Golpe just announced a tour of South Korea and Japan for February. This will be the last big Golpe tour before the band goes on a writing hiatus, so come out to the gigs if you’re in this part of the world!

Hey! Exited to share our upcoming adventure, probably the last big one for the rest of 2026, since need some focus on writing new stuff and will stop playing shows for a while to be able to do that.

S. KOREA + JAPAN IN FEBRUARY!

Hope to see you there, we are stoked to be there for the first time!

Love you all,

S. Korea

07 Seoul @babydollseoul

08 Seoul @seendosi + SLANT

Japan

10 Yokohama @elpuentenishiyokohama

11 Tokyo @earthdom2006

12 Nagoya @imaikehuckfinn

13 Osaka @nambabears + @klonnsjp

14 Kyoto @poppizzakyoto + KLONNS

15 Tokyo @clubheavysick + KLONNS

Welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter! I told you it’d be a slow ramp-up, and we have a little more for you this week than we did last week. First, we have pre-orders launching for two pretty killer records: a new 7” from Institute and the debut release for the Australian band Station Model Violence. We also have a scorching Record of the Week from Colombian punks Unidad Ideológica on La Vida Es Un Mus and a bunch of other new arrivals, comprising both new and old hardcore punk. And we have some of the content you really come to the SSR newsletter for, including a couple of new featured release descriptions and the much-anticipated return of the Staff Picks section. So let’s dive in…

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Here’s a very exciting pre-order announcement for you: long-running Texan punks Institute are releasing a new 3-song 7” on Anti-Fade Records in conjunction with their upcoming Australian tour and it’s up for pre-order at Sorry State now. I’ve heard the record (I wrote the official description below), and I think it is KILLER… absolutely some of Institute’s best songs. The record is out on Feb 20 and we have two versions available for pre-order: a regular black vinyl version and a limited version on blue vinyl with red print on the jacket (both the regular and limited versions feature hand-screened jackets). We’ll also be distributing this title in the US, so get at us if you need wholesale copies for your shop or distro. Here’s the official description, you can listen to the first track, “The Shooter” on the Anti-Fade Records Bandcamp site now, and if you’re interested, you can place your order on the Sorry State site now.

In conjunction with Institute’s first-ever Australian tour, Anti Fade Records presents a new three-song EP by these long-running and much-loved Texas punks. “The Shooter” instantly secures its spot on the list of Institute’s very best songs, carrying forward the melodic anarcho-punk influences (see: Zounds and Crisis) the band has explored since their infancy, but transforming them by leveraging the members’ accumulated decades of experience making potent, punk-informed music. The song’s lyrics are as straightforward and confrontational as any first-wave anarcho classic, but they attack a topic of the utmost relevance to the United States in 2026: the fiction of the “good guy with a gun.” Musically, “The Shooter” is an exquisitely layered fabric of jagged rhythms and plaintive melody, propelled into the aesthetic stratosphere when a chiming acoustic guitar breaks into the mix. The EP’s other two songs explore the remote poles of Institute’s intensity levels, with “A Privilege” edging toward hardcore—its jittery rhythm built around a short but infectious loop of lead guitar—while “Why Are These Men Still Alive” stretches out, its lumbering rhythm recalling longer story-songs like the Velvet Underground’s “The Gift,” while the eastern-tinged fuzz guitar echoes the moment when Indian raga collided with psychedelic pop in the mid-1960s. Though this EP only offers three tracks, it’s as essential as anything Institute has released thus far; if you’re lucky enough to be down under for the gigs, I’m sure it’ll make a great souvenir, but it’s still an essential grip for punks worldwide. - Daniel Lupton

Insitute’s new self-titled 7” is out February 20th via Anti Fade Records, ahead of their Australian tour commencing March 18th. 

We also have another unexpected and very exciting pre-order announcement for you today: the debut LP from Sydney, Australia’s Station Model Violence on Static Shock Records. This is Station Model Violence’s first release, and while there are members of a few key Australian bands present (notably Buz Clatworthy from R.M.F.C.), I’d argue the most relevant “member of” is DX from Total Control. I’d all but given up hope of hearing a new Total Control album, but this album definitely scratches the itch, and feels like the logical follow-up to Typical System and Laughing at the System. You can listen to a track on the Static Shock Records Bandcamp site right now, and you can pre-order your copy from Sorry State now ahead of the February 27 release date. And here’s DX’s description of the record, which goes into a good amount of detail about the project’s origins:

There is a scene in the BBC Krautrock documentary that made a great impression on me. Iggy Pop sits spread eagle in some beachside location drilling holes in coconuts and ruminating on the sound of Neu. The clash of the visual spectacle and the subject matter infected my dreams. At one point he describes Neu as "pastoral psychedelicism".

