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Perhaps some of you remember that Sorry State handles US distribution for the UK's great Drunken Sailor Records? Well, Drunken Sailor has two brand new releases available from Downtown Boys, a reissue of their long out of print debut 7", and Corner Boys. Check them out and pick them below, and maybe even explore the other Drunken Sailor releases we carry as well!

It's October so of course everyone is freaking out. Maybe it's the weather (it's still barely cool enough to wear a jacket of any sort) or lack of definitive plans but I just am not feeling in the season. A couple years back my wife set up a thing that has been a standard in the music community for a long time, the Halloween Cover Show. At that one show I played drums in a Weezer cover band, sang for the first time in front of a crowd in a Discharge cover band and played guitar for the first time in front of people in a Bikini Kill cover band. It was a wild night and I honestly remember little about it do to being a nervous wreck and coping with that in unhealthy and self-destructive ways as I tend to do. It was a blast though. Sadly it kind of died off the next year (we still had one and it was fun but not nearly as wild as the first) and nobody's really picked up the torch to make it really happen again.

How is this relative you ask? Well our prompt was flaws on great albums and a flaw a lot of people fall into is bad covers. I love cover songs, I think they're fun and can really help people progress as musicians, but not all cover songs need to be recorded. I actually came up with this prompt while listening to My America by the FU's, which is twelve minutes and thirty three seconds of perfection and then just falls flat on it's face with the cover of We're an American Band. Yes I'm sure it's meant to be funny but still it's just a painful listen. They could have fit a couple more songs in the two and a half minutes this cover takes up. It doesn't really even stray much from the original. It really just serves as a view into the future of the FU's and the much more rock oriented Do We Really Want To Hurt You? album, which has some rippers but definitely has a lot of hard rock influence. Here's one of my favorites from My America to wipe my mind of having to listen to American Band

Obviously bands of an older vintage didn't have as much of a back catalog of hardcore and punk songs to cover and probably identified more with their peer bands and the songs they heard on the radio. This didn't stop some hardcore bands from finding interesting things to cover (like Minor Threat's cover of 12XU) but a lot kind of just ended up offering up something bland and rather uninspired (we've all done it before). Some times the source material is even a good song but really the performance is nothing new. A good example is Battalion of Saints' cover of Ace of Spades on their Second Coming LP. It's not bad but really kind of brings the energy to a grinding halt and their version is pretty by the books. I'm sure at that point everyone wasn't sick of hearing that song and I'm sure they had a blast playing it. I listen to it sometimes but usually just am done with the record when it gets to that point. Let's also be honest and agree that the 7" version of second coming is better also.

One last one, kind of an under the radar rager is Conflict's Last Hour. A not well known LP from Tucson Arizona that just rips. These past two examples have ended with a cover. Conflict sadly puts theirs next to last and it's a pain. They cover American Woman by the Guess Who. God this song is just sooooo obnoxious. They manage to make it their own and kind of cool and punk but really I can't get past my hatred for the original. But the ultimate problem is having to sit through the cover to get to the last song You Choose which is an amazing song. Rarely do I pick up the needle and skip a track but this one makes me do it two out of every three times I listen to it. Sadly I have no video from the LP but there was a repress on Pukenvomit records well worth seeking out. Here's a track from their demo.

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Time for some new records!

This tape ruled! So glad it's now on a 7". Super catchy punk from people who are no strangers. Drenched in reverb and lots of crunch on the guitars yet still manages to be super melodic. This is more of a jump up and down kind of thing than a full on raging kind of thing. This crew is in a million other projects and bits and pieces show through but really their song writing abilities shine more.

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First Lp from this already fairly acclaimed band. Take everything from all your favorite UK DIY, Post-Punk and 77' punk bands. This definitely has one of my favorite guitar tones, buzzy and tinny. Lots of sax and upbeat drums make this an instant dance party. Highly recommended for those that like catchy tunes and a good time.

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Cool art punk from Portland. Shrill choppy guitars with bouncing bass lines and a snare that pops straight at you. This has a tendency to kind of hang on parts like the Modern Lovers but with a much more Television Personalities tempo and charm. Definitely digging hard on this one.

I've been really digging on everything from Big Dunce Records lately too. This last batch of releases has been fire.
Bore Hole: Demo Cassette
Resource Group: Demo Cassette
Smooch: First Kiss Cassette
Cruz Somers: UV-B Cassette

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And that's it for now. I leave you with the world's only satanic 00's house group the D-Devils
I know that's probably a lie but man is this ridiculous.

We just got in copies of one of the most anticipated releases of the year, the debut LP from New York's Haram. While I'm just now digging into it, I dare say it's all that I'd hoped it would be. Pick it up below and we'll ship it out right away!

So, we're going to try something new today. We've made a YouTube playlist of a lot of the hot items from our new arrivals, so if you're sitting around the house doing nothing or you're an office drone you can just hit the play button and let it run. If there's anything you don't like, just hit the next button and you'll be served up another slice of punk and/or metal. And of course, if you hear anything like we've got you covered with physical copies at the links below. Oh, and if you want to follow what we're doing on YouTube (and who knows at the moment what that will be) you can always subscribe to our YouTube channel. Enjoy!

Releases in this playlist:

This week’s topic on the Sorry State blog is “great albums with a glaring flaw.” We’ll see how everyone else here at SSR interprets that idea, but for me I’m going to talk about two great albums that each have one song I don’t really like.

