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It's been a few days since we've posted anything new to the blog, so I'm sure all of you are jonesing for some new tunes. Here's where we point you toward some!

First up we have a couple of new demos out of the fertile Northwest Indiana punk scene. Though it's been on Bandcamp for a while, we just grabbed physical copies of the demo tape from The Pornography Glows, a new band featuring members of Big Zit, among many other bands. Porno Glows has a lot of Big Zit's quirkiness, but rather than applying it in a hardcore context, this is more like jittery and fairly minimalist punk in the vein of the Urinals or even (in places) something like the Dead Milkmen:

Next up we have a band that shares a member with Porno Glows, Jean Jam. Jean Jam are a little more straightforward, playing that style that falls right on the border between punk and hardcore, which is one of my favorite subgenre spaces:

While we're hanging around the general Chicago area, let's check out this demo by Blystex. This demo was released on Foreign Legion Records, who has been putting out some really cool oi! over the past few years, but Blystex have more of a raw early punk sound. The fact that the singer sings in Spanish makes this recall the cadence of early Spanish punk like Ultimo Resorte, though I wouldn't be surprised if these folks had their fair share of UK82 classics in their collections as well.

Next we go full hardcore with the debut 7" from Testa Dura, a new band featuring Giacaomo, the drummer from Torsö, on vocals. The obvious inspiration here is classic Italian hardcore... it's a little more on the punk end of things than, say, Wretched... I'm getting a real Peggio Punx vibe personally, but if you like raw and nasty old Italian hardcore I would strongly recommend giving this a listen, as it's about as authetnic a take on the style as you're likely to find:

Next we head to Finland (which sounds good right about now as we're in the midst of a brutal heat wave here in North Carolina) for the demo from Puhelinseksi. Playing melodic punk with touches of oi! as well as the dark quality of Swedish bands like Masshysteri and Allvaret, this might be a little earnest for some of you out there but I think it sounds really fresh:

Next let's head out to Australia and get freaky with the debut EP from Spotting. Continuing the long string of great synth-punk bands coming out of that country over the past few years, this seems to bridge the gap between the swooshing synth sounds of Ausmuteants or UV Race with the songcraft of more '77-inspired bands like Helta Skelta:

We'll finish things up with a couple of new singles on the almighty Total Punk level. I guess that I wasn't the only one who noticed that Andy Human & the Reptoids have been steadily getting better and better, and I'm stoked that they've moved to a label that will get the right people listening to them. And of course a track as great as "Refrigerator" is going to help that process along:

And finally, the new EP from Cleveland's Rubber Mate. Dark, weird, and uncomfortable, yet totally punk (naturally), if you're a fan of the demented sounds of Darvocets or Homostupids this should be a band you are watching very, very closely...

Apologies for the blog being a little quiet lately. Not only did I miss last week’s post, but Jeff and Seth were also both MIA for their scheduled posts this week… maybe we’ll just forget that week existed and move on from there? I feel like the lack of activity is a combination of it being really oppressively hot and muggy here in Raleigh—weather that makes you want to sit around and do absolutely nothing—and the store being really busy. We’re still not out of the cash crunch I mentioned last time by any stretch of the imagination, but we’ve been managing to fill up all of our time nonetheless, mostly pricing killer used stock for the store and bringing in a bunch of extremely cool new releases, many of which will be discussed below.

For the past few weeks my personal listening diet has been focused heavily on the new Sheer Mag and Impalers albums—both of which I like a whole lot—but when I’m not spinning the two of those relentlessly I’ve been spending a lot of time listening to looser, jam-ier and more experimental music. The reissue of Yoko Ono’s Fly that came out last week prompted me to sit down with that album for the first time in a while, and then at the Kombat show the other night Matt from Public Acid / Menthol mentioned that he’d been really into Miles Davis’s On the Corner lately, which prompted me to pull out that album. Man, what a record! It’s kind of Miles’s homage to Sly & the Family Stone and James Brown, but the density of rhythms on it (there is a LOT of percussion… like maybe even more than a Fela Kuti record) surpasses those records, and a lot of the playing and soloing on it is completely wild. This kind of improvisation has become really interesting to me… hearing how far bands and players can take a melody to where it’s virtually unrecognizable. But, then again, On the Corner doesn’t really have melodies, just groove, but somehow your ear makes sense of it anyway and interesting things are happening in your ears and brain pretty much constantly. It’s a real joy. Thanks so much, Matt, for reminding me about that record.

Sheer Mag: Need to Feel Your Love 12” (Wilsuns) Like a lot of people, I’m sure, I wondered how Sheer Mag would navigate the transition to full-length, but it doesn’t appear to have been much of a hurdle. My experience with Need to Feel Your Love was pretty much exactly the same as it was with the band’s previous EPs. On the first listen I have a hard time hearing the hooks and I wonder if I’m over the band. On the second listen I start to hear some of the hooks, and I think to myself “there are some pretty good songs on this, but also some I don’t get it.” Then on the third listen I’m pretty much in love with every moment, and I play it to death over the next several weeks. Need to Feel Your Love is, however, quite stylistically different than the band’s earlier stuff, but it’s something you really only realize when you reflect on it, because the band still plays to their same basic strengths, but they take those strengths into new areas. “Meet Me in the Street” and “Turn It Up” are pure 80s radio rock… while radio-friendly hair metal isn’t a bad comparison, what those songs really remind me of is what Jeff likes to call “cowboy boot metal,” i.e. bands like Dangerous Toys and Junkyard that injected a distinct Skynyrd / southern rock vibe into the hair metal formula. I love both of those songs, but the real gems on this album, for me, are the tracks where Sheer Mag goes full Jackson 5. The disco-funk of the title track is up there with the very best songs that Sheer Mag has written, and is the clearly highlight of the album for me. While I tend to prefer the hard-hitting a-side tracks over the spacier, country-inflected songs on the b-side, there isn’t a track here that I want to skip. This honestly far exceeds my (pretty lofty) expectations for a Sheer Mag full length, and I’ve already played it so much that this will probably be the record that I associate with the summer of 2017 for many years to come. I’m sure this band will continue to have its haters, but for me they remain one of the most vital and exciting bands to come out of the punk scene for the past several years, but even more than that Need to Feel Your Love is just a blast to listen to.

