and right up front in the mix, so you’re singing along with “Back Taxes and Anaphylaxis” and “Freemasons Run the Country” on the second listen, whereas the denser, newer material takes a few listens for your ear to fully decode. In my mind, though, every second of ISS music is essential listening, and even if you have the original cassette I would highly recommend upgrading to this superior format.

Acid Attack: Suburbia’s Dream 12” (Radio Raheem) Reissue of the entire recorded works from this UK82 band out of Portsmouth, UK on the always-reliable Radio Raheem label. As the label’s description indicates, simply referring to Acid Attack as a UK82 band glosses over much of what’s interesting about them. They may well have been trying to emulate bands like GBH, Vice Squad, or the Exploited, but if that was the case they missed the mark by quite a bit, albeit in a very interesting way. Acid Attack never quite reach the full-on thrash tempo of songs like the Exploited’s “Dead Cities,” and that combined with the extremely loose playing gives the band a vibe more like any number of extremely homespun vintage anarcho demos. As Jeff pointed out to me, the bassist and guitarist are quite frequently out of tune and out of time with one another… they also occupy pretty radically different tonal ranges, with the bass very muffled and low-sounding and the guitar super bright and right up front in the mix. It probably sounds like I’m ragging on the band, but something kind of magical emerges from the looseness of the playing, and personally I find the much rougher tracks on the first part of the record a lot more interesting than tracks like “Animal Sound” that are a little more together musically. As is usually the case with Radio Raheem, this reissue features elaborate packaging, including a lengthy full-color booklet and some of the coolest cover artwork I’ve seen in a long time, so even if you buy this and find out that your appreciation of semi-inept UK82 punk doesn’t run quite as deep as you thought it did at least it’ll look super cool when you flip past it in your stacks.

Hellbent: 1983-1984 Demos 12” (Radio Raheem) Radio Raheem reissues another lost 80s HC band, and this time it’s New York’s Hellbent getting the treatment. It’s funny, I don’t recall ever hearing of Hellbent before this reissue came out, which is particularly surprising because 1. this stuff absolutely slays and 2. they played tons of legendary New York punk shows, and their name is right there on flyers that I’ve seen many times before… why didn’t I ever think to investigate the band that played the first Samhain show along with YDI? Well, at least my oversight is rectified now. Stylistically, Hellbent are definitely on the more metallic end of hardcore. They mention Discharge, Venom, and Motorhead as inspirations, but to me they sound quite a bit like Broken Bones’ early stuff, only considerably faster and meaner-sounding. As the bassist notes in this reissue’s liner notes, while most straightforward hardcore bands wrote riffs by moving power chords around the neck as quickly as possible, Hellbent’s songs were built around more complex and metallic licks, to the point where I could imagine them playing with a demo-era Metallica and going over extremely well. The vocalist also sounds a lot like Eric Eycke from C.O.C., which gives mid-paced songs like the swampy, Sabbath-inflected “Ballad of Ed Gein” a very Eye for an Eye type of vibe. I could do without some of the covers at the end of the record, but if you’re a fan of this type of metal-infused hardcore punk—i.e. you love records by bands like Broken Bones, English Dogs, and C.O.C.—I can’t recommend this one highly enough, and of course the typically beautiful and informative packaging from Radio Raheem always sweetens the deal as well.

The Shifters: Just Sat Down 7” (Digital Regress) Latest 7” from this band out of Melbourne whose releases all seem to sell out more or less instantly. I doubt this one will be any different because it’s just as good as, if not better than, their previous ones. Descriptions of the band have a habit of mentioning both the Fall and Flying Nun Records, and it’s easy to see why, as the Shifters tend to rely on the repetitive song structures of the former but have a bit of the pop sensibility of the latter. While band’s debut cassette (which was recently re-released on LP) has more of the dreamy vibe of the Clean, this 7” reminds me a lot more of the Fall, particularly the period between Dragnet and Slates. “Melbourne & Monash Youth League” specifically could be a Dragnet outtake with its off-kilter, cheapo keyboard sounds and deadpan vocals. As I mentioned in my description of their cassette, the interplay between the two vocalists and the blatant Fall-isms also remind me of the UV Race. I suppose there isn’t much more to say… I’m sure I had a lot of you at “Australian band inspired by the Fall,” but even if you only dabble in that sound this is well worth checking out as it’s a cut above for sure.

Erik Nervous: Assorted Anxieties 12” (Neck Chop) US pressing of this collection of Erik Nervous’s previous releases. Just to annoy everyone, this version actually features one track that wasn’t on the Drunken Sailor version, while that version features a track that doesn’t appear here. Does that mean that you need to buy both? Well, that’s certainly the implication, but obviously they’re merely courting the die-hards. Anyway, we carried several of these releases back when they originally came out, but for some reason I think they sound even better together on this LP. Maybe it was the plan to bring together these EPs into a ripping full-length right from the start, but if not it sure was a happy accident, because just like the Buzzcocks’ classic Singles Going Steady, Assorted Anxieties sounds more like a coherent LP than a compilation. If you haven’t heard Erik Nervous, he often gets grouped with the whole Coneheads / Liquids scene, presumably because he’s from the same part of the country, relies on some quirky rhythms, and writes broadly pop-based music. I suppose that fans of those groups probably would be into Erik Nervous, but he definitely has his own thing going on as well. In particular, Assorted Anxieties is a lot more stylistically diverse than either of those bands, dabbling in everything from mutant funk to slightly dreamy, Flying Nun-style post-punk to saccharine pop and even metal (there’s a pretty legit cover of “The Trooper” by Iron Maiden). It’s all well-developed, well-recorded, and well-performed… despite Erik Nervous’s well-deserved reputation for being prolific, nothing here feels tossed-off, underdeveloped, or otherwise less than awesome, so if you’re a fan of this type of quirky, catchy punk (i.e. you follow labels like Neck Chop, Total Punk, Lumpy, Erste Theke Tonträger, and Drunken Sailor) now’s as good a time as any to get on the Erik Nervous train.

