Bad World Maker Of Rules 7″ (Convulse)
I dunno, man… you’re gonna sound a whole hell of a lot like Cold World, and call yourself “Bad World”? Cold World rule of course, and I have no doubt that their style of hardcore is one of the most fun that a person can directly participate in, be it moshing, stage diving, singing along, covering, directly aping, or ripping off wholesale for your lame streetwear clothing company (it happened!), but at least cover up some of the evidence! Granted, lots of bands have followed this path of late, the groove-oriented, metallic-riff, capital-H technique that Madball, Crown Of Thornz and Merauder bestowed upon the truly hard (and the wannabe gangstas) since the early ’90s. But when you’ve even got those secondary Alex Russin vocal parts sung just like Alex Russin… I don’t know what to tell you. Plenty of other contemporary beatdown signifiers can be found on this brief EP as well, like the awkward “(blank) of (blank)” phrasing, a well-known guest hardcore-vocalist spot (Ben Cook on “Last Of Me”), and an OG-tribute cover song (“Nineveh” by Only Living Witness). Bad World offer a perfectly competent display of this style, but their brazenly borrowed ideas serve to remind me of how potent and exciting their inspirational hardcore sources can be, and prevent me from appreciating whatever the unique life experiences of Bad World’s members must be, as they’re absent in Maker Of Rules. Do you think if they find out I’m tight with the handsomest Cold World scab guitarist they’ll only beat me up a little bit?

Bastard Collective Manchild LP (Transylvanian Recordings / Black Claw)
Man Is The Bastard is truly unkillable. Like a dystopian-horror video game boss, the innovative hardcore institution always comes back bigger and uglier, brandishing grotesque new weaponry upgrades. The current iteration, Bastard Collective, brings in folks from Gasp and No Comment alongside core Man Is The Bastard personnel (with a different Nick Turner than our friend from Cold Sweat and Walls) for a mix of familiar and uncharted territories. Since the group’s inception, Man Is The Bastard’s songwriting has exhibited a lethal-prog quality unlike any of their peers, and it remains evident in the unexpected stop-starting of the many aggro hardcore cuts here. Multiple voices are present as well, a cast of volatile characters to frighten and forewarn as bass-centered riffs punch holes in hard surfaces. What’s newest (and weirdest) on Manchild is the occasional presence of a horn section, leading at least one internet commenter to call it “Man Is The Bastard’s ska album” before hightailing it. Listening to “Funky 1”, “A Song That Has No Place In This Town” and “Kicked To The Curb”, you’ll hear what they mean, but Andy Beattie’s vocals lend Bastard Collective’s bursts of power-violence that authentic No Comment feel, and the bad-trip analog collages of Mitchell Brown (AKA Professor Cantaloupe) make for surprisingly flamboyant interludes, far lighter than Bastard Noise’s typical industrial-horror fare; Manchild isn’t any one thing but Bastard Collective. As Professor Cantaloupe, Brown released an album with Don Bolles a quarter of a century ago – maybe he could make a phone call and we could add a member of the Germs to Bastard Collective’s CV?

Bent Light The Daylight Is Ours LP (Memory Waste)
When your LP is limited to a hundred copies, you don’t really have to consider whether people will take notice of it while flipping in a record shop bin, because what are the odds of a new copy actually making it into one? As such, you are free to deliver cover art as blurry as Ben McOsker’s Instagram (go look it up and be amazed) without any concern for marketability; the true (few) heads will find it. So it goes for CT guitar-improv duo Bent Light, whose morning-after ambient is ripe for peaceful visitation. Two lengthy tracks comprise The Daylight Is Ours – this music doesn’t acknowledge the hectic pace of modern life, but rather the more complex emotions brewing within us that we choose to ignore. With extra lengthy trails of echo, Michael Slyne and Russell Linder engage in a tender back-and-forth with their guitars, conjuring a similar “space alien seen walking through the forest” feel as Grouper. They’ll futz with “tape machines” and a delicate array of effects pedals if they need more apparitions in the atmosphere, but you can drop the needle anywhere on these two sides and find solace in their soft, casual noodling. If I only heard tell of Connecticut from the psychedelic guitar records that have come out of there over the last ten years, I’d assume it must be the most enchanting, star-speckled pasture this planet has ever known. Will one of these acts finally come clean and make a record with an emotional resonance to match the endless pageant of Dunkins and Subways on I-84?

