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Idiota Civilizzato: S/T 12” (Static Shock) I liked Idiota Civilizzato’s earlier 7” on Static Shock (and we still have copies in stock(https://www.sorrystaterecords.com/products/idiota-civilizzato-la-vita-silenziosa-7)), but with this 12” the band catapults themselves to another level, placing them on par with the groups that set the current scene’s bar for intensity and complexity. Idiota Civilizzato rely on a similar stew of influences to their debut—in particular, I hear Wretched’s final LP and Negazione, Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers, and Die Kreuzen—but they lay into their sound with newfound power on this 12”. At the risk of overloading this description with comparisons, this LP recalls the Impalers’ power, Blood Pressure’s complexity, and S.H.I.T.’s ability to get deep inside a groove. If you appreciate a powerful band, these musicians’ technical skill will melt your face. However, it might take a handful of listens to appreciate it because the riffs are so densely packed and layered. There isn’t a moment to breathe; there’s no space, no let-up in tempo, and no opportunity catch your breath. The only thing you can do is drop the needle and hold on for dear life. I expect that we’ll be seeing this LP on many best of 2018 lists, and deservedly so. If you have even a passing interest in the current DIY hardcore scene, you should make a point to check this out.

Violence Creeps: Nephew Melting 7” (Total Punk) Presumably final 7” from this Bay Area band, since they recently played their last show. They had a great run, though, and put out a bunch of phenomenal records on a slew of different labels. As for this one, it finds them breaking new ground in their final moments as a band. “Nephew Melting” is a disjointed ride, starting with a bubbly, melodic part, then taking an abrupt left turn into a skronkier, no wave-influenced part that’s more akin to the bands earlier, Flipper-esque material. The song swings back and forth between the two modes, giving it an unstable, seasick quality that seems increasingly deranged as the song progresses. As for the b-side, it’s also Flipper-esque, the bass player improvising around a single riff while the singer delivers a biting rant against gentrification in Oakland. If you’ve been following Violence Creeps, you’ll want to pick up this final single, but just because they’re done doesn’t mean that their whole catalog isn’t worth checking out. They’re one of the realest and most vital bands to come out of the punk scene over the past several years, and their records will be worth revisiting long after their breakup.

Predator: No Face 7” (Total Punk) Latest single from this long-running (but slow-moving) Atlanta institution. A lot of the bands from Atlanta have a dark, pop-garage sensibility, and Predator fit the mold in many respects… if you’re a fan of other Atlanta bands and projects like GG King, Uniform, Näg, or Wymyns Prysyn then you’re virtually guaranteed to like Predator. However, Predator has their own take on the style. I’d describe them as “space garage:” Carbonas-esque, catchy, song-oriented punk delivered with the retro-paranoia of the Cold War. The voices sound robotic, the guitar leads hang in the air in a sinister way, and drums drive forward with the relentless, mechanistic thump of progress. The a-side is the pop hit (or as close as Predator get to one), while the b-side is mid-paced, jagged, and stomping. There are two little chords that remind me of “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” but instead of dropping into the expected third chord it snaps into staccato downstrokes that recall Devo’s “Mongoloid.” Predator knows their punk history, but they also know how to write a song that’s catchy and immediate, so you get the best of both worlds: something that’s dense and contextualized enough for the record collectors but still classic-sounding and straightforward enough to make the barflies wander over to the stage to see who’s playing tonight.

Khiis: Saboor 7” (Distort Reality) Debut 7” from this new band out of Oakland who might be the first punk band I’ve heard with lyrics in Farsi. I’d be interested in Khiis no matter what language they sang in, though, because this rips. Khiis has a dense, metallic sound that sits in a fuzzy space between punk subgenres. The mid-paced parts remind me of S.H.I.T. in their catchiness and pogo-ability, but for me it’s the fast parts where they shine. I might lose people with this comparison, but their fast parts remind me of the Cro-Mags. Like the best Cro-Mags songs, the riffing is straightforward and Discharge-influenced, but the drummer doesn’t d-beat, instead powering forward with a simple, confident 1-2-1-2 beat. I doubt that’s a conscious influence, but if you’re a crusty who acknowledges that the Cro-Mags up to and including Age of Quarrel are legit AF then you will love this. All three tracks are keepers and they’re different from one another, which makes me particularly eager to hear what’s next. I suspect Khiis has a killer LP in them, but I suppose time will tell. In the meantime, this will get plenty of play.