Being a loser is one of the most venerable themes in rock music history… of course we all know that Beck song, but everyone from Motorhead to the Stalin to the Beatles has taken a stab at writing a loser anthem. However, the subject of winning is a lot less common in rock music. Perhaps it’s less common because it’s really difficult to write a cool song about winning. Case in point, two of my favorite records: Leatherface’s Mush and the Sound’s From the Lion’s Mouth.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before how much time I’ve spent with Mush in my life. There’s a good ten-year stretch during which I would have called Mush my favorite album, and while it doesn’t quite hit as hard for me as it did during my early 20s, it’s still a great album that never fails to bring a smile to my face. That is, with the exception of the track “Winning,” which has always been my least favorite on the album. Admittedly, it would have been hard to keep the cresting wave of the record’s previous three songs—“Not a Day Goes By,” “Not Superstitious,” and “Springtime”—going forever, but “Winning” is a steep drop, particularly since Mush is marred by few other dicey choices. I actually really like the song’s catchy main riff—it’s pretty much classic Leatherface—but something about the way the syllables are drawn out across the chorus has always been like nails on a chalkboard to me. In the chorus, Frankie Stubbs sings the word “Winning” twice in close succession, and he experiments with different phrasings for the lyric throughout the song. Despite the varied approaches, he never really lands on one that works. My least favorite is the iteration that comes at about 1:37, when the two enunciations of the titular word are bridged together with a hissy scream that could have come from a Carcass record, the overdubbed scream overlapping slightly with the words on each side. It’s not an offense against music or anything, it’s just an idea that doesn’t really come together, which only sticks out because pretty much every other idea on this record does come together.

Another great songwriter, Adrian Borland of the Sound, also struggles with prosody as he attacks the theme of “Winning” on the album From the Lion’s Mouth. Like Stubbs, Borland wrenches and stretches the word, often adding in multiple extra syllables in order to bend the word into a melody. As was the case with Leatherface’s track, I have a particular least favorite moment: at about the 1:50 mark, when Borland pronounces the word “win-ay-EEEENG.” Again, the word seems jammed uncomfortably into the melody, and has always struck out to me as a bump in the road on an otherwise outstanding album.

Is there something in the word “winning”—whether it’s the sense of the word or just the sound—that makes it difficult to write a good song around? My only hunch is that winning is usually a transitive verb—meaning that it takes an object, i.e. you have to win something—and both of these tracks omit any discernible object… they’re just about “winning” in general. Maybe if you focused on the winner and/or the spoils you’d be on firmer footing.

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Neon: Neon Is Life cassette (self-released) It’s only recently that I’ve come to the realization that most of the music that I listen to is extraordinarily stiff and regimented. You’d think that I would have noticed before, but I listened to this kind of music so exclusively that I honestly barely even considered anything that operated outside of the standard rock framework music at all. However, lately I’ve just wanted to listen to music that is really free… I’ve been listening to more jazz, soundtracks, prog, and other forms of music that feel less regimented than punk rock. While these forms operate with their own sets of rules and conventions, the frameworks these groups work within feel wider in scope and more filled with possibility; at the very least, I’m unfamiliar enough with those possibilities that they feel really new and exciting. Anyway, I write about this little personal journey because Neon, to me, sounds like hardcore punk that is completely free. I don’t really understand the way the beats work, the melodies are consistently surprising, and the individual elements clash against one another in ways that feel almost totally chaotic, but it’s played deliberately enough that no one would mistake it for nonsense. Neon shares members with Mozart, and while Mozart sounds loose and wild, Neon sounds almost like they’ve never heard punk rock before, like they’re making it up on the spot. And for that reason listening to it right now is just as exciting as when I first heard punk as a teenager.

EEL: Night Parade of 100 Demons 12” (Beach Impediment) I have to hand it to Mark at Beach Impediment… he has a real ear for bands that take hardcore to some new, weird, and exciting places. While he has a reputation for meat and potatoes ‘core (and I suppose there’s a fair share of that in the catalog with bands like Vaaska, Paranoid, Warthog, and Katastrof), when you look at the discography there are just as many bands that are still hardcore but are just weird… Omegas, Concealed Blade, and Gas Rag are quirky as hell, but EEL are the quirkiest of them all. On the surface they’re a noise-punk band a la Confuse, but their music is hardly limited by the constraints of that genre. It also doesn’t sound like they’re constrained by their own aesthetic in the way that a band like Lebenden Toten is… Lebenden Toten is really distinctive, but they tend to evolve their formula in small, deliberate steps. EEL, however, just sound like they’re doing whatever the fuck they want. The world is a messy and ugly place so most of EEL’s music is messy and ugly, but there are brief moments of triumph in life and those might get articulated here as an Uchida-inspired guitar solo, and there are also moments of pure headbanging fun, so you need to grab a chunk of a Flower Travellin Band song to capture those. It doesn’t feel like EEL want to pin me down and show me who they are; instead, they want me to come with them to their world and look around for myself. It’s a world I definitely haven’t been to before, and it’s one that I’m pretty sure I’ll be revisiting often over the course of the next several weeks and months. In other words, this is undoubtedly one of my favorite records of 2017, and if you like your hardcore freaky you should probably check it out.

Genpop: S/T 7” (Lumpy) There is an invisible line somewhere out there in the music world, and on one side of that line lies bands that are hardcore, and on the other side are bands that are not. While someone who is smarter about music’s formal qualities could probably tell you precisely why some bands lie on one side of the line and some on the other, to me it’s a mystery why bands and tracks that share hardcore’s tempos—the fast songs on Wire’s Pink Flag, Stink-era Replacements, even some Parquet Courts songs—just don’t qualify as hardcore. That’s not meant as a slag on either side, but there’s something in their music that allows me to say unequivocally that those bands are not hardcore. However, Genpop seem completely unaware of this line, or perhaps they’re musical geniuses that have found a way to dance back and forth across it. The first two songs on this EP, at the very least, have moments that are undoubtedly hardcore, but there are moments that definitely aren’t hardcore as well. For the remaining three tracks I’m not really sure if they’re hardcore or not, but they’re really, really good, particularly the closing track, “Dear Jackie,” which is as anthemic, and sing-song-y and memorable as anything by Jawbreaker or Dillinger Four. It’s not so much that Genpop mix hardcore with pop music or post-punk or whatever, but rather that they can magically morph from being a hardcore band into being a not-hardcore (more-than-hardcore?) band in the blink of an eye. As someone who loves, in equal measure, hardcore and whatever kind of catchy, upbeat, and powerful genre you’d describe the rest of this music as, this morphing is exhilarating, and moreover it makes me appreciate both sides of the band’s sound even more than I probably would have otherwise. I really can’t recommend this one highly enough.