Vittna: demo cassette (self-released) I’m not sure how much Jeff is going to hype his own band’s demo, so I wanted to make sure that everyone knows how hard this rips. Vittna features much of the core of the sadly-departed Blackball, along with new face Sea Bass on vocals, but you can tell that Vittna is a concerted effort to do things a little bit differently. While Blackball felt largely like a “back to basics” affair, Vittna seems to push forward into something a little more distinctive and original, primarily by incorporating the quirky rhythms and more complex chords of bands like Die Kreuzen and Nog Watt into the foundation of straightforward, US-meets-Sweden hardcore. Yeah, there are plenty of riffs that are blistering, crushing, et al, and the vocals are completely savage, but what really stands out about this demo is the overall vibe, which is slightly dark and spooky… again, sort of like the first Die Kreuzen album, but with an added layer of claustrophobia and misanthropy. Additionally, while a lot of punk demos can feel very tossed-off, this feels fully conceptualized in every respect, from the density of the songwriting (both musically and lyrically), the subtlety of the recording (which is excellent, but still raw and in your face), and even the artwork, which uses a cool little transparent overlay to give it a slight 3D effect. This is, without a doubt, one of the standout demos of 2017.

Judy & the Jerks: 3 Songs from Us to You cassette (self-released) Brand new 3-song cassette from this band out of the unexpectedly fertile (for punk rock, at least) land of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I remember being blown away by Judy & the Jerks’ first tape, but we under-ordered it and it went out of stock before I really got a chance to let it sink in. I rectified that problem with this new tape, and of course immediately grabbed a copy for myself so that I can play it into the ground. If you haven’t heard Judy & the Jerks before, they play hardcore punk, but rather than (like a lot of bands) being grounded in heavier stuff and noisy d-beat, Judy & the Jerks seem more like the sped-up, sarcastic punk of bands like the Circle Jerks and the Dead Kennedys. Like those bands, the playing is tight, fast, and unexpectedly melodic, and the vocals have a ton of personality and character rather than just being someone yelling at you in the same pitch and timbre for a few minutes straight. The closest comparison that I can think of in terms of the overall approach is Warm Bodies, but Judy & the Jerks aren’t nearly as musically out there as Warm Bodies… they’re certainly not as musically irreverent, and they even have a pretty straightforward hardcore breakdown in one track. If your tastes extend across the divide between the more straightforward hardcore scenes and Lumpy / Neck Chop Records-style quirkiness then I would say this is a no-brainer (and will probably be one of your favorite new bands as well!), but even if you’re solidly in one of those camps or the other I would highly recommend checking this out… it’s really something special.

Pollen: Fear of Another War 7” (Brain Solvent Propaganda) I remember when Pollen’s last EP came out I listened to it twice, in its entirety, at 33RPM rather than 45, being blown away by what I thought was the best death metal record I’d heard in years. While it was still really good on 45, I honestly kind of preferred it on 33. Well, I wonder if the folks in Pollen did the same thing, because what I liked so much about the slowed-down version of their last EP actually comes across pretty well on Fear of Another War when played at the correct speed. At this point, Pollen are so raw and so gross-sounding that they’ve transcended d-beat… while their foundation (particularly in terms of their visual aesthetic) is clearly still grounded in that scene, I feel like Fear of Another War sounds way more like Napalm Death’s Scum than any d-beat record that I can think of, even super noisy stuff like D-Clone or Zyanose (though it is actually comparable to some of the very rawest Disclose stuff). For me, there’s some kind of invisible line between music that is, at its core, rock and roll, and stuff that is more like industrial music… it’s not about dancing, but rather about reflecting a bleak reality. Pollen are definitively on the other side of that line… when I listen to this record I don’t want to thrash around, I just want to lie on my back and let the fucked-ness of it all wash over me. If you come to this record looking for riffs you are going to be sorely disappointed, but if you like hardcore that teeters on the edge of industrial and noise music (i.e. you’ve checked out Merzbow and not immediately thought “this isn’t for me”), then you need to check this out. It’s definitely one of the most extreme and punishing records I’ve heard in some time.

Impalers: Cellar Dweller 12” (540) The day that this thing hit Bandcamp I remember asking Jeff, “have you heard that new Impalers yet?” and we both just looked at each other purely flabbergasted at how great it is. After their last record it’s kind of hard to imagine how Impalers could have gotten better… Psychedelic Snutskallar was already such a perfect hardcore record, and there really wasn’t anywhere to go in terms of getting faster, meaner, tighter, or whatever. So it seems, from my perspective at least, that Impalers didn’t even really try to do any of those things; they just made some more songs that just happen to be even better than their last batch of songs. I mean, not much has changed… this is still a pure hardcore record, and if anything it’s a more straightforward one than the last LP. However, there are all of these incremental improvements that are hard to put your finger on, but just make everything better. The one thing that really jumps out at me about Cellar Dweller is the vocals. For heavy hardcore bands like this, the vocalist is usually just fighting to be heard, screaming and yelling as loud as they possibly can in order to compete with the electronically-enhanced bashing of the other instruments. However, on this record Chris’s vocals have a real sense of dynamics… not only are there different approaches (like on the instantly-memorable “Technology”), but also there are all of these smaller moments where the vocals do something really memorable and exciting, whether it’s a perfectly-timed grunt or an unhinged, cathartic scream a la Barney from Napalm Death. And then there’s the epic closing track, which is a reworked version of the title track (which appeared on an earlier tour tape) with no vocals and an epic, 3-minute-long guitar solo. So, while those are the things I like about it, at the end of the day all I can really say about this record is that it’s a perfectly realized statement. That also extends to the details of the physical product… the mastering on the vinyl is crushingly loud and powerful, the jacket artwork is beautiful (and as subtly innovative as the music), and it also comes with a huge poster with full-color illustrations for every single track. Cellar Dweller is such a next-level statement that it’s bound to be near the top of everyone’s year-end list, so you might as well just go ahead and get it so that you can have something to talk about when all of your friends start jibber-jabbering to you about how great this record is.

