Quick note: As is the nature of our changing world, I decided to join Substack for the purpose of these monthly record reviews (and whatever else occasionally shows up in these pages). Nothing will be changing here at good ol’ yellowgreenred.com, but people seem to dig reading Substacks, and if it gets my humble words in front of more eyes, why not, right? The same content will be available here and yellowgreenred.substack.com. Plus, if you’d simply prefer to receive an email digest rather than having to remember to check out this page, now you have the option, and commenting is a thing over there too, if you ever wanted to flame me publicly. If you have any thoughts, questions or concerns, please shoot me an email. Word of mouth: we depend on it!
Abscess Political Vomit LP (Hard Art)
Next time you want to impress some strangers at a party, why not inform them unprompted that Abscess was Iowa’s first hardcore band? Prior to encountering Political Vomit, I couldn’t have told you who was first (or second, or third…), but thanks to Hard Art they are now formally documented on twelve-inch vinyl for generations to come. If you have a hardcore-tuned ear, I’m sure you could estimate a fairly accurate guess as to what they sounded like: ramshackle, mid-paced to speedy, egregiously amateurish and bursting with stochastic teenage energy. They started off as a band of teenagers covering Sex Pistols and Ramones songs, and they certainly sound like it here, somewhere in the musical league of Necros, Ill Repute and Circle Jerks (although notably less distinctive than any of those three). My favorite part is that even though this session was properly recorded in a studio, there are still multiple notable flubs in their performance, from missed drum hits to wrong notes (some of which aren’t even close). It’s beautiful! I can practically picture the scene as it unfolded: 1983 in Ames, Iowa, uptight studio engineer shaking his head as Abscess bashed through these ten songs with careless abandon. It’s a glorious thing, hardcore-punk sprouting up all across our terrible country that wanted no part of it, and I’m glad the story of Abscess is no longer exclusively relegated to a moldy cardboard box in some Iowan attic.
Dead Horses Sunny Days LP (Maple Death)
Sunny Days is the first vinyl full-length from Italian blues-punkers Dead Horses, though if they’re excited at the prospect you wouldn’t know it from the music. These songs arrive in various shades of agitation and disinterest, from groaning apathy to vein-popping fury, all performed loosely and without strict adherence to formal technique. Too High To Die-era Meat Puppets feels like a reasonable reference point, but infused with the mean-spirited garage of the Goodbye Boozy label and The Men’s technique of throwing a bunch of varied styles against the wall to see what sticks. Various members moan and howl in a manner that reminds me of Circle Pit and Royal Trux, and while there’s a bit of that willful inebriation happening in Sunny Days, I feel like they might see themselves more in the tradition of Dead Moon than any sort of art-minded punk. More likely, Dead Horses haven’t thought about anything too strategically, preferring to simply strum a beat-up guitar, pound a tom and a snare and see what shakes out.
De Leon De Leon LP (Mana)
De Leon’s 2018 debut was a big record for me, kind of crystallizing the moment where experimental techno entrepreneurs dug deep into patient minimalist gamelan-inspired (or gamelan-thieving) grooves. De Leon was exactly that, an inscrutable suite of pleasantly refined percussion-based tracks, and now the artist (whoever exactly they(?) are) is back with a follow-up full-length, also self-titled and also on Mana. Whereas the 2018 release stuck to the rhythmic grid in an appealingly collegiate way, this new one ventures out all over the landscape, clinging to a sense of time-keeping on some but not all of the tracks. This one is more about the tones, the rich and durable pitched-metal sounds of what are probably bells struck in accordance with some system either too elaborate or too improvised for my brain to predict. Chimes are both distant and in the foreground, some coming direct and others given a healthy dub rinsing, resulting in a sweetly disorienting listen. By the time we hit “B2”, the groove is in full gear, hypnosis complete. After my first few runs, I was a little disappointed that De Leon sacrificed a total dedication to the cyclical groove in the name of open exploration, but I’m quickly coming around to their new approach, sounding as if Vladislav Delay was tasked with lightly reworking Harry Bertoia’s Sonambient series.