Note: the EP contains two extra tracks not in this youtube clip

Urchin: Peace Sign 7” (Roach Leg) Second 7” from this band who I believe is based in New York. The generic description says something like “Stoke-on-Trent via Gothenburg,” but I’m hearing the latter a lot more than the former. In particular, it seems like the legendary Shitlickers 7” is a major influence here. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been listening to that record a lot recently (thanks Negative Insight zine!), but this has a very similar vibe, i.e. faster and more hardcore-sounding (i.e. less d-beat sounding) than Anti-Cimex, but just as noisy and raw. There is a reason that so many bands emulate that 7”, but it’s very rare that anyone even gets in the ballpark… Urchin definitely do though. It’s hard to imagine anything topping this for the title of “most raging record of the month.” Highly recommended.

Rashomon: Demo 2017 7” (Society Bleeds) Vinyl pressing from this DC hardcore band’s demo, and I’m happy for the chance to revisit it and have it on a slightly more permanent-feeling format, because this is one of my favorite demos of this year. Obviously Japanese hardcore is a big influence here given the band’s name and the fact that they sing in Japanese, but you can definitely hear that influence coming through in the music as well. Rashomon are a lot faster than what I typically think of as the burning spirits sound, putting them more in the area of Cry of Truth-era Warhead or perhaps faster Bastard songs like “Dear Cops.” However, they add some really killer lead playing on top that really gives Rashomon a distinctive sound. The leads are kind of squirrely and unexpected, nothing like the more neo-classical metallic leads that Chelsea played, but nearly as earworm-y nonetheless. It’s one of those rare recordings that both gives you that immediate, visceral charge of energy that you want from hardcore, but also has a lot of depth and nuance to keep you coming back for repeated listens. I really can’t recommend this one highly enough.

Humiliation: Laughing Wall 7” (High Fashion Industries) Second EP from this Phoenix band that has a couple of the guys who used to be in Gay Kiss. I mention that not only because you mention ex-members of in these types of things, but also because Humiliation have a very similar sound and vibe. Perhaps if you sucked a little bit of the mysterious guy HC / black metal vibes out of Gay Kiss and turned the “hardcore” knob up just a touch you’d have Humiliation. Fortunately, they also have those dark, quirky, and strange leads that bring to mind Rudimentary Peni, which definitely helps to elevate this a touch above your typical desperate hardcore kind of sound. The production is also huge and powerful… it’s an absolute crusher that will peel the paint off your walls if you turn it up loud enough. Highly recommended.

Permission: S/T 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus) Debut vinyl from this new UK band that—judging by the distinctive guitar sound—features Ralph from No and DiE on guitar. I’ve spent quite a lot of time with this Permission record, and I feel like no description that I can write is really going to do it justice, but I’ll try nevertheless. Part of the reason that I feel stymied is because this record has a very different feel than most hardcore records I hear nowadays. It seems like bands nowadays tend to focus a lot of their attention on nailing a particular style—whether it’s one that they’re directly adapting (less generous people might say copying) from a single band or trying to create something new out of a stew of a handful of influences—but I don’t get that sense with Permission. By contrast, Permission strike me as very expressionistic, that they’re less focused on what the end product of their music sounds like and more on accessing and grappling with whatever emotions, thoughts, feelings, or whatever motivates them to play music in the first place. So, when I say that this record reminds me of Rudimentary Peni, it’s less because any particular formal choice the band has made in songwriting or production reminds me of them (though there are a few that do, notably how the slightly out-of-tune double-tracked guitars remind me of the strange chorus effect on a lot of Rudi Peni records), but rather that this 12” seems to have the weight of deep psychological struggle behind it in a way that’s similar to some of the best Rudimentary Peni records, particularly Death Church. While this is sense of psychological or emotional depth is ostensibly what a lot of us are after in music, ironically it makes the music a little tougher to get into. This is music you have to engage with, that you have to open yourself to in order to receive anything from it. If you’re not prepared to do that, this might go in one ear and out the other, but for whose who take a step toward the band and attempt to enter their universe, the connection you establish to this album is bound to be much deeper and more profound.

Antichrist Siege Machine: Morbid Triumph 12” (Stygian Black Hand) Brief but compelling 7-song LP from this Richmond, Virginia death metal band. While I’m no scholar of metal in general or death metal specifically, I have to say this is a real bruiser. I’ve noticed a bit of a resurgence of old school death metal in the past few years and Antichrist Siege Machine is definitely part of that, though like a lot of other recent bands they seemed informed as much—if only subconsciously—by black metal. While ASM are definitely riff-based and raw—rather than “atmospheric” and deliberate, even pretentious, in their presentation in the way so many black metal bands were and are—you can also sense the specter of black metal lurking in the background. I hear this mostly in the recording quality, which is full, lush, organic, and analog-y; on the surface that’s pretty much the opposite of so much black metal (whether you’re talking about the ornate, symphonic kind or its bedroom-made cousin), but in another way it’s certainly of a piece with it. In other words, I don’t think that the original-era death metal bands—particular during their respective early eras—paid quite so much attention to how they sounded. And it’s really the sound that feels like the focus of Morbid Triumph… more than any particular riff or moment, what I take away from this record is its overwhelming atmosphere of wounded bleakness.