Beta Boys: Late Nite Acts 12” (Feel It) After a pair of 7”s, here’s the debut footlong from Beta Boys. To be honest, I liked but didn’t love their earlier records, but this one is a big step up. They seem to have found their voice here, or maybe their style just works better on the longer format. They’ve always had a chorus-drenched guitar sound, but here there are songs that sound more brooding, recalling the USHC-meets-death rock sound of the old Oxnard band False Confession. There’s flexibility in that style, allowing them space to do tracks as different as the brooding, Christian Death-esque title track that closes the record and “Red Devil,” the opening smasher. That song reminds me of the best 45 Grave songs or Dance with Me-era TSOL in the way it infuses Damned-esque punk/goth with the energy of early California hardcore. For such a short record there’s lots of variation in tempo and song structure, making this a quick and exciting listen. Plus, as soon as it’s done I can’t help but flip it over again because I have to hear “Red Devil” again.

Mosquitoes: Drip Water Hollow Out Stone 12” (Ever/Never) I rely on New York’s Ever/Never Records for a respite from my usual listening diet of punk and hardcore. Whether it’s the baroque post-punk of Patois Counselors, the chaotic no wave of Preening, or the cold, semi-industrial noise of Housewives, I know that the music coming out of a new Ever/Never release will be surprising and challenging. Their latest release is this debut from the UK’s Mosquitoes. The sound here is minimal, but the real watchword is "creepy." Listening to these tracks is like peering through the keyhole of an abandoned house in the country, glimpsing a dark, dusty, and sinister world that doesn’t revolve around the regular rhythms of the modern world. I don’t have a strong frame of reference for this type of music, but I’m reminded of the Eraserhead soundtrack, This Heat’s more abstract passages, or Duck Stab-era Residents, all of which share Mosquitoes’ unsettling minimalism. Like most Ever/Never releases it requires an adventurous and engaged listener, but it rewards that investment of time and attention with a listening experience you won’t get anywhere else.

Glue Traps: Future Shocks 2018 Promo cassette (self-released) Debut release from this new band out of Baltimore. When this came in at the store Jeff made an Instagram post describing it as We Got Power-style hardcore and he couldn’t have hit the nail more squarely on the head. Like the songs on the first We Got Power comp (aka Party or Go Home aka “Daniel’s favorite compilation ever”), everything here is short, quick, and very catchy. There are heaps of things you could compare this to: Angry Samoans, Acid Reflux, early Deep Sleep (who share a singer with Glue Traps), the Authorities, or anyone else you can think of who writes catchy as hell 30 second hardcore songs by the 7-inch load. Sure, it’s nothing new, but it’s a sound that is close to my heart and there aren’t a lot of bands doing it these days, so it sounds fresh and vital here. If you pine for the glory days of We Got Power and/or No Bullshit compilations, you will love this.