Kombat: S/T 7” (Hysteria) This EP had a little bit of hype behind it, so I checked it out despite not having listened to the band’s previous demo tape, and honestly on that first experience it was kind of in one ear out the other… but really, that probably had more to do with me than the record, because a few nights later Kombat played in Raleigh and blew the doors off the place. Their set was, without a doubt, the single best set of live hardcore that I’ve seen in years. I mean, we have some seriously great bands in North Carolina and I see killer touring bands regularly, but Kombat felt like they were playing exactly my vision of what hardcore should be. There were no breakdowns, they were playing as fast as they could possibly play, and while the music was stripped-down and raw, they also were clearly pushing themselves to play at the very edge of their ability as players. They kind of reminded me of a band trying to play along to the SOA 7” at 78RPM, but they were also more than that, the guitarist in particular throwing in all of these complex but non-shred-y bits that elevated the songs to another level. So, after that experience I revisited this EP and of course I liked it a lot more. I do wish that the drums were a little more up front in the mix and I could do without the chorus effect on the guitar, but by and large I hear the band that I saw at that show on this record. It’s really cool to hear a band without a bunch of obvious reference points… it doesn’t sound like they’re trying to recreate any particular era of hardcore or rip off any band’s sound… it sounds really authentic, like the genuine and spontaneous expression of the people in the band. I guess that’s why it sounds like an old hardcore record to me… not because it sound’s particularly vintage-y (it doesn’t), but rather because it’s free of pretense and exudes authenticity in a way that’s very similar to the hardcore bands from the 80s that I love. Highly recommended.

Criaturas: Ruido Antisocial 7” (Todo Destruido) Has it really been four years since the last Criaturas record? That just seems so wrong! Maybe it’s because I still revisit their records so often, but it feels like Criaturas hasn’t dropped off the face of the earth like most bands seem to when they go for several years without a new record. At any rate, despite my warped perception of time I could not be happier to have this record in my hands, particularly since it is the best Criaturas record yet! As with the latest LP from Impalers (with whom Criaturas share their guitarist), not much has really changed… any of these songs could have appeared on any other Criaturas record without sticking out, but everything has been fine-tuned. This is particularly true of the production, which is beefy and raw, but still clear and powerful, particularly on the vinyl (which is cut LOUD). I’m not really sure what else to say… Criaturas have long been one of my favorite hardcore bands, and this record is their best one, so what are you waiting for?

Glue: S/T 12” (self-released) So, I actually wrote the label’s description for this record, so I’m not really sure what else I have to say about it. I’ve been on board the Glue bandwagon ever since their demo, and I’m still here. They had a pretty great formula from the get-go—basically marrying the heaviness of prime-era SSD with the upbeat catchiness of pogo-punk—but they’ve also consistently shown a willingness to mess with that formula. Nowhere is that more apparent than on the track “Flowers of Friendship” on this record, where they fuse their sound with something akin to melodic oi! music. Altogether, this 12” is probably the rawest and nastiest thing that Glue have done (excepting their tour tape, which was REALLY raw), and they manage to sound raw and feral without losing any of the power that made them stand out in the first place.

All New Arrivals
Taking Back Sunday: Louder Now 12" (Warner Bros)
Radiohead: OK Computer OKNOTOK 12" (XL)
Chainshot: demo cassette (self-released)
Black Lips: Satan's Graffitti or God's Art? 12" (Vice)
STRFKR: Vault Vol. 2 12" (Polyvinyl)
Modern Baseball: MOBO Presents: The Perfect Cast EP Featuring Modern Baseball 12" (Lame-O)
Various: Gettin' Together: Groovy Sounds from the Summer of Love 12" (Rhino)
The Electric Prunes: S/T 12" (50th anniversary edition; Rhino)
Love: S/T 12" (50th anniversary edition; Rhino)
Grateful Dead: Smiling on a Cloudy Day 12" (Rhino)
Neo Neos: Neo Neo Neo Neo Neo Neo Neos cassette (self-released)
Neo Neos: Type V cassette (self-released)
Neo Neos: Oen Night in Basement cassette (self-released)
Neo Neos: Unit 02: In Punk for the Culture Set cassette (self-released)
Neo Neos: Puke Girl Anthology cassette (self-released)
Shabazz Palaces: Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines 12" (Sub Pop)
Shabazz Palaces: Quazarz: Born on a Gangster Star 12" (Sub Pop)
Silverstein: Dead Reflection 12" (Rise)
Yoko Ono: Approximately Infinite Universe 12" (Secretly Canadian)
Yoko Ono: Feeling the Space 12" (Secretly Canadian)
Yoko Ono: Fly 12" (Secretly Canadian)
Psychic TV: Allegory & Self 12" (Sacred Bones)
Psychic TV: Pagan Day 12" (Sacred Bones)
Waxahatchee: Out in the Storm 12" (Merge)
Missy Elliott: Supa Dupa Fly 12" (Atlantic)
Weaks: Flamenco 7" (Strong Mind Japan)
Tigress: S/T 7" (Not Normal)
Cherry Death: Saccharine 12" (Not Normal)
Liquids: Hot Liqs 12" (Not Normal)
Humanoids: demo cassette (self-released)
Mania for Conquest / Svaveldioxid: Split 7" (Brain Solvent Propaganda)
Vagra: Refuse 7" (Brain Solvent Propaganda)
Pollen: Fear of Another War 7" (Brain Solvent Propaganda)
Melvins: A Walk with Love and Death 12" (Ipecac)
Nightbringer: Ego Dominus Tuus 12" (Season of Mist)
Pandemix: Scale Models of Atrocities 12" (Boss Tuneage)
Flowers of Evil: Cities of Fear 12" (Deranged)
Hurula: Vapen Till Dom Hopplosa 12" (Deranged)
Sheer Mag: Need to Feel Your Love 12" (Wilsuns)
Hygiene: Hypocrite cassette (self-released)
Hygiene: Soylent Clean cassette (self-released)
Geiger Counter: S/T 12" (Desolate)
GG King: Another Dimension 7" (Scavenger of Death)
Caesium Mine: God's Messenger to Fukushima cassette (Scavenger of Death)
Bloodclot: Up in Arms 12" (Metal Blade)
Expulsion: Nightmare Future 12" (Relapse)
Integrity: Howling, for the Nightmare Shall Consume 12" (Relapse)
Shit Blimp: Good Natured Friends of the Scene 7" (Shit Blimp Inc)
Criaturas: Ruido Antisocial 7" (Todo Destruido)
Glue: S/T 12" (self-released)
Impalers: Cellar Dweller 12" (540)
Innocent: demo cassette (Side Two)