I thought of that moment when Buz first played me the demo for the song which would become 'Heat', when first he asked me to play music with him. I heard it, smelled the fresh coconut juice and the sour sweat on Iggy's leathery hide. I knew that we would do it right.

I moved to Sydney at the end of 2022. It was toward the end of two years of Melbourne lockdown that started in the immediate wake of the Total Control tour of Japan at the end of 2019 and was the longest time in 20 years that I had not travelled overseas or played music.

After moving to Sydney I had an overwhelming need to start a new band and sing again. Total Control and Straightjacket Nation would be difficult to gather any momentum with my living interstate, and also I wanted to settle here and start something new and try and obliterate some of the stasis that entered my veins from the lockdown.

Low Life asked me to play a solo show with Iceage at the opera house, but I had no ambitions for solo performance and had no songs, so I formed a band called KX Aminal with Greta, Michael and Micky from Den, and Josh from Diat.

KX Aminal are an important part of the Station Model Violence story. When we were writing songs for KX Aminal, Josh and Greta and I were drunk on fine chablis and playing a guitar line that sounded very much like Crisis, and Josh turned to me and looked me in the eye and mumbled "it smells like Kwisis". Later Buz acknowledged this was something he would always want to hear when writing songs with a band, and on this point it was destined. We would write songs together to smell like Kwisis.

Anyway, KX Aminal went into stasis and I got the itch again. Buz had written a few demos that didn't work as R.M.F.C. songs and he asked me to have a listen to hear if I could sing something on it, and over the winter of 2024 I visited his home studio and we recorded some vocal ideas with his demos.

We released a demo for 'Learn To Hate' "recorded after eating mushrooms on fabulous winter evening" and formed a lineup for a one off show in late 2024 with Micky (Den), Yuta (The Lewers) and Georgia (G2g). This was the final Idiota Civilisaaaztatatanini show, so a nice loop back with Josh who is my spiritual aminal and guide.

After this show, Yuta and Georgia left, and Michael (Den), Alan (R.M.F.C.) and Kuceli (Gaud) joined. Seeing as Micky, Michael, Kuceli and I played in KX Aminal and we never got to record those songs, we decided to absorb some of them into Station Model Violence.

We combined some of those KX songs with the demos Buz wrote and wrote a couple of new songs together and played a couple of shows, and then recorded an LP with Mikey in Melbourne and Micky in Sydney at the start of 2025.

The album was mixed over the course of the year as we had created this incredibly dense beast and much credit is due to the patience and persistence of Mikey Young.

This is the first single, 'Heat'. Revisit that image of the coconuts and the drill and pastoral psychedelicism and the smell of KWISIS.

DX, Summer 2026

We got a lot of sick restocks in last week, so I thought it might be helpful to give you a quick rundown of what’s come back in.

Poison Idea’s Pearls Before Swine, which collects some of the band’s earliest live recordings from before Pig Champion joined the band, is back in stock! We sold out of the Sorry State exclusive pressing super quick, but the standard green vinyl sounds just as good! We also restocked a big chunk of P.I.’s back catalog from TKO, so if there are any gaps in your collection this is a great time to fill them.

We just picked up some copies of the second pressing of the new album from North Carolina legends Catharsis. This new pressing of Hope Against Hope is on transparent red vinyl and it’s shipping now.

Neon Taste brings us a new pressing of the excellent Negative Charge album, which I saw pop up on quite a few “best of 2025” lists.

We restocked a bunch of recent 11PM releases, including Armor’s LP and Grand Scheme’s latest EP, which also got a lot of love on year-end lists.

Toxic State repressed the Dark’s latest album, Sinking into Madness. I know a lot of people were after this one and the first pressing had actually been selling for somewhat inflated prices online, so grab it now if you missed it!

And finally, when we grabbed their three new releases we also restocked a big chunk of General Speech’s back catalog. I featured some essential Japanese hardcore from the Swankys, the Stalin, and Frigöra in the photo, but there are a lot more titles online.

Sorry State is stoked to announce our first release of 2026! It’s the demo tape from Plastique Pigs from SSR’s home turf of Raleigh, North Carolina. Some of you may have checked this out when the band released the recording on their Bandcamp site a few weeks ago, but now we have the tapes in hand and they’re ready for you to order. So give it a listen and pick up your copy if you’re as stoked as we think you’re going to be. Here’s the official description:

Sorry State Records formed in 2005 to release fast hardcore punk music from our part of the world, and 20 years later we’re still banging the same drum. Case in point: this debut 4-song cassette from Raleigh, North Carolina’s Plastique Pigs. With their blistering riffs, locked-in rhythms, and hooky vocal lines, Plastique Pigs fuse the speed and ferocity of early 80s east coast and midwest hardcore with the songwriting chops of the west coast greats from the same era. Sorry State’s true believers will be stoked, as this slots in perfectly next to the label’s classics, from Direct Control and Koro to Personal Damage and the Hell. And bringing things full circle, Sorry State OG Eric Montanez (from Direct Control and Government Warning, among many others) even contributes backing vox. So strap on your spiked leather cuff, tie a bandana around your boot, and get ready to slam.