Cruz Somers: UV-B cassette (Big Dunce) I know absolutely nothing about Cruz Somers, but I sure do like this EP. This kind of vaguely garage-y, catchy punk with a drum machine is kind of a thing at the moment with bands like Racecar, S.B.F., and Stake, and if you’re interested in hearing bands like that at the moment then Cruz Somers is certainly worth checking out. It seems like some bands in this style really push the production super hard to the point where the texture of the recording is at least as important as the underlying songs, but these four tracks are extremely song-oriented. While the drum machine rhythms are very robotic and inhuman, the songs and the melodies (the vocal melodies in particular) are so memorable that you often forget about the robotic backing track. The singer’s voice and ear for melody also reminds me quite a bit of Chaz from Stake, so if you checked out that band’s tape on our recommendation and liked it I’d strongly recommend this one as well.

Bore Hole: demo cassette (Big Dunce) Debut cassette from this project out of LA, and I must say I’m really feeling this one. Given the artwork, the recording quality, and the Devo-esque rhythm that the first songs starts with you think this is going to be some pitched-down-the-middle Lumpy Records-type stuff (which is AOK by me, honestly), but this one quickly unravels. The first song, “Time In,” is a perfect case in point. It starts off with what could be a really good intro, but rather than go into something one might call a “song” it just wanders from part to increasingly bizarre part. The rhythms become more and more difficult to parse as the song goes on (I’m sure this is a live drummer because I don’t think drum machines can get this weird, but how does a human count this stuff out?) with the guitars gradually disintegrating into freeform jamming. The second track, “Sultan,” has a different arc, starting with the chaos, transitioning into a truly warped “breakdown” that makes you feel like you’re having a bad acid trip, then ending with another burst of chaos at the end. I won’t go through all of the tracks, but you get the picture. Even though the sound and vibe of this are both utterly different, this reminds me of the Housewives 12” I raved about a few months ago in its complete obliviousness to the unspoken rules that govern most music. But despite the fact that Bore Hole cleverly sidestep so many conventions (cliches?) this somehow still sounds totally punk. If you like your music as freaky as possible I really can’t recommend this one highly enough.

Resource Group: demo cassette (Big Dunce) Another cassette missive of weird punk from the Big Dunce crew, and interestingly this one comes from Savannah, Georgia rather than being based in the Los Angeles area like a lot of the other projects this label has released. I must admit that I don’t hear much of Savannah’s sleepy, swampy vibe coming through here… instead everything has a jittery and skittery vibe that makes this feel kind of cold and robotic even though it sounds like Resource Group is using live drums and guitar plays a much bigger role than it does in some similar bands. So, sound-wise this is more in the vein of stuff like Race Car that still sounds really punk rather than groups that get rid of the guitar entirely and go full synth. Songwriting-wise I’m also hearing a lot going on here… while the tape is quite short, the songs do seem to go places and to pull and push in interesting ways. If you’re into this whole chaotic, synth-based “weird punk” sound you should probably be checking out everything on Big Dunce, and Resource Group is no exception to that rule.

The Brain: S/T 7” (High Fashion Industries) Debut (I think?) 7” from this band out of Toronto. Here you get two long-ish (one four and a half minutes, one six and a half minutes) songs that take two different approaches to the whole idea of “psychedelic punk.” To me, the Brain sound like Hawkwind and Husker Du smashed together, sometimes uncomfortably but often intriguingly. On the a-side the approach is to take the surface-level elements of psychedelia—namely loose and spacey guitar sounds and licks—and apply these to the standard pop template. It’s a tried and true approach and it works here. For me, though, things get more interesting on the b-side, where that conventional song structure dissolves and the Brain embraces psychedelia more deeply, alternating between a propulsive motorik-esque beat and looser parts that sound like they might have been inspired by the jam-ier bits of the first Stooges album. All in all the Brain remind me of some of the bands on the Wharf Cat Records roster… groups like the Ukiah Drag or Cottaging that might have a background steeped in punk and hardcore but have widened their scope to take in influence from 60s and 70s psych, progressive 80s post-punk like the Gun Club or Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, and maybe even a touch of improvisational music. Of course this kind of music is generally more at home on a full-length than a single, but these two songs definitely hold my attention and have me intrigued about what a full-length might hold.

Combatant: Sick Plot 7” (Not Like You) Here’s a record and band that I literally know nothing about, but I have a rule that I’ll check out any record with a be-wigged judge on the cover, and that rule has rarely steered me wrong. Here we have some gnarly early NYHC-inspired stuff… this pretty much sounds like an exact 50/50 mix between the Abused and Antidote. It’s got Antidote’s slightly cleaner production and more metallic guitar sound, but the Abused’s gruffness and cool little stop/start patterns. While there isn’t a lot to surprise you here, if you got a whole lot of spins out of that Chain Rank LP from a while back I think your own wig might get flipped by this one.

USA/Mexico: Laredo 12” (12XU) Debut LP from this gnarly new Texas band featuring King Coffey of the Butthole Surfers / Hugh Beaumont Experience. While die-hard Buttholes fans will certainly find plenty to like here, USA/Mexico are much more straightforward “noise rock,” building most of their songs around a similar combination of impossibly blown out bass, noise guitar that sounds straight off of a Confuse record, and pounding, repetitive drums. The formula is not dissimilar to what the Melvins have done at various points of their career, but I like this SO much better than any Melvins I’ve ever heard. The Melvins have always just sounded like a kind of boring rock band to me, but Laredo sounds like music turned inside-out… it’s as if rock music has had its skin flayed off and is walking around with just exposed muscle and tissue so you can tell it’s human, but it looks like no human you’ve ever seen before. While this is undeniably ugly, it’s also music that pushes me toward a meditative state… the bass is so impossibly deep and thick that it almost seems to be massaging my body with sound waves, and the droning drum beats free my mind to wander. For such an ugly, confrontational record this is a surprisingly enjoyable listen.