Restocks
Blue Dolphin: Demo 2016 cassette (self-released)
Blue Dolphin: Earth Day 2017 cassette (self-released)
Blue Dolphin: 2 New Songs cassette (self-released)
Cryptopsy: Blasphemy Made Flesh 12" (War on Music)
Tarantula: S/T 7" (Lengua Armada)
Rank/Xerox: M.Y.T.H. 12" (Adagio)
Life's Blood: Hardcore A.D. 1998 12" (Prank)
Municipal Waste: The Fatal Feast 12" (Nuclear Blast)
Nurse: 2nd 7" (Scavenger of Death)
Kombat: In Death We Are All the Same 7" (Hysteria)
ISS: Endless Pussyfooting cassette (State Laughter)
Kurraka: Otra Dimension cassette (Todo Destruido)
Breakdown: 87 Demo 12" (540)
Warhead: S/T 12" (540)
Rakta: S/T 12" (540)
Section Urbane: The Final Program 7" (540)
Merchandise / Destruction Unit / Milk Music: Split 12" (540)
Big Boys: Fun Fun Fun 12" (540)
Breakdown: Runnin' Scared 12" (540)
The Clean: Oddities 12" (540)

So, it's another #newreleasefriday, but we're going to take this opportunity to catch you up on a few other things that have been coming out over the past few days. First and foremost we have the long-awaited debut LP from the almighty Sheer Mag! I'm sure I'll have a lot to say about this album in a future Featured Release Roundup, but for now I will say that I love it and if you love their singles you should definitely get it. Sheer Mag are definitely exploring some new tricks, but without losing the riffage and melodies that made them great in the first place.

Next up we have three new releases on the Brain Solvent Propaganda label: new 7"s from Pollen and Vägra as well as a split 7" between North Carolina's Mania for Conquest (ex-No Tomorrow) and Sweden's Svaveldioxid. If you're into raw d-beat hopefully you know that Brain Solvent Propaganda is a label that you should be watching closely (and buying most everything they put out as well), but if somehow you've missed out on them, now's as good a time as any to get on board. All three releases are killer, but I'll feature the new Pollen EP:

Next on the agenda we have two new cassettes from Vancouver's Hygiene (who are, incidentally, not the same Hygiene that Sorry State released a 7" by a few years back). Vancouver's Hygiene are pretty killer, though, playing snotty and nasty punk with some synth flourishes... highly recommended if you're into the kind of stuff on labels like Lumpy, Neck Chop, and Total Punk... in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if one of those labels brought us vinyl by Hygiene at some point in the future. We have both of their cassette EPs in stock, but here's their Soylent Clean EP:

Now getting into the #newreleasefriday stuff, first up we have the debut album from Bloodclot, which is the new project from John Joseph of the Cro-Mags. As was the case with Harley's solo LP from last year, this doesn't stray too far from the Age of Quarrel template, but it's bolstered by some blistering guitars from Todd Youth of Warzone, Murphys Law and Danzig, and I have to say that JJ has a much more dynamic vocal delivery than Harley. Check it out below:

Next up we have a new album from Integrity! Now, I'm a big fan of everything that Integrity did up until Seasons in the Size of Days, but I kind of lost track of them after that as they seemed to be constantly breaking up and reforming and releasing records on lots of different labels. It turns out that Howling, for the Nightmare Shall Consume is a great time to check back in, as it finds the reinvigorated band on a new label (Relapse) and really gelling with their current lineup of musicians, anchored by Dom from Pulling Teeth / A389 Records on guitar. It's the same mix of influences as Integrity has always blended (perhaps a little heavier on the 90s black metal in places), but this sounds really fresh, alive and current. If you're an Integrity fan I'd definitely take the time to check this one out:

Next we have a couple of reissues that I want to highlight. Sacred Bones has reissued two gems from Psychic TV's back catalog, Allegory & Self and Pagan Day. I know that Psychic TV have a big and imposing discography that I won't even pretend to be familiar with, but I've always heard that these two albums were two of their best and great places to start getting into them.

We'll finish things off with something a little different. Secretly Canadian Records have been undergoing a reissue campaign of Yoko Ono's solo albums, and today sees the re-release of three of her best. While I've never checked out Feeling the Space, Fly and Approximately Infinite Universe are two incredible albums. Fly in particular is a real gem. While there's some super weird stuff on it that recalls Ono's days as a conceptual artist (like "Toilet Piece," which is just the sound of a toilet flushing), the bulk of it has a real psychedelic / krautrock vibe that is very atypical of American music at the time, though Ono's vocals are even wilder and more out there than bands like Can or Amon Düül II... seriously, if you're into those bands check out the track "Mind Train" and I think that you'll be won over pretty quickly.

In addition to that we also have plenty of other new items and reissues from artists like Shabazz Palaces, Silverstein, Taking Back Sunday, Missy Elliott, and Love (their absolutely brilliant debut LP just got a 50th anniversary repress), so head on over to the New Arrivals Section and check it out.

This is just a quick note to let you know about a handful of hot items that we've restocked over the last little bit. First of all, we have all three cassette tapes from Texas's Blue Dolphin back in stock. Blue Dolphin features members of Mystic Inane, Nosferatu, and Institute and they're totally killer. All three tapes sold out quickly, so getchu some more here. And while we're here, here's a quick embed of their "2 new songs" tape:

Next up we have more copies of the great Tarantula EP. Of course Tarantula features the bulk of Cülo, but their sound is even catchier (and in my opinion, at least, even better) than Cülo. This pressing is now sold out and I doubt we'll be able to get more copies, so jump on this while you can:

Next on the agenda is the long-awaited discography from the almighty Life's Blood! This is another one that sold out in a flash and I think these are sold out from the label until the next pressing.

We'll finish things off with a couple of restocks from Lumpy Records. In fact, these two might be the two finest record the label has ever released (though I'd put Janitor Scum in that group as well). If you like early 80s hardcore, then you almost certainly like Koro, and if you like Koro then you'll almost certainly like Nosferatu:

Finally, we'll end things with the repress of the great CCTV 7" from a few years ago. I imagine everyone knows this by now, but CCTV featured Mark from Coneheads and sounds like a more streamlined, less quirky and more punk version of that band. Definitely one of the most memorable EPs of the past few years:

It's been a few days since we posted anything to the blog, so I thought I'd round up some of the items you might have overlooked over the past few days / weeks. Of course everyone is aware of all of the hype items coming out (or maybe you're not? That's OK too!), but I thought I'd point your attention toward a few of the more off-the-beaten-path items that have come through lately.