Disintegration Time Moves For Me 12″ (Feel It)
Pretty sick debut here from Cleveland’s Disintegration, featuring Haley Himiko of Pleasure Leftists, Noah Anthony of Profligate and Christopher Brown of Cloud Nothings. Pleasure Leftists always struck me as underrated (and Profligate, extremely underrated), and while the world will probably continue to mostly exist as it has before Disintegration’s debut EP dropped, it’s the world’s loss, not mine! I loved Profligate’s late turn towards a noir-ish cold-wave pop sound, and Himiko was a standout vocalist for punk-adjacent goth music of the 2010s, so it’s much to my delight that their powers combine excellently here, really working off each other to achieve something special. Time Moves For Me is a pretty damn evolved debut for any group, sounding more like a well-oiled synthetic/organic hybrid than a first attempt. There’s an electronic element to all of these songs, but a human one too, like I can almost picture the mud-soaked members of Nine Inch Nails on that Woodstock stage playing these upbeat and sophisticated synth-pop songs even if I know that it’s actually four plainclothes Ohioans doing the work. And that’s not to say that it sounds like Nine Inch Nails at all – Disintegration is on far more of a Depeche Mode tip – but these songs are lively and robust in a way that Reznor would surely approve, leagues beyond typical synth presets and, thanks in no small part to Himiko’s powerful voice, catchy as hell too. She out-Bonos Bono on triumphant closer “Make A Wish”, my only disappointment being that there isn’t immediately more songs to enjoy. Recommended!
Divorcer Espionage 7″ (Domestic Departure)
Domestic Departure keeps the post-punk party rolling with this vinyl debut from Vancouver’s Divorcer, who feature a member of the great Flex TMG (I’m still wearing out the grooves on that one). There’s no disco in Divorcer’s equation though, which looks towards the spunky first wave of post-punk for inspiration, calling to mind Y Pants and The Petticoats through the music’s skeletal simplicity and vibrant personality. But unlike late ’70s DIY, Espionage is the result of a clean digital recording, giving it more of a modern indie sound, not entirely different from Priests’ last record and Flasher’s first one. And like all the groups mentioned, this feels like a true gang effort – multiple members sing, both in unison and call-and-response, and the instruments make plenty of space for each other, like the laid-back and guitar-less groove of “Crying”, for example (which, don’t kill me, has kind of a Vampire Weekend vibe?). A lot of DIY post-punk acts can coast by on charm alone, but it’s clear that these songs were crafted by musically-minded folks, not merely well-intentioned novices. With only this four-song debut EP, Divorcer are a smart, charming, weird, playful and serious post-punk band, all at the same time.
Dubamine Cool & Relax 12″ (Dub-Stuy)
Extremely excited for open-window season here, and with that comes the need for fresh tunes to fill the ventilated spaces within them. Glad to have stumbled upon this new EP from Dubamine, then, an American producer who snagged the mighty Nazamba for “Cool & Relax”. Nazamba died way too young last July, but his rich and weathered voice pushes Dubamine’s digi-reggae into a drifting zone of lysergic bliss. When he repeats “cool… relax… easy”, life’s daily troubles are unable to occupy my consciousness for even a second, and at a meager four minutes, you’re gonna wanna play it a few times in a row. “Nature’s Dub” is a worthy flip, a deeply rinsed reggae-goes-dubstep affair that’s as slow as it is cavernous. Whatever it is, it’s just about the slowest BPM one can reasonably be expected to head-bob along with, which is a personal sweet spot for me. Might be slightly off-putting to some that it’s a white guy from Santa Cruz (Dubamine) responsible for such heady Rasta music, but Nazamba chose to collaborate with this talented producer, and the last thing I’m gonna do is pass my uninvolved judgment on Nazamba’s choices, particularly when it’s a track as soulful and calming as “Cool & Relax”.
Electric Chair Act Of Aggression LP (Iron Lung)
Electric Chair are one of my favorite current hardcore bands, not least because of the world they’ve built around themselves. Rather than following the motions, checking the hardcore boxes and coming up with a pre-approved adjective-noun band-name (Crucial Damage, Mutant Unit, Negative Mind, how long ’til you all exist?), Electric Chair offer their view of the world in a manner that merges the absurd, the dead-serious and the absolutely raging. Plus, they seem to be having the time of their lives doing it, a point that so often seems to get lost in the shuffle of social-media likes, high-visibility destination fest billings and everything else that sucks. The album opens with an unfriendly bass-line redolent of Die Kreuzen and rolls from there, steamrolling henceforth through the final fade-out crashes of “Palm Of My Hand”. One can trace a lot of this back to the DNA of Poison Idea, Koro and Mecht Mensch, but I also hear the tradition of over-the-top, energy-bursting Pacific Northwest hardcore-punk like The Fartz, Dayglo Abortions and even some Tales Of Terror in Electric Chair’s sound, if not a note-for-note match but a shared spirit of wild abandon. Electric Chair’s form of punk doesn’t quietly integrate with normal society, it freaks people out at the grocery store, and I love them for it.