All New Arrivals
Jets to Brazil: Orange Rhyming Dicitonary 12" (Epitaph)
Jets to Brazil: Four Cornered Night 12" (Epitaph)
Jets to Brazil: Perfecting Loneliness 12" (Epitaph)
Mastodon: Blood Mountain 12" (picture disc; Reprise)
Mastodon: Crack the Skye 12" (picture disc; Reprise)
Green Day: Dookie 12" (picture disc; Reprise)
My Chemical Romance: I Brought You My Bullets 12" (picture disc; Reprise)
Mastodon: The Hunter 12" (picture disc; Reprise)
The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots 12" (picture disc; Warner Bros)
My Chemical Romance: Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge 12" (picture disc; Reprise)
Protomartyr: Relatives in Dissent 12" (Domino)
The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die: Always Foreign 12" (Epitaph)
Alice Cooper: Love It to Death 12" (Rhino)
The Velvet Underground: Loaded 12" (Rhino)
Thin Lizzy: Live and Dangerous 12" (Rhino)
Skid Row: B-Side Ourselves 12" (Rhino)
Testament: The Legacy 12" (Rhino)
Various: Wayne's World OST 12" (Rhino)
Alice Cooper: Pretties for You 12" (Rhino)
Jane's Addiction: Nothing's Shocking 12" (Rhino)
Through the Eyes of the Dead: Disomus 12" (E One)
No Warning: Torture Culture 12" (Last Gang)
Skinny Puppy: Bites 12" (Nettwerk)
Skinny Puppy: Remission 12" (Nettwerk)
Samael: Hegemony 12" (Napalm)
Motorhead: Under Cover 12" (Motorhead)
Of Montreal: Rune Husk 12" (Polyvinyl)
The Replacements: For Sale: Live at Maxwell's 1986 12" (Sire)
Sepultura: Chaos AD (expanded edition) 12" (Roadrunner)
Mastodon: Emperor of Sand 12" (Reprise)
Citizen: As You Please 12" (Run for Cover)
Metallica: Hardwired... to Self Destruct 12" (pink vinyl; Blackened)
Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga 12" (Merge)
Bully: Losing 12" (Sub Pop)
Don Caballero: Singles Breaking Up 12" (Touch & Go)
R. Ring: Ignite the Rest 12" (Sofaburn)
Destroyer: Ken 12" (Merge)
John Carpenter: Anthology: Movie Themes 1974-1998 12"+7" (Sacred Bones)
Pageninetynine: Document #5 12" (Reptilian)
Big Huge: Cruel World 12" (Erste Theke)
Rashōmon: Demo 2017 7" (Society Bleeds)
Klazo: Embarrassed of Living 12" (It's Trash)
Various: Killed by Meth Vol 2 12" (It's Trash)
The Brain: S/T 7" (High Fashion Industries)
Humiliation: Laughing Wall 7" (High Fashion Industries)
Brainstorm / Battle of Disarm: Join No Army Police And Politician / Anti-War 12" (Rest in Punk)
Lebenden Toten: Static 12" (self-released)
Discard: Four Minutes Past Midnight 12" (Unrest)
Brainbombs: Obey 12" (Armageddon)
Brainbombs: Singles Collection 12" (Armageddon)
Aus Rotten: And Now Back to Our... 12" (Profane Existence)
City of Caterpillar: S/T 12" (Repeater)
Born Wrong: S/T 12" (Schizophrenic)
LSD: 1983 to 1986 12" (Schizophrenic)
Sons of Ishmael: Hayseed Hardcore 12" (Schizophrenic)
Neanderthal: A History of Violence 12" (Deep Six)
Slam: Wild Riders of Boards 7" (Not Like You)
Combatant: Sick Plot 7" (Not Like You)
Doom: Police Bastard 7" (Profane Existence)
Zellots: S/T 7" flexi (Supreme Echo)
Twitch: Mess with the Bull 7" (Supreme Echo)
Triton Warrior: Satan's Train 7" (Supreme Echo)
Jerk Ward: Too Young to Thrash 12" (Supreme Echo)
Twitch: Dark Years 12" (Supreme Echo)
Sphex: Time 7" (Supreme Echo)
Kid Chrome: Demons / W.A.I.G.D.? 7" (Goodbye Boozy)
bAd bAd: Modern Man / Prepare To Coup 7" (Goodbye Boozy)
Aquarian Blood: Right Between Yer Eyes / Sleep 7" (Goodbye Boozy)
Giantology: Hold Me Down / The Great Refrigerator 7" (Goodbye Boozy)
Sewer Cide: Wire / Vape Escape 7" (Goodbye Boozy)
Fire Heads: Sleep At Night / Hardly There 7" (Goodbye Boozy)
Resource Group: demo cassette (Big Dunce)
Bore Hole: demo cassette (Big Dunce)
Cruz Somers: UV-B cassette (Big Dunce)
Loincloth: Psalm of the Morbid 12" (Southern Lord)
Testament: The Ritual 12" (Metal Blade)
Unsane: Sterilize 12" (Southern Lord)
Ted Leo: The Hanged Man 12" (Super Ego)
Kadavar: Rough Times 12" (Nuclear Blast)
Faceless Burial: Grotesque Miscreation 12" (Iron Lung)
Condition: Subjugated Fate 7" (Iron Lung)
Antichrist Siege Machine: Morbid Triumph 12" (Stygian Black Hand)
Barrow Wight: Kings in Sauron's Service 12" (Stygian Black Hand)
Plague: Silenced by Death 7" (Stygian Black Hand)
United Void: Doomsday Clock 7" (Babysworld)
Slender: Walled Garden 7" (La Vida Es Un Mus)
Permission: S/T 12" (La Vida Es Un Mus)
Warwound: Burning The Blindfolds of Bigots 12" (Unrest)
The DSS: Temple of Heat cassette (self-released)
Urchin: Peace Sign 7" (Roach Leg)
Jackal: demo cassette (self-released)
Nightfall: Deadly Game 7" (Ryvvolte)
BETOE / Besthoven: Tribute to Shitlickers 7" (Ryvvolte)
Eye Jammy: Live at the BBQ cassette (self-released)
Judy & the Jerks: Alive at the Skatepark cassette (self-released)
Active Minds: The Age of Mass Distraction 12" (SPHC)
Dendö Marionette: 傀儡電伝 12" (Bitter Lake)
Extended Hell: S/T 7" (Brain Solvent Propaganda)
Glorious?: Neverending Butchery 7" (Brain Solvent Propaganda)
Aspects of War: A Look Into the Nightmare cassette (Brain Solvent Propaganda)
Mujeres Podridas: S/T 7" (Symphony of Destruction)
Lubricant: 2017 flexi 7" (Symphony of Destruction)
Kold Front: S/T 7" (Symphony of Destruction)
Black Dahlia Murder: Nightbringers 12" (Metal Blade)
Haemorrhage: We Are the Core 12" (Relapse)
Primitive Man: Caustic 12" (Relapse)
Birds of Avalon: Operator's Midnight 12" (Third Uncle)
Last Sentence: Solitude cassette (Doomed to Extinction)
Massacre 68: Sembrando Muertos cassette (Doomed to Extinction)
Romanticne Boje: 1983-84 cassette (Doomed to Extinction)
Patsy: LA Women 12" (La Vida Es Un Mus)
Neon: Neon Is Life cassette (self-released)
Publique: Outlying Self 12" (Burning Rose)
Collate: Material Inspection cassette (self-released)
EEL: Night Parade of 100 Demons 12" (Beach Impediment)
Altarage: Endinghent 12" (Season of Mist)
Blink 182: Enema of the State 12" (SRC)
Enslaved: E 12" (Nuclear Blast)
Lillingtons: Stella Sapiente 12" (Fat Wreck)
Stick to Your Guns: True View 12" (Pure Noise)
Gen Pop: S/T 7" (Lumpy)
U-Nix: S/T 7" (Lumpy)
Vanilla Poppers: S/T 12" (Lumpy)
The World: First World Record 12" (Lumpy)
Trash Knife: TK 7" (FDH)
Ydinaseeton Pohjola: Synny, Kärsit, Kuolet, Unohdut 12" (Nightstick Justice)
Darfür: 8 Tracks E.P. 12" (Nightstick Justice)
Wound: S/T 12" (Nightstick Justice)
Uncle Acid: Vol 1 12" (Rise Above)
Death: Individual Thought Patterns 12" (Relapse)
Brand New: Science Fiction 12" (Procrastinate! Music Traitors)
GWAR: The Blood of Gods 12" (Metal Blade)