New Vogue: S/T cassette (self-released) Debut cassette full-length from this Canadian project. This recording seemed to be getting a little bit of attention from the YouTube punks a few weeks ago, but I’m glad to see that it also has a physical release, 1. so that we can carry it and 2. because I think it’s really good and warrants the gravitas that comes with a physical release, even if it’s just a cassette. I wouldn’t be surprised if some label offered to press this up on vinyl, though, because it’s absolutely killer. New Vogue has a sound that incorporates elements of both garage-punk and post-punk… they tend to rely on the kind of jittery rhythms that I associate with post-Carbonas garage-punk, but their music feels really dense and layered in a way that I associate with post-punk bands, particularly bands like the Fall. At times New Vogue reminds me of the first couple of Whatever Brains LPs (before they started getting really dark and weird), but I think that fans of Atlanta bands like Uniform, Predator, and GG King would dig this a lot, and people into the whole Lumpy Records-type scene would probably be into this too, though New Vogue strikes me as a lot more ambitious than some of those bands, who tend to have a looser, rawer sound. If you’re into those worlds at all I would recommend giving this a listen because it is really, really cool, and eons beyond most cassette-only releases of this ilk.

Era Bleak: demo cassette (Dirt Cult) 7-song tape from this new band out of Portland. I usually associate Dirt Cult with the type of earnest pop-punk that Razorcake magazine covers (which, I realize, is an over-simplification at best), but Era Bleak isn’t like that at all… rather, they’re a post-punk-style band with a heavy emphasis on the punk. They remind me of the Nots from Memphis in that they play at garage-punk speeds, have a kind of apocalyptic, perhaps even slightly sci-fi vibe, layer their songs with sheets of noise, yet somehow manage to pull catchy songs out of the din. With 7 tracks on this tape it’s closer in length to a lot of full-lengths these days, so grab this along with the New Vogue cassette and consider your appetite for well-crafted, densely-layered post-punk sated.

Tozcos: Sueños Deceptivos 12” (Verdugo Discos) I liked Tozcos’ previous 7” quite a bit, but this LP is even better, an explosive yet intricately crafted and precisely performed slab of punk rage. Tozcos are really fast and really tight, and while you can hear a little bit of Discharge influence in their riffing, the songs have more of a put-together, borderline pop kind of structure, and some riffs even get ever so slightly melodic. In terms of contemporary punk Vaaska is a really obvious reference point (though Tozcos don’t have the over-the-top guitar solos), but it probably makes more sense to dig into to the deeper / older influences. Basically, Tozcos sound like lightning-fast UK82 punk, like the fastest and best songs by the Exploited or Vice Squad, but even more like the first- and second-gen European hardcore bands influenced by those groups… everything from Lama to Svart Framtid to Malinheads. Sueños Deceptivos is pretty much perfectly produced and the band sounds like they’re laying into every single note that they play. If you like your hardcore punk free of flash and pretension, but still 100% raging, this should be at the top of your “to buy” list.

Suburban Lawns: S/T 12” (Futurismo) Reissue of the lone 1983 full-length from this American post-punk band with the tracks from their Baby EP tacked onto the end of side B as a bonus. It’s funny, Suburban Lawns have come up in conversation a couple of times over the past few months, and my position has always been that I like them just fine but they never really clicked with me as much as I thought they should. Well, after keeping this reissue next to my turntable for a week or so I finally get it. I feel like it always takes me a minute to warm to music that comes from this post-Talking Heads era of music. I’m not sure whether or not it’s historically appropriate to lay the credit / blame for this sound at the feet of David Byrne, but it does seem to me like there’s a certain strain of early 80s American music that’s very much of a piece with the Talking Heads, in particular the way that they roboticize (some might even say whitewash) funk rhythms, embrace intellectualism (particularly academic and fine art culture), and simultaneously celebrate and deconstruct / critique pop music convention. I hear elements of this in a slew of early 80s bands like the Feelies, XTC, and even the B-52s, but none of those bands are as blatantly influenced by the Talking Heads as Suburban Lawns. Maybe it’s because this music is a little more complex and demands more of the listener or maybe it’s just because pretension is one of my big pet peeves (please, do refrain from pointing out that I am a pot, these bands are kettles, and all of us are black), but for all of these groups (Talking Heads included) it took a while for me to warm to them, but then when I finally did I liked them quite a lot. Or perhaps it’s because for all of my wariness of pretension, I really do like art that has a lot of depth, that feels like it’s been labored over, thought about, and deliberately crafted and honed. I definitely get that impression of Suburban Lawns… this is music as high art, music that both demands and rewards the listener’s thought and attention. So, if you just like to pound your fist along to dumb punk while you slam beers this is probably going to sound like nails on a chalkboard to you, but it almost certainly pairs well with a vintage merlot and the dusty stack of New Yorkers on your coffee table.