5AM Pre Zz LP (Thinner Groove)
Credit where it’s due: I discovered 5AM’s Pre Zz from a brief-yet-ecstatic Joint Custody write-up, and while it was enough to get me to take a peep, I was ill-prepared for how much I’d end up digging it! 5AM is a Japanese trio consisting of techno producer Powder, half of the house duo Cos/Mes and a clothing designer, and if that sounds like a potentially stylish and chill combination, allow me to assure you that it is extremely stylish and chill. As 5AM, they made fun little songs that are downtempo without being boring, and even kind of sprightly in their own way. Imagine a dubby and distinctly Japanese take on Playstation 2 sound-font / vaporwave / trip-hop, one less reliant on gauzy ambient drones and more likely to pop and snap into microscopic action. I hear a little bit of Phew’s self-titled album with Conny Plank’s production and plenty of the Wah Wah Wino crew’s left-field electro mutations here, but mostly I’m hearing 5AM’s unique perspective, apparently making music for the oddest hours of the day, somewhere between not enough sleep and way too much sleep. The vocals are great too, groggy but poppy, and the songs fade and shift between sunny pop and closed-curtain smoke sessions, often in the same track. “Today” sounds like the best possible result of Gorillaz working with Stone’s Throw in 1998; “HOT !” sounds like a mysterious track you’d hear on a mix between Stereolab and DJ Spooky that you spend the rest of your adult life trying to track down. In the case of Pre Zz, it’s probably going to involve some painful international shipping costs, but it’s worth every penny!
Glittering Insects Glittering Insects LP (Mind Meld)
Seems like lots of punks have recently been wondering what it’d be like if the 1984-1988 years of SST Records were reconfigured into something palatable today, and while I can’t say for sure that that’s what happened with Glittering Insects, I can’t rule it out either. They’re a new group from some old names – GG King alongside members of Wymyns Prysyn and Predator – and while the atmosphere here certainly carries that anything-goes feel of GG King, Glittering Insects are honing in on something else entirely. It’s noise-rock without the aggression, indie-rock without the wimpiness, art-rock without the wackiness, post-punk without being formulaic. Cool stuff! These songs move in all sorts of directions, but I’m reminded of Spike In Vain, Sonic Youth, Saccharine Trust, Pink Reason, 3 Teens Kill 4, maybe a little My Dad Is Dead and No Trend at their most tuneful? It’s certainly more than a collection of influences though, and all the better for it. Glittering Insects never forsake a good hook for a noisy blowout; King and company have always had a knack for writing memorably melodic choruses (how good is Predator, or the GG King song “Joyless Masturbation”?) and that talent is refined here, given room to be playful and creepy and revel in its many unsettling moods.
Ky Power Is The Pharmacy LP (Constellation)
Ky Brooks plays in a noise-punk group called Lungbutter, which apparently did not fully satiate their need to create wild and peculiar music. Thus, now they have this solo album, created (in a very Canadian fashion) with no fewer than eight other musicians. Not unlike Kee Avil’s Constellation album last year, Power Is The Pharmacy is conceptual and loosely committed to song-form, closer to something that would debut in a gallery than on the stage in the back of a bar. Brooks sings, speaks and chops it up like Laurie Anderson (or maybe even the video art of Martha Rosler) as their co-conspirators conjure the drifting synth-scapes and restless ambient pieces that act as sonic backdrops. I like it best when Brooks leans into the musicality of things, voices and tones dancing in the sunlight together, but I get the impression they’re having the most fun on the stuff that’s harder to digest, like the annoying-on-purpose repetition of “Work That Superficially Looks Like Leisure”. Lots of intense (or at least aspiring to be intense) ideas here, and since it’s all Canadian, you know the government threw them some bucks to dig as deep into their own navel as they wanted. Which, in Ky’s case, feels like there’s still plenty deeper to go.
L4b L4b LP (Relaxin)
I’ve been on a serious Lolina kick for the past few years, gobbling up all of her weird, contextless albums and savoring them; it follows then that I was pleased to discover L4b’s debut. It’s one of her new projects, a duo with someone named Brandon Juhans who apparently resides in North Carolina(?). No matter what Juhans is all about, Lolina’s personal stamp is all over L4b, two long passages of chaotic and rickety turntablism, or at least that’s how my ears are interpreting it. These two lengthy collages rapidly deploy scratching, pitch-shifting and live beat sampling, at times sounding like Oval remixing JJ Fad or John Wiese given free range to edit an Invisibl Skratch Piklz session, but there’s also a sense of considered pacing here, with loops that actually settle in and provide some form of coherent rhythm or phrasing. Lolina’s voice occasionally pokes out too, on the chance we needed the reminder that these crooked beats were the work of human execution and not entirely software-derived. I want to say it’s not super far from the work of Aaron Dilloway or Twig Harper as well, that sorta hands-on American junk-noise sound, although L4b’s reliance on hip-hop’s sound-bank and dub properties provides this record’s unique distinction.