Restocks
Rash: Skinner Box 12" (High Fashion Industries)
Life's Blood: Hardcore AD 12" (Prank)
Accused: The Return of Martha Splatterhead 12" (Unrest)
World Burns to Death: A Dream Dies Every Day 12" (Analogue Violence)
X: Los Angeles 12" (Porterhouse)
Dicks: Hate the Police 7" (1234 Go!)
Zero Boys: Livin' in the 80s 7" (1234 Go!)
Marduk: Fuck Me Jesus 12" (Osmose)
DAUÐYFLIN: Ofbeldi 12" (Iron Lung)
Flesh World: The Wild Animals in My Life 12" (Iron Lung)
Iron Lung: Life.Iron Lung.Death 12" (Iron Lung)
Mozart: Nasty 7" (Iron Lung)
Total Control: Typical System 12" (Iron Lung)
Crisis: Kollectiv 12" (La Vida Es Un Mus)
The Nurse: Discography 12" (La Vida Es Un Mus)
Sacrificio: Pulidores de Tumbas 12" (SPHC)
Exit Hippies: Dance Maniac 12" (SPHC)
Warthog: S/T 7" (Beach Impediment)
Fried Egg: Back and Forth 7" (Beach Impediment)
Concealed Blade: S/T 12" (Beach Impediment)
Blood Pressure: S/T 12" (Beach Impediment)
Entombed: Left Hand Path 12" (Earache)
Iron Maiden: Number of the Beast 12" (Sanctuary)
Iron Maiden: S/T 12" (Sanctuary)
Iron Maiden: Killers 12" (Sanctuary)
Can: Tago Mago 12" (Spoon)
Hawkwind: Space Ritual 12" (Parlophone)
Green Day: Kerplunk 12" (Reprise)
Joy Division: Closer 12" (Rhino)
David Bowie: Ziggy Stardust 12" (Parlophone)
David Bowie: Hunky Dory 12" (Parlophone)
Motorhead: Iron Fist 12" (Sanctuary)
Motorhead: Ace of Spades 12" (Sanctuary)
Operation Ivy: Energy 12" (Epitaph)
The Cure: Disintegration 12" (Rhino)
The Cure: Three Imaginary Boys 12" (Rhino)
The Replacements: Let It Be 12" (Rhino)
Metallica: Ride the LIghtning 12" (Blackened)
Parquet Courts: Human Performance 12" (Rough Trade)
Celtic Frost: Morbid Tales 12" (Noise)
Celtic Frost: To Mega Therion 12" (Noise)

Wow. We have a ton of great stuff in so I thought it'd be a good time to do one of these.

First up we have a batch of new singles from the great Goodbye Boozy Records.