Deadlock: S/T 7” (Painkiller) Highly recommended nine-song smasher from this Boston-meets-London hardcore supergroup, including Tom from Violent Reaction on vocals. I’ve heard Tom say repeatedly that he hates being the frontperson in a band, which is a shame because this 7” clearly illustrates that he is one of the best hardcore vocalists in the world. I’ve always thought that great drummers make particularly great hardcore singers, and that is perfectly evident on this EP. For the most part, hardcore vocals aren’t about melody, but rhythm, and Tom’s vocals exhibit a great drummer’s feel for when to accent a certain beat or how to navigate a transition between two parts, only as the vocalist he’s doing these things with syllables and phonemes rather than with drums and cymbals. The songs themselves are straightforward hardcore in the early DC mold and sound like they’re more or less modeled on SOA’s catalog, but they’re executed with the perfect balance of precision and rawness. But, again, the vocals take what might otherwise threaten to be slightly boneheaded riffs (and I mean that in the best way possible!) and elevate them into downright explosive and memorable punk tunes. I’m sure that fans of the musicians who play on this record (who you may know from Violent Reaction, Arms Race, No Tolerance, and many others) will pick this up automatically, but anyone into early 80s-style hardcore should give this a listen. Also, it’s limited to a one-time pressing of 500 copies, so don’t blink or you’re likely to miss out.

Sediment Club: Stucco Thieves 12” (Wharf Cat) Latest LP from this long-running band from New York. I’ve seen them described on occasion as playing in a no wave style, though I’m not 100% sure I’d use that term. I’ve been listening to a lot of no wave-influenced music over the past few months (which you may have noticed if you read these descriptions regularly) and for some reason I’m inclined at the moment to think about what no wave is. I always thought before that no wave was music made by people who didn’t assume that traditional musical skill or talent were prerequisites for making interesting music, but a lot of the stuff I’ve been digging on lately—Sediment Club included—is quite complex and skillfully performed… I mean, try playing some of the stuff on the latest No Babies LP… that group can outplay any prog band you put them up against. Sediment Club aren’t nearly so flashy as players, but their music is still quite complex. More than that, though, it feels totally free, encompassing a very broad range of styles, tones, tempos, and textures over the course of this rather brief 45RPM 12”. Sure, some of it sounds like 80s Sonic Youth and there are some mutant funk vibes here and there (like the track “Hydraulic Saint”), but I get the distinct impression that those sounds aren’t there because Sediment Club want to sound like a vintage no wave band, but rather because those sounds were the best way to get across the ideas that they were trying to articulate. And maybe at the end of the day that’s the power of no wave. It isn’t that the musicians who play this kind of music dismiss skill or talent, but rather that they dismiss the rules and conventions that keep music in neat little boxes. Regardless of how you classify it, though, Stucco Thieves is a rich and varied LP that takes you to a whole bunch of different places, all of them very worthwhile.

Liquids: Hot Liqs Revenge 12” (Neck Chop) Latest LP from this midwest punk powerhouse. I’ve been fully on board with Liquids since they first started putting their recordings out into the world and I’m always excited to hear new material from them. If you haven’t heard the band, they sound to me like a mix of the Coneheads’ quirky punk with the youthful energy of the early Lookout! Records catalog, but filtered through the aesthetic of piss-raw DIY hardcore and garage. At the same time, though, I feel like that description does the band a disservice because they really do have their own distinctive sound… while I could see you liking Liquids if you’re into anything from Teengenerate and the Reatards to early Screeching Weasel to the catchier end of the No Way Records sound (stuff like Acid Reflux or Social Circkle), there isn’t anyone out there (at least that I’m aware of) that sounds precisely like them, which is truly the mark of a great band. In addition to their distinctiveness and their facility with a pop hook, another thing that I love about Liquids is that there’s always a giant helping of fuck you attitude included in everything they do. They’re very Replacements-esque in that there’s almost an element of self-sabotage at work in choices like recording some of their best songs with abysmal fidelity or making their bulging discography almost deliberately confusing, with tracks appearing on multiple releases, sometimes in the same version and sometimes not, different versions of the same release sounding radically different (I’m not sure if this is the case anymore, but for a long time the digital versions of Hot Liqs that were available online were vastly inferior to the vinyl version on Drunken Sailor), and a handful of records that had ridiculously limited / hard to get pressings. Also like the Replacements, while these choices seem to push away the casual listener, they’re basically bait to the super-fans… Liquids is going to be hard to digest for the casual bandcamp surfer, but those of us who tracked down the 7” only released in Brazil or one of the 111 gold vinyl copies of More than a Friend that were only available from Drunken Sailor (and yes, I am a member of both of those clubs) feel like we’re in an exclusive club, which makes us like the band even more. I doubt any of this is deliberate on the band’s part, but it’s worth noting as Liquids’ manner of presenting themselves is often as interesting as their music. Anyway, as for Hot Liqs Revenge, those of us who are on board the Liquids train will obviously find a lot to love here (even if we’ve heard a bunch of these songs before), but I’m not sure this is the best place to start with Liquids if you haven’t heard them before… a lot of the production here is super, super raw (though it varies a lot from song to song) and with a full 20 tracks that all bop along at a rather similar tempo it’s a lot to digest. So, if you’re just getting into Liquids I’d recommend starting with Hot Liqs, but if you’re one of us who just can’t get enough then you already know this is essential.