Lynx Lynx 2xLP (Computer Students)
The extremely bespoke math-rock reissue label Computer Students now sets its sights on Boston’s Lynx, whom I accidentally confused with Olympia’s Lync for a couple minutes at first. I missed this group on the first go-around, which I think is fair considering they only seemed to release two small CDs in 1998 and 1999, but Computer Students is constantly on the lookout for unheralded math-rock and this fits their MO perfectly. The music of Lynx is kind of what I hear in my head if I start chanting the phrase “math rock” to myself: locked-in drums and bass-guitar with stop-on-a-dime cymbal-grabs; academic time signatures; dextrous and vaguely-jazzy guitar work; a dry and direct studio recording; absolutely no vocals. These songs are dynamic and interesting, if kind of generic when viewed through 2023’s lens. I’m sure Don Caballero were an influence, and while there’s plenty of similarities between the two groups, Lynx are less antagonistic, more trying to perfect the form than subvert anyone’s expectations of it. As always, the lavish Computer Students presentation – in this case, two attractive printed LPs in a “heat-sealed aluminum” outer bag with poster insert – treats Lynx’s recordings (both the original album and an unreleased session) with a classy, formal reverence that encourages the listener to give it a serious and focused listen. I know I did!
Frank Marchi Lonely Fire LP (Funeria)
Relentless creative activity from West Bay stalwart Frank Marchi (of Agents Of Satan, Plutocracy, Empty People and half a dozen other impressive projects), following last year’s solo excursion with another, Lonely Fire. He recorded this over the winter of 2022 into 2023, and the wax itself feels more like a dubplate than a mass-produced vinyl record (which would also explain the fast turnaround time). While undeniably a bassist of hardcore pedigree, myriad other sounds and styles filtered into his personal taste (and that of his crew’s), so it’s not a big surprise that much of Lonely Fire is downright funky, utilizing crate-dug loops as a bedrock for his active bass-playing. Certain tracks remind me of MF Doom’s Special Herbs instrumental series, as raw and immediate as their grooves are. There’s also some space-rock happening here, somewhere between Parliment’s mothership and Hawkwind’s orgone accumulator but operating on a very DIY, home-recorded level. Charming and chill, Marchi clearly just wants to vibe out playing his bass all day, and in a just society, he’d be provided with the comfortable lifestyle to do so. As far as our particular reality is concerned, you can at least send him money and receive his records in return.
Mystic 100’s On A Micro Diet 2xLP (Listening House)
When you’re as polarizing an underground rock band as Mystic 100’s (née Milk Music), one thing’s for sure: a lot of people are gonna talk about you! Being talked about is essentially the most pursued form of currency available to musical artists these days (since commutable money is more or less out of the question), and these guys have had the underground buzzing since their exceptional fuzzed-out Milk Music debut, Beyond Living, first for coming out of nowhere as the premier Sex/Vid-approved Dinosaur Jr.-worship band, and then for continually upending expectations in their transition to off-the-grid acid-gobbling hippie freaks. I’m sure there is some aspect of intentional trolling going on here with On A Micro Diet, but I believe Mystic 100’s are being their true selves (and whose true selves don’t include a little bit of trolling anyway?). This double album is stuffed with aimless rock noodling, somewhere in the ballpark of the final Blue Cheer album, that masterfully narcoleptic Frigate album, the last two minutes of a half-hour live Moss Icon improvisation, a Ween CD-only bonus track and maybe the sentiment of the lone Fuckin’ Flyin’ A-Heads single? Stoned to the bone nonsense to the core, no doubt. They’re a fun group to talk about, seeing as they seem unburdened by the expectations of normality that so many other “weirdos” all still abide by, but On A Micro Diet is an entertaining listen on its own, so long as you don’t value decorum and good taste over outlandishness and personality.
Bill Nace & Chik White Off Motion LP (Open Mouth)
A lotta records by Bill Nace and/or Open Mouth Records pass through these digital pages, and while I probably can’t convince all of you to buy all of them, I’m hoping to convince most of you to pick this one up! It’s the most melodically satisfying release from Mr. Nace in a while, due in no small part to the tuneful buzz of Chik White’s jaw harp. White’s jaw harp is easily the most prominent sonic aspect, and he really makes that thing buzz or howl (under the influence of jaw?). Warped jaw harp emissions are frequently looped throughout, providing the perfect sonic canvas for Nace to scribble over, with ticklish pops of feedback, sheets of greyscale noise, electric raspberries and at least half a dozen sounds I couldn’t place within a few guesses. It’s an improvised noise record I suppose, but it really hops and bops with glee, such is the nature of the funny Looney Tunes sound-effect quality inherent in Chik White’s chosen instrument and the way in which these two sonic explorers decided to shape things around it. Kinda sounds like one of those hand-pasted LAFMS records from the late ’70s that I dream of someday paying a few hundred bucks to own, but you can get this right now, somewhere I’m sure, for a reasonable retail price!