First up, we have the debut EP from Japan's the Weaks. This is one of those cases where the artwork doesn't really match the music. The chicken-scratch artwork makes it looks like this is going to be a Swankys / Gai-esque noise punk kind of thing, but actually this is huge-sounding, classic Burning Spirits hardcore. Of course you could compare this to plenty of classics like Bastard or Judgment, but to me the band that Weaks really sound like is Clown, if anyone happens to remember them. While the whole EP isn't available for streaming online, here's a little YouTube preview that gives you a good impression of what this is all about:

Austin, Texas's Skeleton played a killer set in Raleigh a few days ago and dropped off copies of their latest flexi (their second). If you haven't heard Skeleton before, they play a really interesting mix of hardcore and raw black metal with the occasional early Priest / Scorpions-style riff thrown in for good measure. Note that the vinyl rip in the YouTube video below has been slowed down for some reason, but it still gives you a good impression of what they're all about:

While Skeleton was here we also picked up a bunch of stuff from their very active distro... lots of great, under-the-radar hardcore from their home state of Texas. While a lot of it isn't available to stream online (I encourage you to take a chance on something you haven't heard though!), I was able to find a few things, like this ripping "pre-demo" (which apparently means rehearsale tape?) from Army:

While most of the stuff we got from Skeleton was more early 80s-inspired hardcore like what we typically carry at Sorry State, we also grabbed a few copies of this demo by the Real Cost. It's more NYHC, but it seems to me like they're heavily inspired by Straight Ahead, which is a-OK in my book:

Even though there isn't a streaming link available, I do feel the need to shout out my favorite tape from the batch: the Dequantize demo. Dequantize is a synth-based project from a member of Skeleton / Nosferatu, and you might recognize them from their recent contribution to the Horrendous New Wave comp LP on Lumpy Records.

Moving on, we just got copies of this excellent demo from Montreal's ODD. I feel like it's rare that a band can have really overt melodies and still qualify as hardcore, but ODD definitely pull it off. The sound is this weird overlap between hardcore, peace punk, and something more melodic like Leatherface or something like that... it's really cool, and highly recommended:

Next we travel back to Sorry State's home state of North Carolina for a new demo tape from Greensboro's Decoy, which features Will from Menthol on drums. While Decoy describe their music (I'm pretty sure sarcastically) as "Street Metal," this demo is pure hardcore with nasty, reverbed-out vocals:

Next up is a couple of tapes out of the fertile Hattiesburg, Mississippi scene. First we have a demo cassette from the oddly-named Eye Jammy, who have a really cool, melodic KBD punk kind of sound. Two super catchy and raw tracks:

Also from Hattiesburg we have a new tape from Judy & the Jerks! If you like amped-up, catchy hardcore along the lines of CCTV or Warm Bodies then Judy & the Jerks might just be your new favorite band... seriously, GET THIS!

Finishing things up by moving up and to the left on our map of the US, we have a demo cassette from St Louis's Iron Bars. Iron Bars features members of Shaved Women and Lumpy & the Dumpers. While it's definitely raw like both of those bands, it's kind of its own thing as well... for some reason I'm hearing a distinct Japanese influence. It's really cool, so check it out:

Alright, that does it for today. Hopefully we introduced you to some cool new music that you wouldn't have heard otherwise!

So, I guess I missed last week’s update. Honestly, it’s been a rough few weeks for me. I’m not sure what it must seem like to be part of Sorry State from the outside, but from my end of things it’s a ton of work with extremely infrequent and erratic payoff. Lately a ton of people have been selling us records of all quantities, values, and coolness levels, and while that’s very, very cool, the combination of paying out for all of these collections and the typical sales lull that comes when the weather gets hotter means that our cash is stretched pretty thin and I’m left fretting about whether I’ll be able to pay our bills. I’m a worrier by nature, so this is really not a great position for me to be in, and circumstances like this can put my mental and physical health in a tailspin. I’ve really been running myself ragged, which eventually resulted in a 2-plus week illness, at least 10 days of which included a fever and simultaneous throat, sinus, and ear infections. And of course just because I’m sick doesn’t mean things stop being added to the to do list, which creates more worry and further feeds the cycle. This whole situation makes it very tough for me to step back, relax, and see the bigger picture, but I’m doing my best. However, enough complaining…

Before I get to the proper descriptions, I wanted to write a little bit about the Celtic Frost reissues that just came out. I don’t really feel the need to go through album by album and give you my thoughts on each, but I did want to touch on the topic because I’ve been thinking a lot about Celtic Frost lately. My friend Scott lent me Tom Warrior’s autobiography a few weeks ago and it was a very interesting read. While much of it comes off as brazenly revisionist (not to mention whiny and self-pitying), it was great to get a more thorough chronology of Celtic Frost’s career and get some insight into why they underwent the changes they did (even if you have to read that insight between the lines of Warrior’s then-current take on his own past). One of the things that I find so fascinating about Celtic Frost is how they navigated the dumb/smart axis differently than any other band I can think of. I love it when smart people play dumb (the Ramones being the prime example), but honestly I have no idea whether Celtic Frost are dumb people trying to be smart, smart people trying to be dumb, or something else entirely. They were simultaneously one of the most primitive and neanderthal-like metal bands of all time, but at the same time one of the genre’s most ambitious and least myopic. They were so daring, and the fact that the risks they took failed as often as they succeeded only makes retracing their every step even more thrilling.

It seems like Tom Warrior was closely involved in these reissues, and his meticulous attention to detail is apparent throughout. First and foremost, these records sound incredible, possibly even better than the originals. One of the reasons that I’m often wary of reissues (except when the original pressing is cost-prohibitive) is because most newly-pressed vinyl doesn’t have the depth, clarity, or power of my old records. I have so much 70s and 80s vinyl that blows the doors off of most anything pressed in the past few years. I assume that’s because the fields of vinyl cutting and manufacturing were no longer attracting first-rate engineers and that the art of cutting a loud and powerful record was slowly dying. However, with vinyl’s rise in popularity over the past few years—to the point where it’s once again seen by most music aficionados as the default physical format—it seems as though bigger labels are more willing to invest the time and money to make records sound really good, resulting in things like the recent 50th anniversary pressing of Sgt. Pepper’s (with it’s newly-created stereo mix) and these Celtic Frost reissues. And of course in addition to the superior sound, they also come with a heap of extra stuff. Each LP has a full disc of bonus material, a few poster inserts, and a full-color, 10”x10” booklet featuring a ton of vintage photos, lyrics, and liner notes, all of which are printed with the care and gravity of a big-name museum exhibition catalog. They’re really something to see.