Citric Dummies: The Kids Are Alt-Right 12” (Erste Theke Tonträger) Latest 12” from this unique punk band from Minneapolis and it is a full-on scorcher. When Citric Dummies released their first demo tape the main thing that stuck out about them was the strangely haunting, baritone vocals, but they’ve moved away from that vocal sound on subsequent releases. Usually I think it’s a shame when a band drops a trademark part of their sound, but these songs are so damn great that I’m not worried about it in the slightest, particularly since so many of the other aspects of sound have gotten even better. Musically, Citric Dummies remind me a lot of Rip Off Records bands like the Rip Offs or the Zodiac Killers, i.e. bands who combined the catchiness of ’77 punk with the energy, speed, and precision of hardcore… they also remind me quite a bit of Golden Shower of Hits-era Circle Jerks in places as well (not least in their lyrical fixation on scatalogical imagery). In other words, they’re the kind of band that could probably get a respectable pit going at either Goner Fest or Damaged City. The style here is pretty straightforward, so the real question is, “does it rip or not?,” and I am here to tell you that it fucking rips. Highly recommended if you like punk.

Pineapple RnR: S/T 7” (Lumpy) Debut 7” from this band out of St. Louis. I hadn’t heard of them before, but doing my research I find that they did have an earlier demo tape. Anyway, the two sides of this 7”, while not sounding totally different from one another, take slightly different tacks. The two tracks on the a-side use a saxophone-bass-drums-vocals arrangement (though I hear a bit of guitar in there as well, I believe) and remind me of the skewed, left-of-center pop of Essential Logic or a less up-tempo X-Ray Spex. Pineapple RnR are hardly a tribute band, though… they don’t sound like they’re trying to be like those bands, but rather those are just the closest reference points that I can think of for some rather unique music. The instruments are all locked together in the manner that you would expect from a hardcore band, but the way that the sax melodies soar above everything gives it a unique feel, particularly when the dramatic, bellowing vocals pull in a slightly different direction. As for the songs on the b-side, the guitar replaces the sax as the dominant instrument, but the songs are no less delightfully skewed with this more conventional punk band setup. If you’re a fan of the early Rough Trade Records catalog and you still follow contemporary DIY punk (particularly if bands like Shopping, the World, and Downtown Boys are among your favorites), then Pineapple RNR should absolutely be on your radar. This is undoubtedly one of the more exciting things I’ve heard in 2018 so far and I can’t wait to see what this band does next.

Skeleton: S/T 7” (Super Secret) After a couple of earlier flexis, here’s the debut hard vinyl from Austin, Texas’s Skeleton. It’s funny, maybe I’m out of the loop but I haven’t heard a lot of talk about this band even though they seem to tour heavily… they’ve been through Raleigh twice in the past year even though they live 2,000 miles away. It’s all the more baffling given that their brand of hardcore is raw, direct, and delightfully free of posing and pretense. With most hardcore bands nowadays I can tell more or less what they’re going for and where they’re coming from, but Skeleton sound totally unique, like they’re making things up from scratch as they go along rather than piecing together ideas from their influences. Consequently, this is about as authentic-sounding as you’re going to hear an early 80s-style hardcore band sound in the year 2018… it could seriously be dropped right into the early catalog of labels like Touch & Go, Dischord, or Version Sound, even if it would have been one of the darker and weirder records on those labels. It definitely has some of the Nihilism of bands like Blight, Crucial T, the Nihilistics, or even No Trend. I could also see fans of the more straightforward releases on the Youth Attack label being into this, though it’s perhaps even more straightforward and less art-y than Cult Ritual or the Repos. At any rate, if you like your hardcore mean, dark, and authentically 80s sounding I would highly recommend checking this one out.

Primer Regimen: Ultimo Testamento cassette (Discos MMM) Latest from this punk/oi! band out of Bogota, Colombia. To me, Primer Regimen sound like what would happen if you stripped the rock and roll influences out of Ruleta Rusa or the ripping solos out of Vaaska and replaced those distinctive trademarks with the much more on-the-nose oi! sound of Rixe. The songs are fast, but not too fast, and built around anthemic, UK82-style choruses, but they’re a little too sprightly and the melodies and riffs are just a hair too complex for the music to be described as oi!, at least without some significant qualifiers. It’s stripped-down, unpretentious, and low on flash, so if you like to pump your fist along to Punk with a capital P this one will do the trick.

Lysol: Teenage Trance 7” (Neck Chop) Latest 7” from this band out of the Pacific Northwest and it’s another scorcher to add to their discography. Lysol have sounded slightly different on each of their releases (at least the ones that I’ve heard), and Teenage Trance is no different. Whereas their last single on Total Punk was a blistering slice of hardcore, this time around they slow things down just a hair, particularly on the b-side, which locks into a swampy, Stooges-esque groove that I’m sure will remind more people than just me of Hank Wood & the Hammerheads. While their last single on Total Punk was so short that I felt like I couldn’t get a handle on it, Teenage Trance keeps us from pinning Lysol down because of its stylistic diversity… are they the blistering hardcore band that plays the verses of “Teenage Trance,” the catchy punk band that plays that song’s choruses, or the in-the-pocket rock group on the b-side? They’re great at all three modes, and just like their last one this single leaves me salivating for a future LP that brings together all of these compelling aspects of the band’s sound into a coherent, unified vision.