Blason Blason LP (Bruit Direct Disques / Tanzprocesz)
It can go only two ways: either you need an endless supply of free-form electronic synthesis music or you never need to hear this sort of thing again. I’ll leave that up to you, but if you’re one of my brilliant friends in the former camp, allow me to introduce you to Blason, care of the ever-adventurous Bruit Direct label. The credits don’t go beyond “Blason”, but it has to be the work of an actual human being, as I don’t think robots are talented enough to twist a variety of knobs and switch the patches out on sequential circuitboards… yet. Whoever it is, they certainly go wild here, two side-long pieces that seek out their analog system’s limitations and rapidly test them, like a virus traveling inside your latest Partiful invite. The second side was actually recorded at the INA GRM (the CBGBs of intellectual experimental electronic music) so you know Blason’s bonafides are in order. Generally speaking, I prefer electronic music from people who failed out of eighth grade, but there’s no denying the pleasures of Blason, all manners of wet clicks, static-laced swooning, frizzled lurking and ghosts in the shell, particularly on the more frenzied first side. I’m afraid that if I stare into Blason for too long, I might suddenly find myself trapped inside…

Cherry Cheeks D.O. And The Bytes LP (Total Punk)
I’m not sure Kyle Harms AKA Cherry Cheeks was even alive when dial-up modems were the only way one could get online, but that distinctive digital crunch appears early on this newest Cherry Cheeks album. It’s called D.O. And The Bytes, and it slaps a bunch of technological concepts together lyrically, in service of a thematic statement within a genre not generally known for thematic statements: egg-punk. The world wide web, AI girlfriends, floppy discs, ones and zeros, pop-up ads, digital surveillance and techno-fascism are all invoked through this package of hook-laden, kooky-synth fortified, helium-voiced songs for punks who happily eat cereal for dinner. I appreciate that the lyrics directly respond to our increasingly untenable digital hellscape, and that they do so without fumbling into righteous moralizing or, even worse, total corniness. It doesn’t hurt that the music could support generic skateboarding / weed / pizza tropes and still sound pretty good. Harms’s songwriting chops are honed here, in league with long-haired punk troubadours like DD Owen (I thought the album was about him at first!), Jay Reatard and Kyle Thomas. If you’ve ever savored a cutesy-babyish, occasionally glammy sort of punk rock sound (quick test: do you own any Rezillos, Dickies or Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias records?), you’ll want to bleach your mullet blonde to D.O. And The Bytes, the first egg-punk record to convince its audience to double-check their Instagram security settings.

The Clog The Clog LP (no label)
It feels like a blessed day whenever I become aware of some new freak’s existence, like The Clog for example. That’s the moniker George Albert Carpenter chose for his musical output, both solo and with a handful of friends willing to go along for the ride. He better appreciate those friends, as this ride isn’t for everyone! The album-opening “Fog Devil” and “Kissing Great Whites” offer strong support to that recent Melvins and Napalm Death collaboration by sounding like a cross between the two of them: muddy noise-rock bootprints with an unexpected blast-beat and some ill-advisedly goofy vocals. I made sure my seatbelt was securely fastened, only for the rest of the first side to kind of languish in a zero-gravity psych-folk zone. “Come Ye & Follow Me”, for example, is closer to Father John Misty channeling Danielson Familie than anything King Buzzo would point his silver curls in the direction of. The second side rouses things up with “Lordly Lord”, sounding like Animal Collective: Live At Guantanamo Bay, and settles into more mild-mannered indie-psych, left-of-center as it may be; the album ends with the most candidly indie-rockin’ song of the record, “An Ordeal”, recorded live in Monterrey, Mexico. It’s one of those droll situations where I don’t love the music, but I think I love the guy behind it, fully committed to his own ever-evolving bit. This shouldn’t come as a total shock to Carpenter – one doesn’t view themselves as the second coming of John Lennon if they named their project after a ball of hair caught in a pipe.