As far as the actual music, I have to admit that Into the Pandemonium may now be my favorite Celtic Frost album. Of course I still love the early stuff, and I think that one could make a good argument that heavy metal has never been more intense than the Morbid Tales album. However, Into the Pandemonium is so artistically uncompromising that the end product has this slipperiness and un-knowability about it. The band’s craft is moving in so many new and unique directions that it’s impossible to know what they were going for or if they achieved it. All you can do is marvel at a track like “Rex Irae…” what is it? Is it metal? Classical music? Opera? How the hell did they make it? Is it just the sound of classical musicians doing their best to play over top of a primitive metal song, or is this exactly what the members heard in their head when they conceived the track? Do the performers appreciate how odd and dissonant the harmonies are, or are they just going for it blindly like Johnny Knoxville trying to skateboard? While there are, perhaps, bigger head-scratchers on the album (“I Won’t Dance” remaining the biggest… were CF really trying to fuse their primitive metal with something like Janet Jackson’s defiant R&B?), “Rex Irae” remains the most fascinating moment to me, not just because the band was bold enough to throw together that bizarre stew of influences, but moreso because it actually works.

Various: Horrendous New Wave 12” (Lumpy) Lumpy’s first compilation LP! I think that I say this every time we get in a halfway decent 12” compilation, but I have the utmost respect for anyone who is able to pull off one of these things, because the amount of work involved in coordinating all of the different contributors is really excruciating. Anyway, I’ve been listening to Horrendous New Wave a lot and the thing that sticks out to me is how it kind of undercuts the very idea of what a compilation LP is. The compilation is, at its core, a marketing tool… it’s a way to introduce people to new bands, a function that reached its most brazen incarnation with the budget-priced label sampler compilation. However, Horrendous New Wave doesn’t introduce you to any new bands, because none of the bands listed on the jacket actually exist. If you’re in the know, you might be able to identify contributions by certain people (Joe Sussman of Muff Divers / Dangus Tarkus / Nancy, Scott Plant of Droid’s Blood / Broken Prayer, folks from Lumpy-affiliated acts like Natural Man and Ms. Lady, Warm Bodies, Gibbous, and Janitor Scum), but the packaging on the record is absolutely no help in figuring out these connections, nor does said information seem to be accessible anywhere online. You don’t even really know what the conceit or point of this compilation is… are the artists giving us their interpretation of “new wave,” or is that something that was added after the fact to tie it all together? It’s altogether unclear, and while I’m sure some people will find this frustrating, I actually think it’s really cool. It reminds me of listening to compilations in the pre-internet era, when you couldn’t just Google a band you were interested in and check them out on YouTube or buy their record on Discogs. I remember getting a copy of the American Youth Report compilation when I was in high school (mail ordered from the catalog that came with my copy of Bad Religion’s Recipe for Hate), but it was another ten years before I would hear more tracks by Modern Warfare, Legal Weapon, or the Flesh Eaters. I guess that what I’m trying to say is that, as a person who is kind of addicted to contextual research, the fact that Lumpy has taken away my ability to gratify that impulse leaves me free to take each of these tracks solely on their own merits, of which they have many.

Blank Spell: Miasma 12” (World Gone Mad) After a handful of tapes and a 7”, Philadelphia’s Blank Spell hits us with their first big vinyl, and man is it a stunner! I think that my favorite thing about Blank Spell is the fact that you can’t really pin down their music to a certain genre. Blank Spell somehow bring together the creepy punk vibes of bands like 45 Grave or early Christian Death with much faster, tougher-sounding hardcore without losing what makes either genre great. The riffs and song structures can be, at times, almost dizzyingly complex, but the singularity of the vibe that Blank Spell creates across these tracks holds it all together and makes it sound unified and composed. The chorus-drenched guitars (something I usually hate, but not here) and herky-jerky rhythms make me think of Davidians and Warm Bodies, but Blank Spell have neither the cold artsiness of the former nor the loose and earthy quality of the latter, instead landing on a kind of confident propulsion that reminds me of well-oiled hardcore bands like Exit Order or Blackball, bands that seem to march relentlessly forward rather than side-stepping or zig-zagging. I know that this is all very vague and I’m getting a real (and, alas, unfortunate) “dancing about architecture” vibe from this description, but the point is that Blank Spell have created a really powerful and singular record, and one that seems destined to become a staple of my summer 2017 playlist. Highly recommended.

The Bug: Humbug; or, So Many Awful Things 7” (Not Normal) I’ve been a big fan of the Bug since they started, but this new 7” brings things to a whole different level, quickly catapulting the Bug to “one of my favorite current bands” status. It’s funny, when I’ve tried to describe this record to people I generally compare it to the Mozart 7”, early Wretched, or call it something like “anti-music” because it’s so loose and wild, but on the other hand I think that what makes Humbug by far the best release from the Bug so far is that they’ve managed to capture things with just a hair more coherence and clarity. Previous, the Bug were so wild and anarchic that at times their expressionistic bursts could sound like a bunch of people wildly banging on their instruments. However, the clarity of the production on Humbug makes it clear that there’s some order to the chaos, if only an incredibly idiosyncratic one. My favorite part of Humbug is listening to the guitar and bass play off of one another… actually “play off” might be too strong of a word, because it often sounds like they’re playing completely different songs. Just listen to my favorite track on the EP, the expertly-titled “Late Lunch Sogged with Grease,” and try to figure out what on earth the bass and guitar lines have to do with one another. I’ve listened like ten times and I can’t figure it out, but I absolutely LOVE it. As with the Mozart 7”, here the Bug manage to combine the almost innocent sense of experimentation of free jazz with the manic energy of hardcore… something that’s actually really, really hard to do in practice. If you love Mozart, or if you tend to gravitate toward hardcore bands with a left-of-center aesthetic (Mystic Inane, Lemonade, Warm Bodies) this should be at the top of your list of stuff to check out.

Pierre et Bastien: Musique Grecque 12” (SDZ) Latest record from this French band who have been around for a couple of years. It’s been out for a few months now, but due to a shipping mis-hap we’re only just now getting our copies. I think it’s worth the wait, though, as Pierre et Bastien play some of the catchiest and most memorable garage-punk around. While the punchy and clear production can make this sound at first glance like some of the standout modern garage bands like Marked Men, Radioactivity, Video, etc., when you listen to these songs closely there’s a real Euro-punk vibe to them, particularly the marriage of dense, catchy riffs that recall the Stooges or Radio Birdman with a detached, almost robotic vocal style that sounds a bit like Devo or Kraftwerk, though perhaps not quite as inhuman as either. Complimenting those low-affect vocals is the way that every song seems to bob along at roughly the same tempo, giving this album a hypnotic quality that you don’t typically hear from stuff in this genre. If you’re looking for that big, catchy chorus this might not be for you, but if you like ’77-style punk as well as heartbeat-steady rhythms this one just may catch your ear.