Various: No Puberty 12” (Rush One) Unofficial compilation of late 70s and early 80s punk tracks, all of which are by bands with teenage members, and with most of the bands featuring pre-teens, the youngest being a mere 8 years old. This reminds me quite a lot of the outstanding Who’s a Punk compilation from a few years ago. Like that compilation, this has a very clear theme (Who’s a Punk was “fake punk” BTW), a top-notch selection of tracks with a few bands you might already know (Mad Society, Hitler SS, Sheer Smegma, Unit:3 with Venus) and a whole lot that you almost certainly don’t, cool artwork, and absolutely no filler. My only complaint is that while both comps have top-notch artwork, neither has anything in the way of liner notes or contextual information. That’s particularly frustrating because the theme is so strong… clearly they put so much work into researching teen/pre-teen punk and putting together such a great track listing, so I’d really love to read a little about how the idea came together and what information might be out there about each band, even if it were brief and aloof in the manner of the liner notes for the Killed by Death and Bloodstians comps. At the end of the day, though, that is an extremely minor quibble, because No Puberty is a record that will live close to your turntable for a very long time and will be a surefire hit when you throw it on at your next punk house party… that is, unless the sound of an 8-year old girl singing “beer isn’t good for you” bums everyone out.

Against: Welcome to the Aftermath 12” (Radio Raheem) The latest release from Radio Raheem Records, the absolute gold standard for punk / hardcore archival releases, is this collection from Venice Beach d-beaters Against. Generally, d-beat is a word that I associate with the past fifteen years or so of DIY hardcore (I still vividly remember the first time I heard the word, which was around the year 2000), but the history of American d-beat actually reaches back quite far. There’s Detroit’s Heresy, the Iconoclast, Crucifix, Diatribe, Final Conflict… I’m sure there are plenty more as well, not to mention legions of bands (D.C. Youth Brigade, SS Decontrol, Siege, etc.) who were clearly very, very influenced by Discharge but don’t quite qualify as full-on Discharge worship / d-beat. However, Venice’s Against certainly do qualify as such, to the point where they almost sound more like a modern d-beat band than a group from 1983. In the photos on the fold-out poster insert (in case you aren’t aware, information-packed inserts are pretty much de rigueur for all Radio Raheem releases) you can see that the band also appropriated aspects of Discharge’s look, with spiky hair and leather jackets, but their cut-off t-shirts and faded jeans betray the fact that they haven’t totally lived down their Southern California roots. As for the music, it totally rages. The LP collects a demo recording from 1983 and an aborted EP from 1984, and while I like the ’83 recording on the a-side a little bit better they’re both killer 80s hardcore punk recordings with that warm and clear analog sound that no ProTools filter will ever truly replicate. And the music, of course, is pure Discharge worship with furious d-beating the entire time and quite a few of the riffs and leads pretty much cribbed directly from the masters themselves. In other words, if you were stoked when the Heresy and Diatribe reissues came out you should be very stoked about this, as it’s very much along the same lines and of a similar level of quality. If you just want another ripping d-beat record in your collection this will definitely hit your sweet spot, but if you fancy yourself a scholar of the genre’s history then this reissue is 100% essential.

Heresy: Face Up to It: 30th Anniversary Edition 2x12” (Boss Tuneage) Heresy’s Face Up to It is a legendarily poorly recorded record, and the deal with this expanded reissue is that they took the original multi-track tapes, restored them, and completely remixed the album to correct the problems that plagued the original release. Actually, it sounds like there was a fair bit more involved with the restoration project than that. Since the original album was recorded with triggered kick and snare drums, it sounds like they had to completely reconstruct the drum tracks using modern, more natural-sounding samples. So, how good of a job did they do? Well, the first thing that I did was pull my original copy of the album off the shelf (actually it’s the original Dutch pressing on Konkurrel, but I can’t imagine it sounds that much different than the UK version) and give it a listen. I have to say it doesn’t sound nearly as bad as I remember. Certainly the whole thing is very muggy sounding and the tracks are overly compressed, making it sound like you’re hearing the band rehearsing in the next room, but you can hear the drums well enough that tracks like the ripping opener “Consume” still have quite a lot of impact. I mean, despite all of the problems with the record, it’s still pretty legendary and I’ve kept a copy for myself all these years so it’s not like it’s total crap. However, throwing on the reissue you immediately hear a vast improvement. The whole thing sounds clearer and brighter, and the mix is more even; on the original the guitar is way too loud and the bass is essentially inaudible. The drums in particular are a huge improvement… in particular, the snare doesn’t dominate the drum mix in the way that it does on the original. Interestingly, the improved sound makes for a radically different and much improved overall listening experience. I’ve always enjoyed the standout tracks on Face Up to It like “Consume,” the title track, “Network of Friends,” and “Trapped in a Scene,” but the lesser tracks always struck me as very forgettable, even on my most recent listen to the original pressing. Of course the standout tracks still sound great on the reissue, but tracks like “Too Close to Home,” “Against the Grain,” or “Into the Grey,” which never made much of an impression on me before, now stand out as absolute scorchers that approach (and perhaps even meet) the sheer blinding speed and ferocity of From Enslavement to Obliteration-era Napalm Death. It’s something of a cliche to say that listening to an updated reissue is like hearing a record for the first time, but the cliche holds true for this particular reissue, and if you are a fan of this album I can’t see any reason why you would ever listen to the original version again after hearing this, which is something I can’t recall saying about very many hardcore punk reissues in the past, especially ones that seek to “improve” fundamentally flawed records. I should also mention that in addition to the vastly improved original album, you also get an additional 1-sided 12” that includes what I believe are outtakes from the recording sessions, including a bunch of covers of bands like DYS and Siege, rerecorded old tracks like “Never Healed,” and a few other bits and bobs from the cutting room floor. And then there’s the liner notes and repackaging, which are tastefully done even if they aren’t quite as on-the-nose authentic as, say, the reissues on Radio Raheem. Basically, if you like Heresy, the late 80s UK hardcore/thrash/grindcore scene, or the late 80s proto-grind/power violence scene of bands like Larm, Ripcord, and Infest this is a highly recommended purchase.