Innumerable Forms: Punishment in Flesh 12” (Profound Lore) Debut full-length from this death metal project out of Boston. Justin DeTore from Mind Eraser / No Tolerance / a bunch of other bands helms the project (and played most of the instruments on their earlier releases), but for this release he’s put together a hardcore supergroup, including (according to the label’s description): “co-writing partner/guitarist Jensen Ward (Iron Lung), guitarist Chris Ulsh (Mammoth Grinder, Power Trip), bassist Doug Cho (The Rival Mob), and drummer Connor Donnegan (Genocide Pact).” I hadn’t checked out Innumerable Forms’ earlier releases, but that lineup grabbed my attention, since it brings together some of the best musicians in the current hardcore scene. For all the musical ability of that lineup, though, Punishment in Flesh is not a flashy record. There are few guitar solos on the record (though when they pop up they’re highlights), and while the band plays everything with precision and power, no one shows off. Instead, the energy here is put toward establishing the vibe. If I had to describe that vibe in a word, it is “punishing.” The tempos are rarely fast, and the slow parts are agonizingly slow and heavy (in a good way!), like trudging through knee-deep wet clay. DeTore’s vocals are the centerpiece, and they bring new meaning to the term "gutteral." Every death metal band has low vocals, but DeTore’s are on another level. If this whole music thing doesn’t work out for him, he could make a solid living voicing Satan in Hollywood movies. The record is brilliant and listening to it alone in the dark is a great way to spend 40 minutes of your time. If I may be so bold as to venture one criticism, though, it’s one I have of several projects that come from DeTore’s crew of Boston musicians: it’s almost too perfect. For instance, when I listen to the Demigod cassette that was one of the band’s key inspirations(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksdNoONKvlg), there’s an untamed quality, a visceral wildness that Innumerable Forms doesn’t have. I’d love to hear what this crew sounds like when they cut loose and throw out the rule book, but even if it's a hair stiff it’s still a great record.

Lithics: Photograph, You of 7” (Thrilling Living) I was familiar with Portland’s Lithics before this single, having seen them live and spun their Kill Rock Stars LP, Mating Surfaces, a handful of times. I enjoyed the live set and the LP, but this single is a jaw-dropper. The touchstones of Lithics’ angular post-punk-informed sound are obvious—Gang of Four, Devo, the Pop Group, Kleenex—but they take the sound to a new level here, the tension taut as a crossbow’s string. Much of that tension comes from how the individual instruments—drums, bass, vocals, and two guitars—play completely different figures. Everyone follows the same robotic pulse, but the melodies are so distinct from one another that they could be from different songs. Consequently, you're pulled in different directions because your ear can only focus on one melody at a time, and trying to keep track of everything feels like the aural equivalent of being drawn and quartered. However, even though the elements are so disparate and disconnected, they still coalesce into something resembling a pop song. This is true of the a-side, and I’ve hummed “a photograph… you of” to myself dozens of times over the past week. The sensation I get from listening to these tracks resembles what I get from extended jazz improvisations, where the central melody floats through the air like a cloud, sometimes there, sometimes not and sometimes just a ghost of itself. That Lithics build a similar listening experience out of the raw materials of angular post-punk is a real innovation and makes for a noteworthy record.

Collate: Liminal Concerns 12” (self-released) Collate’s Material Inspection cassette was one of my favorite tape releases of 2017, and the vinyl follow-up does not disappoint. Musically and visually it’s very much along the same lines; it even has a screen printed jacket that carries forward the same color scheme and aesthetic as the tape’s j-card. Collate remind me a lot of their fellow Portlanders Lithics. Like Lithics, they have that Delta 5 / Gang of Four-style bass-driven post-punk sound, but where the aforementioned bands are more cerebral, Collate are more visceral and aggressive. They dig deep into the heavy bass grooves, but they can also cut loose on a skronky, chaotic no wave part. Despite the aggressive posture and the raw recording (which works well for them), there’s an undeniable pop undercurrent. You'll be singing along with “private negation / public display” halfway through your first listen to “Performative.” As I noted, Collate remind me of Lithics and, to some extent, bands like Gauche or Shopping, but this feels like the underground, punker version of that. It’s sort of like if you grew up listening to Blink 182 and Green Day and something like the Descendents clicks for you. At that point you realize that this is the real shit and the more polished stuff becomes harder to listen to. There isn’t an ounce of fat on this record, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll flip it again and again.