God Of War Molly Picture LP (Julia’s War)
If They Are Gutting A Body Of Water are on a Death Cab For Cutie trajectory, would that make God Of War their Postal Service? It’s TAGABOW’s Douglas Dulgarian collaborating with two folks from Hooky, whose homespun electronic pop is, to its credit, more likely to employ old-internet graphic design than a manager / publicist team. A good part of Dulgarian’s appeal comes from the sense that he truly doesn’t give an eff – I keep waiting to hear that right before their inevitable Coachella set, he squandered his big break by wandering off into the desert with some models and pro skaters he met while smoking behind the stage. Hooky don’t seem to be earnestly seeking anyone’s approval either, which is the right mindset for God Of War’s Zumiez-friendly alterna-gaze to materialize – well-trodden emo-pop melodies like those found in “Lindas” and “New Deal” are ripe for some semi-ironic detachment, garish MIDI augmentation and hyperpop vocal effects. The trio experiment with contemporary (and possibly cracked) software while wistfully retreating to the emotional womb of the early aughts, when the sounds of Paramore and Dashboard Confessional leaked through the closed doors of older siblings in a magical way. As such, it’s really not far from what TAGABOW are doing, just a little less Boss DS-1, a little more post-Animal Collective / post-100 Gecs outlandishness. The distance between Narrow Head and $quib on an NTS playlist has never been shorter, and until it closes up entirely, Molly Picture is well-suited to plug that gap.

Kyoufu Shinbun 死 LP (Bitter Lake Recordings)
1990: not a great year for harsh industrial noise-punk! Such was the moment when Kyoufu Shinbun released their debut tape, 死, surely greeted warmly by the tens, maybe even dozens, of listeners that received it. That’s how you know it’s legit: Kyoufu Shinbun made no concessions to the pop-industrial of the moment, or even seemed aware of any of that besides maybe some Ministry and Coil. There’s no confusing 死 with Nine Inch Nails or Skinny Puppy, though it’s not entirely without precedent either. Through its sixteen songs, the album offers junkyard guitar akin to Hijokaidan, the electro-shock drum machines of early SPK, violent-devil vocal-gargling that would’ve fit in on a variety of early Japanese noise-core flexis, and the sense of darkly isolated madness inherent to Jun Konagaya’s Grim project. In other words, it’s killer! A track like “死姦” kind of encapsulates the vibe in four minutes: a bent interpretation of classical-style keys is progressively poisoned, then abruptly shifts to a stompy drum-machine / bass-guitar rhythm, with distorted vocals half-rapped as a single feminine scream is deployed over and over, a stand-out sample in any haunted-house starter pack. Whew! There’s nearly as much volatile sonic information crammed into any given track as Boredoms of the same era, but far uglier, more battery acid than psychedelic acid. A most bitter lake indeed!

Lolina gg EP 12″ (Relaxin)
Lolina’s music has Rubik’s Cube appeal: if you grasp the basic conventions and principles of exactly what the hell is going on, it might become your new obsession. I’ll cop to understanding fifty-percent at best of what Lolina is up to on any given record, and as her techniques consistently shift, the rapid-fire sampling methods on one record might not have anything to do with the psychedelic-horror hip-hop beats that appear on another. For me, it’s about as fun as experimental music gets! And now on this quick twelve-inch single, we get one of her most straightforward tracks in years, “gg”, a friendly reminder that Lolina excels at doing whatever she wants to do. It’s a Gossip Girl-inspired vocal track: Lolina’s spoken voice verges on singing over a choppy rhythmic loop and melancholic pads, far catchier than it has any right to be. Appropriately, it feels like the edge-of-mainstream pop that will arrive three years from now. Following Lolina’s original “extended” version, we get an electro-house remix by the trollishly-named art-hipster duo New York. It’s a bit more straightforward, licking and sticking Lolina’s voice onto a traditional dance-pop beat, and I love it too. The b-side grants none other than Arca VIP access to the original “gg” files, which she wipes clean of beats and loops, opting instead to lightly time-stretch Lolina’s vocal onto a pile of post-modern pastel pillows, the results akin to a drunken teenage phone call that bares its emotions without following any logical sense. There’s never a wrong time to dip into Lolina’s work, but gg feels especially right.