Thieving Bastards: Complete Musical Disasters 7” (SPHC) Debut 7” from this long-running UK band, and it’s a real treat for you scholars of ineptitude out there. The label’s description mentions a number of different milestones in the history of ineptly played and recorded punk records, but Thieving Bastards strike me as a little bit different than most of them. When you talk about something like Wretched, Ohlo Seco, or Larm, I get the impression that those bands were trying their best to be raging hardcore bands, but they fell well short of the standards of fidelity and musical ability that most listeners would have had at the time (or now, for that matter). However, it doesn’t seem like those bands were unaware of or deliberately ignoring those standards… they just didn’t meet them. It’s only in retrospect that people appreciated the political dimension of choosing to play what you want to play (or can play?) regardless of technical ability or your degree of ambition as a musician. (By the way, I should note here that I don’t actually know what I’m talking about… I was born in 1979 so I certainly didn’t hear or appreciate this stuff the first time around.) Thieving Bastards, to me at least, seem to be doing something a little bit different. Basically, it seems like they’re not really trying at all. They’re not trying to write good songs, they’re not trying to play them well, and they’re not trying to be a cool band that all of the cool, well-connected people with good taste will like. Basically, they seem to me to be a giant middle finger to all of that. It’s almost like a realignment of punk’s values and priorities, and a more or less explicit challenge to the listener. “You think that you like raw music? You think that you don’t care about pop melodies or mainstream (over-) production values? Well, try listening to this!” It is, in a word, shit. Listening to it and trying to approach it on it’s own terms, I’m forced to ask myself, “how do I feel about shit?” Do I like it? If so, then why? If not, then why not? To me, it’s very much the same challenge that Cecil Taylor issued to the world of jazz, just in a different format. Perhaps this is an overly intellectual reaction to this music and what I’m really supposed to do is allow this primitive pounding access to my caveman brain, which would presumably respond with something like “LOUD! GOOD!,” but hey, we are who we are, and I’m a middle-class intellectual approaching middle age. If you are of a similar station in life and you like music that questions your values at the deepest level then this might be something you’d be interested in, but if that’s not the case I have a feeling that you’re really, really going to hate it.

No Blues: S/T 7” (SPHC) Debut single from this new band out of Hamliton, ON, a city which also gave us Teenage Head, one of the greatest punk/power-pop bands of all time. No Blues can definitely be described as power-pop, but they don’t really sound anything like Teenage Head… I guess that I was just showing off my knowledge of punk rock trivia there. Anyway, No Blues DO sound a lot like Tenement’s early singles and first LP, and they also remind me of more recent bands like Booji Boys and Liquids as well. Like those three bands, No Blues sound like a band who perhaps came out of the hardcore scene, but are now allowing themselves to do things like sing melodically and write songs in major keys, but maybe they’re also a little embarrassed to be expanding their horizons, so they drench their very bare-bones, 4-track-y production in a bunch of reverb and distortion. This isn’t a bad thing at all, and if you’re into what Booji Boys and Liquids are doing you’ll like the way that No Blues go about things. While I definitely hear those bands’ production styles in these three tracks, the melodic sensibility is much more like Tenement, in that instead of pop-punk type influences I hear a slight undercurrent of 90s alternative rock, particularly in the vocal melodies and the big, hooky guitar riffs. At any rate, this 7” is pretty much the perfect balance of pop and punk, and if you like any of the aforementioned bands you should probably go ahead and check it out.

Marée Noire: demo 7” (Offside) Demo-on-vinyl from this French band, though if you didn’t know what language they were speaking in you’d probably be willing to bet a large amount of money that this was some lesser-known release on the Partners in Crime label. Marée Noire remind me a lot of the more straightforward hardcore bands from that whole crew, namely Deathreat, Talk Is Poison, and Balance of Terror. While it’s by no means their defining attribute, they also have a little bit of the melodic sensibility of Tragedy and From Ashes Rise, but the songs here are pretty much uniformly fast and very hardcore (i.e. zero stadium crust vibes). Even the band’s logo and the typefaces remind me of the Partners in Crime aesthetic. It’s not every day that you hear a new band playing this style of hardcore, so if you’re into this type of thing I’d definitely recommend giving them a listen.