Erik Nervous: Nervoloid EP 7” (Digital Regress) Erik Nervous is back with a 5-song EP of Devo covers, but this isn’t a throwaway or stopgap release. Rather than just giving us his own spin on songs everyone already knows and loves, for Nervoloid Erik Nervous has dug up five Devo tracks that never received proper studio recordings and given them the fleshed-out recordings they deserve. I haven’t dug into Hardcore Devo as much as some people and I’m even less familiar with the dodgier bootlegs, so all five tracks are fresh for me. I remember Hardcore Devo being a tough listen in places with some very lo-fi recordings and artsy, out-there song structures, but in Erik Nervous’s hands all five tracks are bona fide hits. Maybe Devo didn’t change that much between their early years and their Freedom of Choice peak, aside from having clearer, more powerful production? These recordings help to make that case, and I think I’ve listened to this record nearly as many times as I listened to Freedom of Choice when I got my first copy. Whether you’re a fan of Erik Nervous, a Devo completist, or you want to hear five killer, synth-inflected punk tunes, this is mandatory listening. Highly recommended.

Stiff Love: Attitudes 7” (Feel It) Olympia’s Stiff Love are back with the follow-up to their debut on Neck Chop, and I remain smitten with them. As before, you have the total package here: great songs, killer artwork, and punk attitude to spare. The two tracks on this single are very much of a piece with the four on their Neck Chop debut, i.e. mid-paced, riff-centered garage-punk songs that somehow sound poppy even though neither the riffs nor the vocals are particularly melodic. I mentioned Nikki & the Corvettes when I wrote about their last record, and that comparison still feels apt given that few bands fall into the same space between garage and punk that Stiff Love occupy. The only bad thing I can say about it is that I wish there was more of it. In the meantime, I’ll just keep playing the two existing Stiff Love records into the ground.

Pious Faults: S/T 12” (Feel It) Debut vinyl from this Australian band doing the “hardcore as art” thing. The label’s description mentions Saccharine Trust and Spike in Vain, and while I don't doubt there’s plenty of wear on the members’ copies of Paganicons and Disease Is Relative, the comparison I can’t get around when I listen to this LP is Born Against. Pious Faults’ squirrelly, off-kilter rhythms, dissonant chords, ultra-compressed song structures, bright, clear, and powerful production, and defiant refusal to rock are all qualities I associate with Nine Patriotic Hymns for Children. I love hardcore, I love art, and I love artsy hardcore (the records I’ve mentioned so far in this description are among my all-time favorites), so I’m right in the target demographic for this record, and indeed I like it a lot. However, I also realize that it’s a different kind of listening than most hardcore records. This isn’t a record you throw on at a party and scream along with as you slam beers. Instead, it’s a record you put on alone, in the dark, letting its mutated rhythms crawl through your body like anxious parasites. It’s not an immediate record, and I would argue that, in order to appreciate it, you need to know a lot about hardcore so you have a clear idea of what this is not. Or, perhaps if you fell in love with prog’s jagged rhythms or free jazz's dissonant harmonies before you heard Minor Threat or Agnostic Front this will speak to you. At any rate, this is smart, weird music for smart, weird people.