Max Nordile Copper In The Arts LP (Gilgongo)
In a review of one of Max Nordile’s many other recent releases, Byron Coley described him as “operating in a lot of odd fields”, which cracked me up in its accuracy. I’ve seen some of his zines and art before, and much like his music (when not reigned in somewhat by bandmates), Nordile’s work seems to delight in the unrefined. You could draw a picture with a crayon, but Nordile seems more likely to wildly mash the crayon into the paper under the force of his body until a pile of colored wax rips a hole right through it. That technique (or lack thereof?) seems to apply to Copper In The Arts, a new solo lathe that features two side-long pieces. “Copper In The Arts” sounds like a microphone placed inside an industrial rock sorter, or hail in the form of scrap metal raining down on an old shack in the woods. Turns out it’s actually rain on a drum head over a tape recorder, so I was close! “Rats Are The Souls Of Dead Landlords” leaves a few amps running while Nordile improvises on anything within grabbing distance, making a racket similar to what I’d expect would come from an elephant left unsupervised in the same space. The rain piece is great, certainly in the spirit of Philip Corner, and the other is nice as well, two additional forms of unwanted sonic detritus infused with Nordile’s personal magic.
Oxbow & Peter Brötzmann An Eternal Reminder Of Not Today / Live At Moers 2xLP (Trost / Sleeping Giant Glossolalia)
Quite the summit here between two long-standing titans of aggro noisy musics, Oxbow and Peter Brötzmann on stage together for one night in Moers, Germany. If you’re familiar with either artist, you’d probably be curious to check this out, and if you dig both I can’t imagine you’d want to miss it. As for me, I haven’t spent much time with Oxbow beyond their seminal Fuck Fest album, and I love all the Brötzmann I’ve heard (though there’s a vast catalog of recordings I haven’t yet). Both artists signify a kind of non-toxic masculinity, grappling with their chosen forms of art with careful consideration and a willingness to extend beyond the realm of safety, so while their respective styles of explosive, bluesy art-rock and torrential improvised sax differ, they meld together impressively well here. Oxbow’s repertoire here leans on slow-burning and spacious grooves, flickering like cigarettes in the dark and equally as smokey. Rhythms circulate, build and play on each other, leaving plenty of room for vocalist Eugene Robinson’s hostile spoken-word and Brötzmann’s punctuated bleats. The biggest surprise here for me is Brötzmann’s approach, far more melodic and sultry than anything I’ve heard come from his saxophone before. Atonal skronk wouldn’t have worked nearly as well, and it shows that Brötzmann, ever the busy collaborator, understood the assignment perfectly, dousing Oxbow’s combustible tunes in his strong amber liquor in anticipation of Robinson’s lit match.
People’s Temple I’m With The People’s Temple 7″ (Roachleg)
More of this, please! It’s cool that hardcore-punk bands can flawlessly ape d-beat, crust, Negative Approach, all that stuff, but man I’ve been hankering for a band to sound like they were ripped directly from the seminal Not So Quiet On The Western Front compilation and that’s exactly what’s happening with Brooklyn’s People’s Temple. They sound like Rebel Truth covering Intensified Chaos with American Dream’s vocalist, pure California ripped-bandana-over-the-knees melodic hardcore-punk that never sacrifices speed for catchiness or vice versa. I kinda can’t believe this is the work of three guys in Brooklyn and not like, high schoolers from San Jose who ripped Jello’s shirt off his back at a show in 1982 that was shut down by the cops. The vocals are perfectly tunefully hoarse, and the songs skip all over, as antsy and irritated as the best hardcore-punk always is. I don’t know if they sit around daydreaming while blasting MIA and Naked Lady Wrestlers like I do, but I’m thrilled they seemed to have come to similar sonic conclusions. Hot stuff!
Poison Ruïn Härvest LP (Relapse)
If you were to dangle me off a bridge and force me to name my favorite hometown punk band in this very moment, I’d find it a pretty extreme measure just to confirm that I’m going with Poison Ruïn! There are plenty of great Philly hardcore-punk bands (I need more Delco MF’s and Quarantine), and I’m sure Zorn are probably exceptional (though my gut reaction has been to avoid them entirely due to the whole Spirit Halloween presentation), but Poison Ruïn have created a cold reality unto themselves, one that sets a pretty clear aesthetic in place while allowing plenty of space to move within it. The visual vibe is Medieval Gothic, moving past the spiked gauntlets of black metal towards chain mail and scythes, closer to Robin Hood than Vlad the Impaler. It’s fun, first and foremost, but also an interesting lens through which to view our contemporary dystopia, as Poison Ruïn’s songs reflect the here and now. As for the music, it’s proudly crust-punk with skinhead ambitions and never veers too far into straight-up hardcore, instead calling to mind ’90s punk classics like Defiance and Aus Rotten, the dungeon-toiling qualities of labelmates Raspberry Bulbs, the downer-melodic vibes of early Philly punkers Ruin and the rhythmic marching orders of British street-punk (there’s gotta be at least one Blitz fan in the band). I swear, there was one song in here that had me thinking of Billy Idol fronting Amebix, but now I’m listening again and can’t quite find it. Such is the world of Poison Ruïn: appealingly crusty and mysterious.