Probably my favorite is the Kid Chrome single. This thing is super intense and wild. The easiest comparison is The Spits but this is much more than just a knock off. At points it reminds me of Roky Ericson in a much more frantic way. The only dissapointing thing about this record was when I flipped it over wanting more and being crushed to find out it's one a one sided single. Still both of these songs are rippers. FFO: Punk and drum machines.

Next up is bAd bAd from Oakland. Pretty wild unhinged garage rock with lots of fun surfy guitar lines thrown in. I really dig this song, I feel like it's one of the more interesting garage songs I've heard in a while and makes me feel like they would be intense and fun to see live.

New band with Bobby Hussy. You should know by now that he is a hit making machine. This is garage rock done right.

There's even more great stuff from Goodbye Boozy in our store so check it all out HERE

I've been excited about this one for a bit. Neon truly is life. Super feedback drenched with vocals that are just drilling in to your skull through repetition. It reminds me of a cartoon car that just keeps on speeding along while all the pieces are falling off to comedically end with just the driver speeding down the road sans car. Neon is definitely one for the freaks out there.

Weird synth punk from Japan? Yes you have my attention. Well punk might be a stretch. Frozen Edge is a pretty wild song with tons of energy and a lot of weirdness that I love. Then most of the rest of the album is sparce and cold synth textures with a few more upbeat tracks mixed in. Definitely a cool release that is super well done and recommended for all those synth weirdos out there.

Do you like noodley guitars and big hooks? Look no further than Big Huge. A seemingly unlikely cast of characters from NY playing sacharine pop with that rock toughness. Also there's leads for days.

We've been getting a lot of killer new punk and hardcore in at the shop so I think it's time for a quick run-down! First up is my personal favorite of the batch, the new 12" from Pittsburgh's EEL. While EEL have always had a distinct Japanese hardcore influence, this time around they're a whole lot more G.I.S.M. and less Confuse. Further, rather than just aping particular aspects of G.I.S.M.'s sound, EEL have really internalized that band's weirdly psychedelic feel. The songs sound really different from one another and the whole record feels like a real psychedelic journey in the way that few punk and hardcore records do. Obviously I can't recommend this one highly enough:

Next up is another blistering 45RPM 12", this time from New Orleans' Patsy. You may remember them from the two singles they released on Total Punk Records a while back. The 12" is along those same lines, but to me sounds a little freer, with Candice's vocals in particular going to really weird places with these strange criss-crossing melodies that push against the rest of the song. It's very unique, so check it out:

Moving to the 7"s, we've got the debut 7" from the Pacific Northwest's United Void. If you're a fan of the knuckle-dragging hardcore of bands like Dirty Work, Testa Dura, or Negative FX this is well worth checking out. The recording is nice and raw and it has that really authentic early 80s feel that so many bands go for but so few bands achieve:

Next up is the new 7" from Condition. It's been a while since we last heard from Condition and I feel like there's been a slight change in their sound for Subjugated Fate. While d-beat is still at the center of everything, it's more metallic and almost has a crossover feel, particularly on the mid-paced parts which sound tailor-made to inspire huge circle pits.

Next we have a new EP from Sweden's Glorious? released to coincide with their recent US tour. Unfortunately I wasn't able to catch them on this tour, but my buddy Usman did and he said they totally ripped. Thankfully I still have this killer new EP to assuage my feelings of loss:

We'll wrap things up with something a little bit different: a new cassette from New Jersey's the DSS. Everyone here at Sorry State fell in love with their previous cassette, which was a kind of raw, dirty metal-punk hybrid that sounded totally fresh and exciting... and they even covered "Fuck Like a Beast" by W.A.S.P.! This time around it's all DSS, but the freshness of the first tape is still very much here. If you like your metal raw, dirty, sleazy, and with a big spoonful of punk rock on top I can't recommend this band highly enough. Hopefully they release some vinyl soon!

Continuing on with having a new theme or topic for each week’s blog post, this week we are discussing game changing records. Albums that changed the way you thought about a certain genre, scene or band, or that opened your interpretation for how you look at it. I’ve been struggling to find the crucial albums that helped to shift the way I perceive certain bands or genres. As Seth stated in his blog , I can’t really recall any “AH-HA” moments that drastically shifted my taste or the way I perceived something to be. However, I think as I got older my musical palate started to expand to include things outside of my usual routine. Here is one album that I can definitively say guided me along the way:

Magrudergrind-S/T 12”:  When I was 15 I was way into skramz and screamo, and I was just starting to get my feet wet with hardcore punk. Around this time I went with some friends to see Leftover Crack at St. Stephen’s church in Washington D.C.. As much as I was excited to see Leftover Crack (a band that I had really been digging at the time) I was also excited to see the Max Levine Ensemble, a local pop punk outfit that opened the show and that seemed to be loved by the locals (just trying to paint a picture of what I was into at the time). One of the other opening bands was Magrudergrind, who I had never heard before. The 3-piece group (vocalist, guitarist, and drummer) ripped through their set and I remember my friend Paul saying, “Dude, they were so good”, to which I believe I replied with, “Really? I thought that sucked!”. My 15 year old music taste hadn’t expanded enough to include that kind of raw and chaotic sound. Paul always had a way of being ahead of the curve…

Fast forward about a year a later and I’m at a New Year’s Eve party at a punk house in D.C. and my buddy put on the new Magrudergrind record. I remember being absolutely floored, and after discovering it was Magrudergrind I felt like a total idiot. I feel like this album is extremely accessible. The recording quality is top notch, the riffs are heavy, and it’s extremely catchy. It was just the right record I needed to hear at that age, and it opened my mind up to exploring metal, grind and powerviolence (which before this point, I hadn’t really listened to at all). Now, I would not say that I am by any means a metal head now, but this album is what opened me up to exploring things outside of my limited taste at the time. This record quickly became one of my most listened to throughout my high school years. Tracks like “Lyrical Ammunition For Scene Warfare” and “Bridge Burner” were the jams I blare out of car speakers as I was leaving my school parking lot. After this album dropped Magrudergrind played locally a lot, and I took every opportunity I could get to see them play.