L.O.T.I.O.N. / Scumputer: Campaign for Digital Destruction 12” (540) Split 12” between New York industrial punks L.O.T.I.O.N. and Scumputer, which is Gabba from Chaos UK’s noise project. First up: L.O.T.I.O.N. I think the public would describe 90% of the music I listen to as “ugly,” but these new tracks from L.O.T.I.O.N. bring new meaning to the word. Their particular strain of punk /industrial (which you might compare to anything from SPK to Ministry) is aggressive music, but in practice a lot of that music can have a semi-glossy, cyberpunk sheen. Not so with L.O.T.I.O.N. Their music is dingy, dirty, and claustrophobic. L.O.T.I.O.N.’s tracks here are so singular that I don’t want to compare them to other music acts at all, but instead to threads of dystopian science fiction. Like dystopian literature, L.O.T.I.O.N.’s music doesn’t venerate technology, but instead emphasizes how it alienates us from one another and the world. The drum machines here sound broken, more like aging Victorian steam technology than the precise snap of a software drum machine. The production is also as nasty as it gets, the aural equivalent of a decaying urban hellscape drenched in thick, yellow fog. This isn’t cool music for dancing at a club; it’s music for sitting alone at home fretting over what kind of world your grandchildren will live in. As for Scumputer, they build their music out of similar raw materials, but the vibe is very different. Where L.O.T.I.O.N. is singular and uniform, Scumputer is whimsically diverse. If L.O.T.I.O.N. are wandering around a post-apocalyptic landscape looking for shelter, Scumputer is salvaging beers from the rubble and trying to have as much fun as possible. Not falling into any niche of punk or industrial music I know of, Scumputer have a free associative quality that finds them sampling Run DMC, bringing in guest vocals by Jun Kato from Warhead, and combining Tangerine Dream-esque soundscapes with brutal industrial hardcore in the space of about half a minute. The only real through line is that loud and punchy electronic drums are the anchor point for much of the music. If you’re ultra-serious you probably won’t play their side much, but I’ve spun it a lot and I really enjoy it. Often split records either pair two bands that sound too much alike or they try to avoid that and end up with bands that have nothing to do with one another, but the two sides of this record compliment one another well, even if most listeners will have a clear favorite.

Petite: II 7” (Distort Reality) Second EP from this Portland punk band. The first thing that strikes me about this new Petite EP is the sense of melody. Petite tend to get described as UK82 or oi!, but they are on the very far melodic end of either style… think the Business’s most melodic songs like “National Insurance Blacklist” or “Out in the Cold,” or the underrated second Partisans LP when their songs got more well-rounded and melodic. Interestingly, though, it’s the guitars that carry the big melodies. The vocalist has a hardcore shout/bark, which keeps this from sounding like pop-punk, but the guitarists go for it with broad, major-key melodies worthy of Professionals-era Steve Jones or Nidge at his most refined. Stan Wright’s clear and powerful production obscures none of that melody, so if you’re not ready to raise your fist you’d best stay home. This might be too melodic for some, but this is so legit and so well-done that I imagine it’ll be one of the most melodic contemporary records in a lot of punks’ collections.

Personality Cult: S/T 12” (Drunken Sailor) Debut recording from this solo project from Ben of Natural Causes. Obviously I like Natural Causes a lot since I put out their LP on Sorry State, but I didn’t expect that this Personality Cult LP would become one of my favorite records of 2018. Honestly, if I didn’t know about the Natural Causes connection, I’m not sure I would have noticed because this is so different. You can hear similar influences in the mix like Wire and Gary Numan / Tubeway Army, but they’re referenced differently as this is, unapologetically, a punk rock record. The sound is angular, but the drums rely on straightforward and fast rock beats and the overall emphasis is on melody rather than rhythm. Those melodies are great, too. If you’re not humming “Burned,” “Fed to the Lions,” or “Heart Attack” then you probably don’t have a beat-to-shit copy of Singles Going Steady in your collection. And speaking of influences and comparisons, another thing I like about this LP is that it doesn’t feel weighed down by those influences. I hear little things here and there that remind me of other records I love—“Brazen” uses chords similar to “Harmony in My Head” and “Functioning Fine” could slide right into the Tubeway Army album—but it reminds me of those things because it is like them, not because the artist wants to sound like them. (If that makes any sense at all.) It sounds contemporary, and I’ve been playing it so much that it will forever remind me of the summer and fall of 2018. That’s what great music does, right? It becomes the soundtrack to significant moments in your life. I hear so much music these days that it’s tough for something to get that much play, but this record is so good I never want it to end. So, I just play it again. And again. And again.