Revelation Man Medieval Massage 7″ (FuckPunk)
Not sure how I fell off with the FuckPunk label, considering they released some of the weirdest and gnarliest records to be loosely associated with Bristol’s post-dubstep scene, but I’m glad I remembered to check back in time to catch the debut single from Revelation Man. Like other FuckPunk records, the packaging is purposely non-existent/janky and there’s a good chance the artist is fake (or at least not entirely real), but unlike the corrosive grooves and blown-out dubs of other FuckPunk releases, Revelation Man is a deadpan Italo project through and through. You kinda have to watch the video for “Medieval Massage” to really get it, but I strongly recommend you do as it’s a track worth getting! Revelation Man dances, sings and lightly hams it up in full Renaissance garb, his emotionally deadpan vocals calling to mind Italo disco favorites like Joe Yellow and Decadence. Revelation Man forebodingly explains that we will learn “the meaning of massage”, and I have to admit, his song makes me more than a little curious! Label-head DJ Oa$is contributes a lightly-dubbed version on the flip, about as remixed as your average ZYX Records b-side, very true to the spirit of the genre. The only thing missing is Revelation Man sensually eating a turkey leg with his bare hands, but there’s no reason us listeners can’t take that necessary step ourselves.
Shitstorm Demonic Alien 7″ (Do What?)
Shitstorm is the kind of band name that one would expect to sound like an actual shitstorm… I’m reminded of a different Shitstorm and their split seven-inch with Sloth that fits the bill nicely: turbulent and imprecise grindcore. This Shitstorm, however, takes a different route, even if they recorded this EP at a place appropriately called “The Sinkhole”. This St. Louis group plays a ragged and bouncy garage-punk style, like some sort of animated kid sibling of Dead Moon, just dying to get out on the road for three months with little more than an old toothbrush and a couple extra T-shirts. While garage at heart, some of these songs verge into pre-mainstream grunge (“Frustrate” is sixty seconds of Sub Pop 100 groove), and the closing track “Get It Right” sounds like Gary Wrong Group covering Sonic Youth or some such basement-level approximation. Basically any form of dirtbag indie can apply here, jeans ripped in weird spots and band shirts of the band they played with the night before. You may not need to hear Demonic Alien this very instant, but you should be comforted that it exists.
Sloth Fist Bombs Away LP (Mindpower)
I’ve always had a little soft-spot for old-guy punk, and considering that basically no bands have stayed broken up, there’s a lot more old-guy punk out there these days, isn’t there? Sloth Fist are a relatively new group, yet Bombs Away is already their sophomore album. They’re old-guy punk for sure – don’t take my word for it, check out “Too Old To Rock” – and they play a gritty form of traditional ’90s-esque pop-punk. You know the type, where the singer kinda screams like he’s in a metal-core band but the other members follow the wide path worn by The Replacements, The Ramones and Rancid, to name a few R-based touchstones of the style. Sloth Fist are from Dallas, but this stuff sounds like it could’ve been local to me here in Southeastern PA circa 1996, ripe for a VFW hall show with a punk band, a ska band and a beatdown hardcore band simply because they were the only bands around, not out of any intentional push for diversity. Not sure if y’all remember Limecell (and seeing as they wrote the anthem “You’re Not Punk, You’re Dirty” in 1994, I pray they have even slightly righteous politics in 2023), but Sloth Fish give me kind of a Limecell vibe, like there’s one guy in the band who works as a licensed contractor, one who always wears hockey jerseys and one who inexplicably has all the early Dischord, Touch & Go and Misfits singles in pristine condition. I regret not checking all three of those boxes myself, but as inspired by Sloth Fist, maybe I still have time.