Parquet Courts: Wide Awake! 12” (Rough Trade) I’m not really sure what other punks out there think about Parquet Courts… they’re obviously a big and popular indie band (they even recently played on Ellen!), but I’ve always thought they were 100% legit. Every year or so there seems to be another new album, and it’s always great. It’s kind of like what I imagine it must have been like to follow the Fall in their early 80s heyday. Not only do you know you’re going to get a bunch of great music (and like the Fall, Parquet Courts are kind of “always different, always the same,” to paraphrase John Peel), but also I’m always particularly interested to hear the lyrics, as Parquet Courts are one of the few bands that I listen to who address contemporary topics in a way that I find intellectually stimulating. In fact, Parquet Courts strikes me as serious and interesting in a way that very, very few bands today are. They constantly push forward without being pretentious about it, and they seem to be comfortable enough in their own skin that they can pursue new ideas with a seasoned confidence that few rock bands in this day and age possess. So, what’s my take on the new album? Well, first I should say that I think that their last one, Human Performance, was a real high-water mark in their discography. That record seemed to open up new vistas in their sound and level them up as a band, both musically and lyrically. It hit me hard when it came out, and I’ve continued to revisit that record every few weeks since, with it growing to become one of my favorite records of the past several years. Where does a band go from there? Well, my initial impression is that on Wide Awake! Parquet Courts have decided to get weird. Sure, there’s plenty of the band’s sprightly post-punk here still, but they seem newly emboldened to incorporate new elements into their sound. They revisit the quasi-rap cadences that we heard a little of on Human Performance (and cop a little bit of vintage 90s Dr. Dre production vibes on “Violence”), do a total Tom Tom Club-style white funk freakout on the title track, and even inject some Warren Zevon-esque jaunty piano into the closing track, “Tenderness.” It’s a staggeringly eclectic album, and all the more impressive given that the band is so strong at playing all of this rather different music. And as is usual with Parquet Courts, the topical lyrics remain a highlight, particularly tracks like “Violence” (speaking of unexpected influences, I hear a lot of Gil-Scott Heron on that one) and the title track. Like all great art, regardless of medium, Parquet Courts tackle complicated subjects in a way that honors their complexity without reducing them to slogans or pithy witticisms, and they actually push me to see the world around me in a way that’s a little different than how I saw it before. So, like I said at the beginning, I have no idea if the punks are listening, but this is another fantastic Parquet Courts album. Here’s hoping that this band eventually has a discography that is as lengthy and as interesting as the Fall themselves.

Patois Counselors: Proper Release (Ever/Never) Debut album from this group from Charlotte, North Carolina; they had an earlier 7” on Negative Jazz, but this album finds a more appropriate home (in my opinion, at least) on Ever/Never Records. I think that the first thing I heard about Patois Counselors is that they covered “Couldn’t Get Ahead” by the Fall, and you can still hear a lot of the Fall’s golden era (basically, everything between Perverted by Language and The Frenz Experiment) in their sound, as well as synth-infused modern bands inspired by said records (I think they share a lot of their sonic pallette with Whatever Brains, but there are probably more nationally-known acts that would be a better frame of reference for someone not from North Carolina). It’s funny, though, because for all of the sonic similarities to the Fall in particular, Patois Counselors don’t really sound like the Fall to me. Their music communicates very different feelings than what I get from any of the Fall records that I’ve spent time with. The Fall have this way of wandering around a song like they could honestly not give a fuck whether they ever find the hook or not (though they almost always do), but Proper Release feels meticulously, almost relentlessly composed. Not only do Patois Conselors want to find the hook, they want to find all of the hooks, and they want to get them all in the song. I have no idea how it was actually put together, but it doesn’t sound to me like the songs came out of a band playing in a room, but rather a composer sitting with a ream of staff paper or a producer with a laptop, a hacked copy of ProTools, and a 3-day weekend at their full disposal. In other words, every moment of every track is jam-packed with stuff, stuff that seems labored over, considered and reconsidered, moved around, then moved back again with the manic, introverted energy of an obsessive compulsive person rearranging their furniture. Even the lyrics are like that… songs like “So Many Digits” seem like they might have started out as pop songs, but the moment of clarity that provides the emotional apex of a pop song has been deliberately obscured, worked and reworked into something more cryptic, even sinister. Maybe it’s because I just finished Gilles Deleuze’s book on Francis Bacon, but the songs remind me of one of Bacon’s canvases, which seem to start out as fairly conventional portraits, but are interrogated so meticulously and so compulsively that, as Deleuze says of Bacon’s portraits, the head becomes meat. Now that I’ve lost 99% of my readers, I’ll say that if you enjoy the density of ideas on records by artists like King Crimson, Kate Bush, Voivod, Enslaved, or Charles Mingus (is this the first time those artists have all been mentioned in the same breath?), but you also like loud and distorted guitars and synthesizers then let me introduce you to one of the most unique and exciting records you’re likely to hear for some time.

Cammo: demo cassette (self-released) Demo cassette from this new band from Raleigh featuring members of a whole lot of other bands. They describe their sound as “scumgaze,” which makes perfect sense as soon as you hear it. So, here’s the background; if you’ve followed the musical projects of Sean Livingstone, you’re in for a real treat. I jumped on board this train when Sean was in New York’s Pollution, which was followed by Shoxx and then Bandages once he moved back to North Carolina, though he was in bands before that that you might be familiar with as well. Of the members’ lengthy resumes, Sean’s feels the most relevant as the way that Cammo smash together Celtic Frost and 90s noise rock with a dash of shoegaze harmony and texture is very much akin to some of the things that were happening in his aforementioned bands. However, the other members also bring their own thing to the table. Drummer Evan is/was in Whatever Brains, Das Drip, and numerous others, and he’s one of the most powerful and rock-solid drummers I’ve ever encountered, and one of the few people who I can imagine hanging with the monstrous stack of amplifiers behind him when Cammo plays. Then there’s Justin from Double Negative and Davidians on second guitar (Cammo doesn’t have a bass player, though I promise you won’t miss it… they’re still impossibly heavy), and if you’re familiar with the music that Justin has made you’ll also hear plenty of telltale marks of his hand in these songs. So, there’s the story so far. There’s a pretty good chance that if you’re a follower of what Sorry State does you’ll be interested in this band, so go ahead and give them a try.