Beatrice M. & Tim Reaper BMTR001 10″ (no label)
Tim Reaper is a round-the-clock jungle factory: merely scanning a list of his upcoming and recent DJ gigs, records, mixes and radio shows is overwhelming, let alone what it must be like to actually live it. Last year, Reaper graced the Resident Advisor mix series with a seven and a half hour-long mix, enough to get you through a full workday shift. I’m no authority on the man’s endless activities, but I do like to pop in from time to time, as I did on this cool new white-label ten-inch EP. He’s in the studio here with one of the classier dubstep producers of the moment, Beatrice M., for two quick slips of effortless breakbeat polish. “Robot” opens on a bed of sumptuous pads, teasing out a half-time ragga bounce with some sexy cyborg sparkle. It shares the rhythmic charisma of Hessle Audio’s peak Ramadanman and Pangaea sides, now wrapped up in high-end designer packaging. “Biota” is another riff on the same idea, beatific space-chords locking fingers with a throwback breakbeat and disembodied female vocals “whoa”-ing, because you know they’re feeling the groove as they float in liminal space. Jennifer Lopez and Lady Gaga probably pay someone an obscene amount of money to loop tracks like “Biota” at a low volume in in their fiftieth-floor penthouse powder rooms, and if Tim Reaper is too busy for the job, I would like to formally announce that my schedule is open.

November Növelet All Your Love 7″ (Galakthorrö)
We normally wait years between dispatches from Mr. and Mrs. Arafna, yet All Your Love arrives mere months after their most recent full-length, Electrical. I’d love to tell you that you can skip this one, but unfortunately you’re going to need to saddle up for those severe German shipping costs all over again. November Növelet don’t miss! “Cry Today” is upbeat and uplifting by their standards, its subtle pulse and melodic beeps far more elegant than they have any right to be. A great dance track if your typical dance moves include silently weeping with your head in your hands. “All Your Love” arrives as the b-side and it’s a real haunted-houser, lugubrious (so very lugubrious) dark-wave industrial that they built their decades-long reputation on. Mrs. Arafna exhales her vocals as though drifting in and out of a coma on her deathbed, and I can clearly picture Mr. Arafna right by her side, solemnly changing the water on a bouquet of black roses. November Növelet’s music has been deathbed-derived since its inception, which is wild considering that they’ve been at it since 1994 (even surpassing the longevity of the world’s other beloved dark-wave married duo, ADULT.). How long do you have to lay in your deathbed before it’s more appropriately classified as your lifebed?

Swedish Magazines Laughing Problem 12″ (Tall Texan)
Not sure how the premise of a “musical collective from Austin, TX / Los Angeles, CA” makes you feel, but this four-song debut from Swedish Magazines rocks with an appropriate abundance of style. They’re credited as the duo of Marley Jones and Tom Triplett from the OBN III’s / Snooty Garbagemen camp, so either one of them must’ve moved to LA or they are enlisting secret undisclosed Californian rockers to complete what is, amazingly, not the first hard-rockin’ band to call themselves Swedish Magazines. If you want to go further into their biography, you’ll have to write them a letter yourself, as significant backstory isn’t required to enjoy Swedish Magazines’ buzzy, psych-tinged sound. Picture a rattlesnake scurrying across a long Texas highway under the scorching high noon sun, only to be flattened under the tires of The Jesus & Mary Chain and Kyuss. That might be too cinematically self-serious, though, as there’s an inherent playfulness within Swedish Magazines’ sonic outlook. I’m reminded of the ways that Black Time poked and prodded at garage-rock, kind of trolling it while also upholding its traditions – Swedish Magazines seem to take a similar approach to long-chugging psych-rock grooves, open to possibilities and, if you can believe it, actually having some fun along the way. “In The Hills” and “Loaded Gun” party like a harder-edged form of that excellent Spiral Dub album (RIP Chad Kawamura), whereas someone had the sharp idea to kraut-ify a Judas Priest-styled riff on “Dressed For Pleasure”. If they aren’t dressed up like Queens Of The Stone Age at the casino, don’t ruin my fantasy. If they are, attention George Clooney’s tequila company: you can send that million-dollar licensing check for “Dressed For Pleasure” to Swedish Magazines care of Tall Texan Records.