Tee Vee Repairmann What’s On TV? LP (Total Punk / Computer Human)
Seems like there’s always some up-and-coming punk who writes and releases a million songs in a year, and lately that role has been filled by Sydney’s Ishka Edmeades. If you don’t know him as Tee Vee Repairmann, perhaps you’ve heard his guitar playing in Goner Records’ recording artist Gee Tee, or as part of Research Reactor Corporation or The Satanic Togas… I can’t imagine a day has gone by in the past couple years where Edmeades hasn’t held a guitar in his hands and done something punk with it. What’s On TV? is his newest solo collection, and it’s a fine collection of feel-good garage-punk bops, filled with beach-party riffs, amiable snot and tasteful keyboard accompaniment. The attitude is far more playful than mean, like a mid-tempo Jay Reatard without the pathos or face-punching. At times, it can seem like Edmeades is trying to summon a nostalgic vibe (all the TV talk is reminiscent of first-wave punk rather than the actual world we currently inhabit), as if he’s “being a punk guy” instead of just naturally being a punk guy, but it mostly just matters if the songs sound nice or not, and his are perfectly fine for the job. There’s not a lot of Total Punk you could bring home to meet your mom, but Tee Vee Repairmann is the perfect mix of non-threatening and charming… just don’t mention The Satanic Togas.
The Toms The Toms 2xLP (Feel It)
Nope, that’s not a laminated roadside diner menu, it’s the new reissue of The Toms’ debut LP! Feel It already provided us with a collection of 1979 recordings from New Jersey’s Thomas Marolda, and now they’re giving us a formal reissue of The Toms’ debut with a bonus second LP of almost entirely other songs, all of which are apparently separate from the first reissue. That’s some extreme songwriting power right there, especially when you consider the quality of Marolda’s output. These songs fit right in with power-pop knockouts like The Shoes, Boyfriends and The Plimsouls, with plenty of inspirational credit surely due to The Beatles and Kinks as well. Lots of singing to an unspecified “girl” over pitch-perfect melodies, upbeat swinging rhythms and happy guitars. I love this kind of sound, especially when crafted as masterfully and sweetly as The Toms; I wish this sound was always playing at least quietly in my background. I guess back in the tumultuous late ’70s, young adults had no choice but to sit around crafting the best possible songs they could on their guitars instead of aimlessly scrolling on their phones? Sure, it’s cool that Marolda has these timeless pop tunes (and a Grammy nomination?) under his belt, but you should see the incredible collection of poorly-rendered memes I’ve got stored on my phone!
Vidro Glöd LP (Beach Impediment)
Globetrotting hardcore is a fairly modern phenomenon (Chaos In Tejas being ground zero?), to the point where we have the band Vidro, whose members apparently reside in Brazil, the United States and Sweden. I’m guessing they don’t have the casual intimacy of practicing in the basement every week, but rather meet up in efficient bursts, of which Glöd is a result. It was released by Germany’s Kink Records last year, now with an American pressing care of the perpetually clued-in Beach Impediment label. I don’t know what member is from where, but this certainly sounds like an international hardcore record, with Zero Boys’ guitar tone, an agile Swedish d-beat songwriting style, the astringent delivery of Raw Power and, to top it off, an ex-member of the freakin’ Headcleaners(!). I swear I can hear a Brazilian hardcore influence too, but they don’t shoot for Olho Seco levels of aggression – Vidro are mostly kinda mid-paced by hardcore-punk standards, sounding like they should’ve gotten a track on the P.E.A.C.E. comp and had a picture of a mushroom cloud on their page of the newsprint insert. Absolutely nothing groundbreaking, but proficient and raging enough that Vidro’s long-distance flights weren’t spent in vain.
Witness K Witness K LP (Ever/Never)
Ever/Never is responsible for some of my favorite “where’d this come from?” releases of the past few years, and I’d file the self-titled debut from Sydney’s Witness K under that header. This is dimly-lit, far-from-punk post-punk that conjures rich moods of intrigue and deceit and compassion (or manipulation under the guise of compassion?), as much song as sonic surroundings. Bass-lines stir like a spoon in black coffee, vocals murmur on the outskirts of the recording (were they captured accidentally?) and a variety of strings and keys filter through the blinds, all plodding along together. It’s not simply the Australian connection that has me thinking about CS + Kreme while listening to Witness K – both groups conjure strange, elusive atmospheres through semi-traditional instrumentation and slow electronic rhythms (see “How Do We Count Your Poses”), though Witness K lands closer to the Cold Storage / early ’80s Rough Trade bullpen (think Virginia Astley) than CS + Kreme’s vaguely techno inclinations. Witness K’s instrumentation skews kind of “indie”, though the delivery and presentation are far too stark and unusual to find a home in even the tiniest print on one of those weekend indie festivals. Feels like something Blackest Ever Black would be releasing if the label still existed in 2023, but we have Ever/Never out here doing the thankless work instead. So, uh, thanks!