I’d be lying if I said that I have been keeping up much of what this band is up to now, but looking back on it was just what I was craving at that time. Even as I give this album another listen while writing, I find myself punching the air and head-banging.

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Things that rock:

Sow: Demo Cassette- In the wake of Kommunion, Sow busts out a sick demo (which I would expect seeing as these two groups share 3 members). This relatively new group based out of Charlottesville and Richmond, VA doesn’t disappoint. Marina has always been one of my favorite hardcore vocalists drawing back to her days playing in Last Words (an old Raleigh band from about 5 years ago). The vocal delivery is ferocious, and when accompanied by solid/tight hardcore riffs makes for one of my favorite releases so far this year.

Grab It Here :)

 

Rashomon: Demo 7”- You may have heard this demo on cassette earlier this year, and if you heard what I heard I think it was only fair that these tracks got pressed on vinyl.  Hailing from Washington, D.C. and featuring members from other notable bands such as Sick Fix, Pure Disgust, Kombat, and many more, this 5 piece blazes through 6 perfectly executed punk bangers. I can hear that this band seems to pay homage to other DC bands that predate them such as Void. Something that I really like about this band is the use of leads, which I think might be a product of guitarist Daniel’s writing style, seeing as it reminds me a lot of Kombat. Very excited to see what Rashomon does next!

click bait (get it while it's hot)

 

Oxidant: Deconstruct 7”-  Hailing from right here in Raleigh, Oxidant’s debut 7” features 12 tracks of ripping powerviolence. In the year 2017, it is rare that I hear too many new bands in this vein that really grab me. Oxidant is the exception. Clearly you can hear influence from the pioneers of the genre such as No Comment, Crossed out, and Infest. What really brings this band home for me is their live performance. I’m not sure if they have any plans to tour, but if you ever have an opportunity to see them I wouldn’t sleep on it.

Freakin' hell ya, we'll sell it to ya

 

 

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My band Concussion is playing tonight in Greensboro, go check it out:

https://www.facebook.com/events/129180357724944/

Cya soon,

E. Chubb

 

It's been a minute since we've done a run-down of new stuff coming in at the store, and as usual there's no shortage of good tunes to reinvigorate your playlist!

Let's do the 7"s first. First up is one of my favorite demos from last year pressed to vinyl, from DC's Rashomon. While they're clearly inspired by classic Japanese hardcore, it's noisier and messier than that, arriving at something that has a lot of the things I like about the bands they're inspired by (Death Side, Bastard, et al) but also feels really new and fresh:

Next up we have a new EP from raw hardcore punks Urchin. Their last EP was a real standout, combining the grittiness of a lot of New York punk from the last decade with the more retro sensibility of a lot of New England bands from the same period. It's a real best of both worlds scenario and the new EP absolutely shreds:

Next up we have the Laughing Wall EP from Arizona's Humiliation. If you're as bummed as we are about Gay Kiss breaking up, this should help to ease your pain. While Humiliation aren't the same band as Gay Kiss, they have a similarly desperate and intense sound, and I think it's a sure bet that if you like one band you'll like the other:

Finishing up the "little vinyl" category we have an EP from New York's Slender. This is on La Vida Es Un Mus, but it's something a little different for the label... it's kind of introverted music that sounds like it was made on an old 4-track. Moments remind me of something like Death in June, but I'm sure that someone more steeped in this kind of thing could say a lot more about it. It says a lot that LVEUM would put this out, so I think it's well worth giving it a try:

Now moving over to the "big vinyls" (as our normie customers call them), we have another killer new release from LVEUM, the debut record from the UK's Permission. Permission features Ralph from No on guitar, and if you're a follower of his distinctively claustrophobic and ornate take on hardcore this is a 100% must-buy:

Switching gears a bit, Protomartyr have a new album! You've doubtlessly heard about this one in "NOT PUNK" venues like your local NPR affiliate, Pitchfork, and the relentless Facebook ads that I've been seeing for it, but Protomartyr come from the same DIY punk scene as us and in my opinion they're still grounded enough in all of that that their current material still deserves a listen. I've only had a chance to spin this once and it strikes me as a darker and more difficult album than their last two, but every Protomartyr album clicks with me after a few listens and this one will be no different I'm sure. Oh, and if you're into that kind of thing we have the limited edition, indie-exclusive blue vinyl in stock:

If you're looking for something a little noiser and nastier, we just got in copies of the Brainstorm / Battle of Disarm split LP, which originally came out in 1993 and has just been repressed. Brainstorm were from Yugoslavia and played a kind of thrashy crust, while Battle of Disarm were from Japan and played noisy, nasty crust that's gross in all of the right ways.

Wrapping up the "punk" section of this post, we have the brand new second volume in the Killed by Meth compilation series. Collecting the best bands from the rust belt of the US and Canada, this time around you get tracks from familiar faces like Erik Nervous, Beastman, Radiation Risks, and Protruders, and a whole heap of new faces as well. And if you still need Volume 1 we have you covered on that too.

Now, if you've been patiently reading this post and thinking to yourself "WHERE'S THE FUCKIN' METAL DUDE?" your patience will be rewarded! We have two new releases from the excellent Stygian Black Hand label, the first of which is the new LP from Barrow Wight:

And we'll wrap things up with the debut LP from Antichrist Siege Machine, a punishing new death metal band featuring a bunch of familiar faces from the Richmond, Virginia punk scene, including members of Left Cross, Asylum, and many more I'm sure.