Various: Greek Punk ’82-’91 (Fan Club) Latest in a series of incredibly well-done compilation tapes resurfacing rare, vintage punk rock from around the globe. This series (which is unnamed… someone didn’t go to school for marketing!) is like a modern version of the old BCT Tapes, but the availability of basically everything on the internet means that the bar has been raised. We expect even more obscure bands and certainly better sound quality, both of which are present here. While I’ve always heard that Greek punk and hardcore is a thing, I’ve never really investigated it before. I was familiar with a few of the names on this compilation (Stress, Ex-Humans, and ANTI), but by and large I’m hearing everything on this compilation fresh. While there isn’t enough information for me to say for sure, it sounds like the compilation proceeds somewhat chronologically. Most of the bands on the first side have a classic Eastern European punk sound that I associate with Pekinska Patka, while hardcore (primarily of the noisy and raw variety) takes over on the b-side of the tape. Unfortunately my inability to read or type the Greek alphabet prevents me from being more specific (or, indeed, from researching many of these bands further, which is one of the chief joys of an enterprise like this), but if you like going down YouTube rabbit holes or scouring Soulseek for the most obscure 80s punk you can find this comp and the others in the series are all essential.

Various: South American Punk 81-90 cassette (Fan Club) As I’ve mentioned, this series of top-notch international compilations collects obscure tracks that you’ve most likely never heard, and it does so with excellent sound quality and thoughtful curation. If you’re a fan of the old BCT Tapes or compilations like Killed by Hardcore this is going to be your kind of thing. While I’ve heard a few of the bands on this compilation of 80s South American punk (Los Violadores, who are a personal favorite, as well as G3, Los Invasores, Leuzemia and a couple of others) there’s still so much here that wasn’t on my radar, which is all the more impressive because the quality here is astounding. While the Greek compilation that I also wrote about this week gave us a loose narrative of the transition from punk to hardcore, this cassette (with a couple of exceptions) sticks largely to one style, but it’s a style that I can’t get enough of. I don’t know if there’s a name for it aside from just “punk,” but these South American bands seem to be more influenced by British punk than bands from other parts of the globe. In particular, it seems like they might have been listening to lots of Rezillos, Stiff Little Fingers, and maybe even Asta Kask as most every track here has a fast, bouncy, and pogo-able rhythm and an instantly catchy vocal hook or two. If you’re looking for d-beat you’ll be bummed, but those of us whose tastes lean a little more toward the ’77 set will flip out at the degree of quality here. If you don’t find yourself looking up at least half of these bands on YouTube or Soulseek after listening to this tape I have doubts about whether you’re a true punk lifer.

Deseos Primitivos: demo cassette (self-released) Three-song demo cassette from this new band out of California. Deseos Primitive have a super catchy, mid-paced punk sound with big, catchy vocal hooks. My mind immediately springs to contemporary bands like Juanita Y Los Feos or Rata Negra, but comparisons to catchy old Spanish punk like Eskorbuto or 70s UK bands like the Rezillos, the Adverts, or even the more melodic Vice Squad songs are also appropriate. The recording is clear and powerful and all three songs are top-notch. The only bad thing I can say about this tape is that it’s a total tease… the world needs a full-length from this group as soon as possible!

Beyond Peace: What’s There to Be So Proud of? 7” (Slugsalt) Second EP from this band out of Iowa. I quite enjoyed their first self-released EP (which, as of this writing, we still have in stock). I find that there’s often something special about hardcore bands from outside the major metropolitan centers. Like older bands such as Clitboys and Mecht Mensch, there’s something slightly left of center about the way that Beyond Peace approaches hardcore, and I’m always drawn to bands like this. Nowhere is this more apparent than the record’s short and sweet opener, “Burn It Down,” which is built around quirky, lunging rhythms that come at you like a deranged person with a rusty knife. I also really like the whiplash tempo changes on “What’s There to Be Proud of?” and the noisy guitar chords that pop up in “Staring Problem.” If your idea of hardcore is a bunch of kids banging away in a basement in Nowheresville, USA trying to play as fast as possible, you should check out this record and get your annual reminder that the spirit is alive and well.