Mikey Young: Your Move Vol 1 12” (Moniker) Solo debut from Australian Mikey Young, who you may know as the guitarist of Total Control, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, the Ooga Boogas, and others I’m sure. While Young’s work with bands spans a pretty wide breadth, this solo project seems to extend the line of thought begun on Total Control tracks like “Liberal Party” and “The Hunter.” However, since none of these tracks have vocals, the overall vibe is quite different. I really like how it’s tough to pin a genre tag on Your Move Vol 1… though there’s a steady pulse, the beat isn’t insistent enough to call it dance music, and though the instrumentation is largely similar the lack of vocals keeps it from being classified alongside new wave and minimal synth music like the early Human League. Instead, the closest thing that I can think of vibe-wise is non-heavy Krautrock like Neu!, Kraftwerk circa Autobahn, or maybe Harmonia. The layering of sounds is quite dense (mostly synth and drum machine, though I do hear a little bit of bass and I think even a heavily treated guitar at one point), but that steady pulse holds it all together as you listen to the different sounds swoop in and out of the mix. This is the kind of album I can have on in the background while I’m reading, or it can hold my sole attention if I’m listening to it while I’m working out. It’s really a beautiful little record, and if you’re a fan of any of the aforementioned I think this is well worth your time.

Wiccans: Sailing a Crazy Ship 12” (Dull Tools) This new full-length from Texas’s Wiccans is a nice surprise… I’m not sure I even realized they were still together, but as is the case with similarly unexpected recent full-lengths from other Texas bands like Glue and Institute, I’ll certainly take it. Wiccans have always seemed to have one toe in the garage scene (which makes sense as they’re from Denton and share members with several garage-ier bands like Bad Sports, Video, and Radioactivity), but Sailing a Crazy Ship is pure hardcore, if somewhat quirky. It’s actually kind of tough to pin down precisely what is so quirky about it, because Sailing a Crazy Ship is almost uniformly fast and loud, but it just doesn’t sound like any other hardcore record. The production and mix emphasize aspects of the music that most hardcore bands don’t tend to place the focus on, particularly quirky, angular guitar riffs that would be just as at home in a Video song if they were played about 3/4 as fast and didn’t have the snarling, manic vocals (which, as Jeff pointed out to me, sound quite a lot like the singer for Glue). And like Video’s best stuff, this LP feels like a real journey… not just a sequence of riffs or songs, Sailing a Crazy Ship seems to go somewhere, and better yet goes somewhere I didn’t expect to go and didn’t even really know existed. That Wiccans manage to be so original while keeping pretty much everything I love about hardcore in the first place is a real achievement.

Entombed: Left Hand Path 12” (Earache) I was born in 1979, so I’m old enough that my journey toward underground music started a little bit before Nirvana broke, but not quite early enough that I was a full-on metalhead in the 80s. As I entered my tween years, I searched out the most intense and weird music I could find, groping around in a number of different directions… Metallica, Faith No More, Guns N Roses, Sonic Youth… whatever I could get my hands on. And even after Nirvana kind of changed everything in 1992, some metal still slipped onto my playlist here and there… Biohazard, Pantera, Slayer… basically anything that could match the intensity of the punk rock I was discovering at the time. However, sometime around 93 or 94 (when I was 14 or 15) I learned enough about the punk rulebook to understand that metal was verboten, and I pretty much stopped listening to it (with the exception of bands like Converge, Cave In, and Dillinger Escape Plan, who at the time weren’t really classified as metal, at least to me) for a very long time. I give you this long introduction because when I finally got metal-curious again (I’m guessing this is sometime in the mid-00s, after a solid decade of listening to pretty much nothing but punk and hardcore), Entombed’s Left Hand Path was one of the things that really grabbed my ear. I remember my bandmate Matt from Cross Laws giving me a big stack of metal CDs by bands like Celtic Frost, Asphyx, Sodom, Bathory… stuff that was a little too underground for me to have come across it when I was a teenager in the pre-internet age. While I have come to really love all of those bands, at the time Left Hand Path was the record I couldn’t stop listening to, and sitting down with it again now that this reissue is available, I’m still struck by how punk rock it sounds. Despite the fact that it is indisputably a death metal record—there’s nothing a death metal record should have that it doesn’t, and nothing that it has that would be out of place on any other death metal record—there’s something about this record that really appeals to a punk/hardcore sensibility. What is that? I have absolutely no idea, and no one I’ve talked to about it has really been able to articulate it any more precisely. So, this whole long, rambling biographical treatise is basically to say that if you’re into hardcore but you’re metal-curious, check out Left Hand Path. It may just be the record that turns you.

Haldol: The Totalitarianism of Everyday Life 12” (World Gone Mad) Haldol’s previous LP (their second) was one of my absolute favorites of 2015, and it’s one that I still revisit frequently. Everyone at Sorry State loves it, and I’d be willing to wager that it’s one of the all-time most-played pieces of vinyl on the shop’s turntable. So, to say that I was anticipating this new album was something of an understatement. However, as with most great bands, Haldol don’t quite give us exactly what we expect. While the overall sound and vibe haven’t really changed, The Totalitarianism of Everyday Life strikes me as a much more complex and perhaps even difficult record. It’s not so much that it’s off-putting or difficult to listen to, but rather it’s so dense with ideas and so original that you can’t really wrap your head around it quickly. I’ve probably listened to this LP a dozen times already in the 5 days or so since it showed up in the mail, and each listen still provokes the same feelings of discovery and slight disorientation as the first. It reminds me of a Rubik’s cube… when one idea twists into place and starts to make sense, it means that another one that you weren’t paying attention to shifts out from underneath you and when you return to it it’s not quite what you remembered. Sound-wise, this is very much in the “death rock” meets hardcore vein… if you like the sound of bands like Rudimentary Peni, Part 1, or early Christian Death you will like the sound of this record. But for me, it’s not so much about the sound as about the songs themselves, and I feel like these songs would retain their cryptic beauty no matter what kind of window dressing you put on them. It’ll be interesting to see how the scene reacts to this record… I could see its complexity causing it to pass by with little notice, or I could see Haldol becoming a huge punk band off the back of this record. I suppose time will tell, but I can assure you that, like their previous LP, The Totalitarianism of Everyday Life is a record that I will remain captivated by and continue to treasure for a long time.