Quick update for those of you who have ordered the new Psico Galera LP on Sorry State. Here’s the short version: we originally anticipated having the records in hand in early November, but the revised estimate on that is now mid to late January. See the fully story below.

As I noted above, we originally expected to have the vinyl in hand in early November, not long after the album’s official release date, but the pressing plant didn’t actually get our order done until mid-December. Then, when the first shipment arrived to the band in Europe, they found a major printing error that will need to be corrected before we can ship out any copies. Since the record was shrink-wrapped with a hype sticker, this will entail not only redoing the print, but also removing the shrink wrap from the records and re-assembling, re-wrapping, and re-stickering the entire pressing. The plant didn’t get this done before they went on break for the holidays, but we’re hoping they have it completed soon. We’ll keep yo up to date on what’s happening, and rest assured we’ll start shipping your pre-orders the moment we have the records in-hand.

Our friends at Roachleg just released three new cassettes, all of which are in stock and shipping now. Remember, Sorry State is Roachleg’s official distributor and shipping partner, so if you order from the Roachleg website Sorry State will handle the shipping, and if you have a shop or distro you can also get in touch with us for wholesale orders for Roachleg titles. Of course all three tapes are also available to order on the Sorry State site too.

It looks like only the III cassette has a fleshed-out description at the moment, but if you’re wondering: Hektiks play raw noisy hardcore with some Kyushu vibes, Venom Snipers play snotty KBD-influenced punk with wild, Tapeworm-level production, and the III is a solo project by Will from Poison Ruin / the Damage / a ton of other bands, and it’s the kind of moody, noisy stuff punks make when they edge into genres like shoegaze and indie. Read Jonah Falco’s much more fleshed-out description of the III below. And if you’d rather hear for yourself, all three releases are also streaming on Roachleg’s Bandcamp.

Admittedly, it’s hard to pin down. What do you say about a guitar record in the age of limitless creative reach. Where time seems to not matter in terms of how you let your songs speak to people but also in how to place music in time. Is the NOW just coincidental? Is Now (tm) just when it happens to be made, or is the NOW when we know that as a critical mass we all knew how we wanted to best express ourselves. Hard to say what’s instantaneous about The III and what’s classic but somewhere in all the questions lie this tickling mist of hanging chords and slow emotions that let you drift as well as they let you propel yourself at the stage to burn that last bit of your high frequency hearing you’ve been holding on to. Guitars and inward reaching melancholy worth of Greg Sage’s legacy with touches of the optimistic 90s guitar player who could just buy a JCM 800 or an Ampeg v4 for nothing cause they felt like learning guitar by starting a band. Wipers, Motorhead, Goo Goo Dolls, Screaming Trees, Hot Snakes, Bikini Kill (Come one Will you know the song I mean), and maybe even a Champagne Supernova, at this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely within a Philly warehouse show.

-Jonah Falco

We ran a pre-order for these back in November, but I wanted to give this item a bump since Paul May’s book—and the first book on Sealed Records—is in stock and shipping now! I knew this thing was going to be cool, but I was completely blown away when the actual books showed up. It’s a total monster, hard-backed and with just under 500 full-color, beautifully designed pages that will keep you lost in the world of 80s UK punk for many, many hours. And while Shot from Both Sides is billed as a photo book, there is a ton of text, mostly first-hand recollections of the gigs from folks who were actually there. I feel like the jpegs and mockups I have seen just don’t do this thing justice, so if you’re on the fence, then get off it!

Shot from Both Sides is available to order now! Grab a copy from the Sorry State website and it’ll ship right away.

Choque Asimétrico is the new LP from Bogotá, Colombia’s Unidad Ideológica, and it’s in stock and shipping now! As per usual with La Vida Es Un Mus’s releases, we have some of the limited color vinyl copies, this time on green vinyl, while supplies last. As I write this we are down to the last few copies, so give it a listen on LVEUM’s bandcamp and order your copy from Sorry State now.

CHOQUE ASIMÉTRICO by Bogotá’s UNIDAD IDEOLÓGICA hits you like a wrecking ball to the face. In the four years since their first album UNIDAD IDEOLÓGICA has become even more intense and relentless. The pummeling drums, apocalyptic bass, the explosive guitar riffs and, vocals howling like a rabid dog will make your head burst like a melon. Like a mutated child of BASTARD and early POISON IDEA their sound is heavy and massive without losing the rawness needed to make hardcore punk really bite.