Sweeping Promises You Say I Romanticize LP (Sub Pop)
A few years ago, Sweeping Promises sweepingly promised us an album on Sub Pop, and while they didn’t have to tease us with such a lengthy wait, they certainly made it worth our while. You Say I Romanticize arrives like that unexpected burst of shower water when someone flushes the toilet: a scalding shock that gets you reflexively quivering. Opener “Shooting Shadows” establishes this intensified fury, with Lira Mondal’s vocal delivery dialed up from sung to screeched (yet remarkably still on key!). This might be the punkest-sounding album Sub Pop has released in years – recorded in Sweeping Promises’ Lawrence, KS home studio by guitarist Caufield Schnug, they’ve retained that Feel It Records back-alley grit, the guitars burning hot new-wave and the bass as resonant as a rubber band. It’s the sound that drew us towards Sweeping Promises in the first place, though it’s Mondal’s striking vocals that have elevated Sweeping Promises to one of the greats. Her voice is powerful yet controlled – think of the X-Men’s Cyclops wearing that visor to restrain his otherwise wildly shooting lasers – and while I can picture her banging out some excellent no-look first-takes in the booth, it seems that they spent a little more time massaging her vocals here, what with layered harmonies, well-placed back-ups and a full exploration of her wide range. Along with some of their leanest meanest songwriting yet (“Rapture, Or…”, “Shooting Shadows” and “Last Man” are exceptional from an already-exceptional band), You Say I Romanticize finally redeems Sub Pop for dropping the Dwarves in 1993, or at least is a step in the right direction.

The Thugs Mighty Tiger Dubs LP (Aagoo)
No, this isn’t Les Thugs finally translated into English, but perhaps something even less expected: grotty Italian dub music! Like pretty much everyone I know (myself certainly included), Sicilian artist Nicola Giunta got bit by the dub bug, in his case while making visual art back in 2021. His infection was severe to the point that he felt compelled to emulate it himself, care of this project with multi-instrumentalist Andrea Davi, The Thugs. Like pizza and days off work, even mediocre versions of dub music are generally pretty enjoyable. That’s how I’d rate Mighty Tiger Dubs, some obvious dub-tourism from a post-punk mindset that offers no new insight into the genre, nor does it deliver such a heady trip as to stick out among its myriad practitioners. Upstroke guitars brush against typical bass-lines, simmering keys and echo-webbed percussion, all exactly as to be expected. The sole wild card is Giunta’s vocals, gruff wordless shouts that are noisily distorted to such an extreme degree, you’d think he was tracking backing vocals for a Lightning Bolt album. That’s the beauty of dub music, really – over a sturdy dub foundation, you can sing with the voice of a precious angel or violently dry-heave without disturbing the music’s eternal hypnotic force.

YHWH Nailgun Magazine 12″ (4AD)
The post-screamo, experimental art-punk realm was overdue for a fresh kick in the pants, and it arrived last year in the form of YHWH Nailgun’s debut, 45 Pounds. My personal reckoning with that record is ongoing (read “reckoning” as “blasting it in my car in August with the windows up and air conditioning off”) but I was immediately ready for more, which has arrived in the curious form of Magazine. Whatever YHWH Nailgun are doing, it’s not the norm, so while a one-sided twelve-inch probably isn’t what anyone precisely hoped for, it’s refreshing nevertheless. Musically, I presumed that YHWH Nailgun wouldn’t (or couldn’t?) simply duplicate the highly combustible splendor of 45 Pounds, and in a strange turn of events, I was right. Magazine maintains certain aspects of the group’s formula while swapping out others: Zach Borzone’s steel-wool vocals are as stylishly menacing as ever; the synths of Jack Tobias and guitars of Saguiv Rosenstock continue to sound like neither-nor, but rather cybernetic squeals and alien engineering. The biggest shift from 45 Pounds is that Sam Pickard hung up his rototoms, perhaps the defining signature element of YHWH Nailgun’s debut. He’s still a dazzling player, but his patterns are comparatively decelerated throughout Magazine‘s ten tracks, giving the album less energy, if perhaps more room to breathe. Luckily, their songwriting remains condensed, mind-bending and inky – imagine Rorschach blots with sharp, precise, purposeful angles that its creators can replicate at will. If YHWH Nailgun come to harness the full extent of their powers, no one will be safe.