All New Arrivals
Echo & the Bunnymen: It's All Live Now 12' (Run Out Groove)
Saccharine Trust: The Great One Is Dead 12" (Recess)
Fifteen: Extra Medium Kickball Star 12" (Dead Broke)
The Cure: Greatest Hits 12" (Elektra)
The Cure: Greatest Hits Acoustic 12" (Elektra)
Carcass: Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious 12" (Earache)
Celtic Frost: Vanity / Nemesis 12" (Noise)
Celtic Frost: To Mega Therion 12" (Noise)
Celtic Frost: Morbid Tales 12" (Noise)
Celtic Frost: Into the Pandemonium 12" (Noise)
Entombed: Left Hand Path 12" (Earache)
Beach House: B-sides and Rarities 12" (Sub Pop)
of Montreal: Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? 12" (Polyvinyl)
John Holt: 1000 Volts of Holt 12" (Trojan)
The Coathangers: Parasite 12" (Suicide Squeeze)
FREE: Ex Tenebris 7" (Triple B)
Swans: The Great Annihilator 12" (Young God)
Judy & the Jerks: 3 Songs from Us to You cassette (self-released)
The Snails: Demos 7" (Neck Chop)
Process of Elimination: S/T 7" (Neck Chop)
Sick Thoughts: Songs About People You Hate 12" (Neck Chop)
Mark Cone: Now Showing 12" (Neck Chop)
Various: Horrendous New Wave 12" (Lumpy)
Various: My Meat's Your Poison 12" (Euro Import)
The Teenage Graves: S/T 12" (Ken Rock)
The Smiths: The Queen Is Dead 7" (picture disc; Rhino)
The Smiths: The Queen Is Dead 12" (Rhino)
The Idylls: Why / White Lies 7" (Richmond; dead stock)
Gloria Balsam: Fluffy 7" (Richmond; dead stock)
Video Rouge: Little Red Book / Total Destruction 7" (Richmond; dead stock)
Earth Quake: Mr. Security / Madness 7" (Berserkeley; dead stock)
Paranoid: Live At HAGL Fest 7" flexi (At War with False Noise)
Rash: Midnight Crooner 7" (IFB)
Landbridge: Autarch: Split 12" (IFB)
Various: Eight Feet Under Vol 1 12" (IFB)
The Bug: Humbug; or, So Many Awful Things 7" (IFB)
Lion's Share: Demo II cassette (self-released)
Jietai: Demo 1979-1980 12" (pre-the Stalin; Euro Import)
Selkäsauna: Pyromaani 12" (Punk Off)
Blank Spell: Miasma 12" (WGM)
Haldol: The Totalitarianism of Everyday Life 12" (WGM)
Iron Bars: demo cassette (self-released)
Rotting Christ: Non Serviam 12" (Peaceville)
Goatwhore: Vengeful Ascension 12" (Metal Blade)
Tracy Bryant: Parachute 7" (Volar)
Chain & the Gang: Best of Crime Rock 12" (In the Red)
Modern Art: Oriental Towers 12" (Color Tapes)
Fred Schneider & the Superions: The Vertical Mind 12" (HHBTM)
Bad Posture: C/S 12" (Mono)
Male Gaze: Miss Taken 12" (Castleface)
Nots: Cruel Friend 7" (Goner)
Wiccans: Sailing a Crazy Ship 12" (Dull Tools)
Mikey Young: Your Move Vol 1 12" (Moniker)

Restocks
Nosferatu: S/T 7" (Lumpy)
Q: S/T 7" (Lumpy)
CCTV: S/T 7" (Lumpy)
Lumpy & the Dumpers: Huff My Sack 12" (Lumpy)
Perverts Again: Our Big Party 12" (Non Commercial)
Swans: The Great Annihilator 12" (Young God)
Niku-dan: Discography 12" (Euro Import)
Ghost Bath: Moonlover 12" (Season of Mist)
Alabama Shakes: Boys & Girls 12" (ATO)
Alabama Shakes: Sound & Color 12" (ATO)
Country Teasers: Secret Weapon Revealed 12" (In the Red)
Crass: Feeding of the 5,000 12" (Southern)
Feederz: Ever Feel Like Killing Your Boss 12" (Broken)
Alain Goraguer: La Planete Sauvage 12" (Superior Viaduct)
Hot Snakes: Audit in Progress 12" (Swami)
Hot Snakes: Automatic Midnight 12" (Swami)
Jawbreaker: 24 Hour Revenge Therapy 12" (Blackball)
Jawbreaker: Unfun 12" (Blackball)
Jawbreaker: Bivouac 12" (Blackball)
Charles Mingus: The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady 12" (Superior Viaduct)
Thee Oh Sees: Mutilator Defeated at Last 12" (Castleface)
Sleep: Volume One 12" (Tupelo)
The Sound: From the Lion's Mouth 12" (1972)
The Sound: Jeopardy 12" (1972)
Sonic Youth: Daydream Nation 12" (Goofin')
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard: Murder of the Universe 12" (Castleface)

We've had lots of stuff trickling in over the past few days so here's a quick roundup. First up is a brand new 7" from Chicago's the Bug. I've loved the Bug from pretty much moment #1, but this is without a doubt their best stuff yet. It's somehow both wilder and more coherent at the same time... if you dig out of control, avant-garde hardcore like Mozart check this out... this will definitely be a contender for my best of 2017 list:

IFB Records May be from Florida, but the Bug isn't the only great Chicago band they're putting out in this batch... they've also put out a brand new 7" from Rash. I always really like bands that fall in the grey area between noise rock and hardcore, and that's certainly the case with Rash.

Next up is a fanclub release of a classic Japanese hardcore compilation, My Meat's Your Poison. This has some great stuff on it, including one of the most underrated Japanese hardcore bands, Chicken Bowels! These are flying out the door, so if you're trying to cop I would not hesitate:

We also have a few other things in the new arrivals section... a "new" single for the Smiths' "The Queen Is Dead" (available on 12" or 7" picture disc, with each format having its own separate b-sides), and a bunch of dead stock power-pop singles that popped up. So check it out!