Child’s Pose: S/T 7” (Nervous Energy) Debut EP from this new London group, and fans of that city’s incredible DIY punk scene of the past decade or so will be salivating at the mention of a lineup featuring members of “Sauna Youth, Nekra, Sarcasm, Woolf and a hundred other top set London groups.” Sauna Youth fans in particular should get stoked, as these four songs from Child’s Pose remind me a lot of Sauna Youth’s poppier moments like “Oh Joel” and “Transmitters,” which is high praise indeed as those are some of my favorite punk tracks of the past several years. Even though they don’t share any members, this EP also reminds me a lot of Good Throb’s LP… while Good Throb’s other material could be pretty abrasive and even no wave-y, the LP found them embracing their poppier side, and while Child’s Pose’s songs here are probably a little more musically complex, they have a similarly ecstatic, sing-along quality to them. Also, like Frau and Snob and a number of other recent punk bands from the London area, there seems to be something subtly intellectual and sophisticated in Child’s Pose music, but they manage to bring across those qualities while still very much keeping the focus on the visceral thrill of singing along to a catchy, energetic, and minimalistic punk tune. I’ve probably done Child’s Pose something of a disservice by writing more about their scene than the actual band or record under consideration, because they’re clearly far more than just a product of their environment… I just find that particular environment so fascinating and so rewarding to follow that I guess I just let this description get away from me. Long story short, though, it’s a brilliant record and you should buy it!

Debbie Downers: Eat My Skorts cassette (Helta Skelta) Debut cassette from this killer new band out of Perth, Australia. The label’s description mentions Kleenex / Liliput and the Petticoats as frames of reference, and while I definitely hear elements of that, to my ears Debbie Downers are a lot more traditionally punk rock than those references would indicate, reminding me as much of their fellow Perthians (Perthers? Perthagineans? Perthenesians?) Helta Skelta and other amped-up, minimalist punk/garage bands in the early Wire tradition (see the Urinals, Shitty Limits, and other bands referenced in my description of the new Gen Pop record). In other words, these songs are completely infectious (without ever tipping over the line into cheesy) but also downright explosive on the energy meter. This is the type of band that is so good that you could imagine them getting huge, but also so legit that you’d still keep liking them even after they’re playing the bigger venues in town that you don’t really go to anymore. Really top-notch stuff.

Skrawl: demo cassette (self-released) Demo cassette from this new blackened punk band out of Rhode Island. While I’m not super familiar with this style (honestly I don’t even really know if Skrawl would describe themselves as “blackened punk” or if there are even enough bands doing this kind of thing to call it a genre or style), I was a big fan of Raspberry Bulbs and Skrawl have a similar thing going on, and are just as exciting to my ears. The core of the sound is straightforward and punishing metal-punk in the vein of Hellhammer, but Skrawl also have a bit of the more harmonically complex Norweigan black metal style in their sound, particularly on the standout first track, “Soul Scrawl,” as well as some mid-paced parts that seem just as rooted in the traditional hardcore breakdown as they do in Tom Warrior’s riffing style. The recording is warm and organic-sounding without being too lo-fi, and all of the tracks feel really interesting and well-fleshed out. I could see this demo getting attention from Youth Attack Records fanatics as well as people into punk-influenced black metal like Wulkanaz… if that sounds appealing to you I highly recommend checking this one out.

The Just Measurers: Flagellation 12” (Emotional Response) Reissue of this 1983 LP, which is the lone release from this Homosexuals-affiliated band from the UKDIY scene. Of course UKDIY is less a genre or style of music and more of a catch-all term that refers to a whole lot of different kinds of music being made at a particular historical moment when the establishment of an independent distribution network helped to prompt an explosion of self-produced, independently-released music. This scene—insofar as it was a scene—was highly eclectic, with bands differing from each other rather drastically, and many bands even made radical changes in style from song to song, which is certainly the case with the Just Measurers. I can hear a whole heap of influences slammed together willy-nilly on this record, many of them peculiarly British… I hear some melodies that sound like they’re rooted in old Celtic folk melodies, a lot of the mid-century music hall sounds that so clearly fascinated Ray Davies from the Kinks (or maybe the Kinks themselves are the direct influence?), the more avant-garde, electronic and musique concrete type of sounds that you’d hear on the BBC as sound effects and themes (like the Dr. Who theme, for instance), as well as influences from the more familiar worlds of punk and (particularly) post-punk. If you’re looking for a record where the drummer just does the d-beat the whole time then move along, but if you have a taste for the highly eclectic, defiantly British music of this era—particularly bands like the Homosexuals, the Astronauts, and the like—this LP is well worth hearing.

Sodom: Requiem 12” (Fan Club) Unofficial pressing of this cult Japanese punk band that I was familiar with through lo-fi Soulseek downloads and YouTube rips. Regardless of the lineage, the Sodom cassette is a must-hear if you’re a fan of 80s Japanese punk. Much like Gauze’s first LP, Fuck Heads, it sounds to me like the Sodom tape sits right on the bubble between the earlier ADK Records-type Japanese punk sound and the more metallic, Discharge-influenced sound that I associate with the mid- to later 80s, though in most respects it’s further toward the former sound than the latter (kind of inverting the proportion of those two influences that you hear on Fuck Heads). Like a lot of the recent fan club pressings of classic Japanese punk that have been floating around, the audio here appears to have been sourced from an official CD reissue (which I honestly didn’t even know existed until now!), and is consequently top-notch… it’s like night and day from the nth-generation cassette rips of this that I’d heard in the past. Basically, if you’re a fan of bands like the Execute, G-Zet, the Sexual, Anti-Septic, et al you’re going to want to pick this up, or if you’re the patient type wait on the official reissue from FOAD that is apparently in the works.