XV On The Creekbeds On The Thrones LP (Ginkgo)
Michigan’s XV are one of the most singular post-punk bands going today, and it’s because of something that can’t be gained via virtuosity, hard work, money or social status. It’s better than all that: this trio actually seems to be really close friends with each other! It’s the sort of psychic connection that can only arrive organically and over time, and XV thrive within this rich interpersonal comfort, making music that is wholly their own. It’s all over On The Creekbeds On The Thrones, their second full-length (third if you count Basement Tapes), this playful dialogue between all three members and the way they manage to turn it into songs. I don’t know if they switch instruments between songs, but the drumming varies wildly, multiple members sing (or speak, as it were), and the whole thing plays out like various conversations, from the mundane to the serious to the ridiculous, bass-lines generally guiding the ship. A couple tracks remind me of that great Them, Themselves Or They single from years ago (it’s the vocal echo / stoner bass-line combo), and certain moments call to mind the basement skronk of Puppet Wipes or the stoner-punk of Vivienne Styg, but those are incidental findings, not direct correlations. Occasionally tagged as “free punk” (meant in a “free jazz” way), XV don’t wildly thumb their instruments without purpose but rather approach song as a place to share, explore, and most importantly, have a really good time.
Yfory Yfory 7″ (Static Age Musik)
Can’t think of any punk as globally active as Bryony Beynon – I first encountered her in London with the god-level Good Throb, then she was playing in BB & The Blips in Australia, and now she’s fronting Yfory in Berlin (and singing in Welsh, for good measure). And here I am, feeling like I accomplished an epic journey whenever I get dinner in a different neighborhood! Unlike the absolutely scalding menace of Good Throb and the snotty pogo of The Blips, Yfory is sophisticated and cool, closer to Animals & Men and The Raincoats than any sort of mosh-minded music. Gotta say, it really works! The guitar lines are interesting, kind of aloof but in a charming way, and Beynon’s vocal range (from spoken to chirped) are a fitting match, equally detached but dead-stare focused. Definitely a classic stripped-down post-punk sound, but imbued with enough of Yfory’s own character to make it stick. I wonder what’ll happen next, if they’ll become an ongoing concern and develop their sound further, or if this is already the last we’ll hear of Yfory, Beynon uprooting to Brazil or Iceland to start a skinhead or crust band. Either way, I’ll be happily following along!
DC’s Brain Tourniquet tackle the tricky territory of a power-violence full-length with …An Expression In Pain. The style is best suited to brisk split seven-inches, not long-players, but Brain Tourniquet bypass that issue by keeping it short – at roughly twenty minutes (half of which is a single ten-minute track), …An Expression In Pain doesn’t twiddle its thumbs. And though they’re named after a Man Is The Bastard song (and the album title comes suspiciously close to Excruciating Terror’s Expression Of Pain), Brain Tourniquet avoid tribute-act status by merging in thrash, stoner-doom and fast-core motifs throughout, often more frequently than the traditional blast/dirge combo itself. The looped noise that opens the record is a nice touch too, something they certainly should keep in their arsenal. If anything, the polished recording and athletic performance reminds me most of Mind Eraser, another group of mosh-core enthusiasts who turned to the dark side (Crossed Out) while developing their own take on the technique. The long closing title track displays the most ingenuity and promise, as it covers a variety of stylistic paths (including the dirge-stomp about halfway through, riding a riff that recalls Mind Eraser’s also-ten-minutes-long “Unconscious”). Maybe I’ve heard this before, but when it’s this powerful and raging, I want to hear it again!
Exquisite minimalist house here from, you guessed it… New Zealand? There’s nothing more universal than the groove, and New Zealanders Eden Burns & Christopher Tubbs wrangle it nicely here on these four percussive-based club tracks. All four cuts put their strengths on display: opener “Shaker”‘s is its bass-line, slipping down a half-note and landing directly in the listener’s pelvis. There’s also a repetitive vocal snippet of some guy saying “it’s so good” and I’m in firm agreement. The other three cuts focus on the percussion, with lots of bongos, hand drums, shakers, congas and djembes in full syncopation as either Burns or Tubbs scuffs the surface with dub effects, vocal clips and sampler effects. Has kind of a DJ Fett Burger way of moving through the room, conjuring images of animated rainforest jamborees with colorful critters executing their signature dance moves under the canopy of wet foliage. At least that’s how I’m hearing it! I’d love Vol. II even if I was stranded in some drab scientific research camp in the permafrost of northern Greenland… these tracks bring warmth and jubilation no matter where they travel.
Houston’s Cool Moon take me back a little with their third Exotic Fever full-length, Crossing The Finish Line. They’re new to me, but their sound transports me to that moment in the early oughts where poppy emo got so polished and accessible that it felt like a mainstream breakthrough was only a matter of time (which was exactly the case). These songs fit that moment well, calling to mind Jejune and The Anniversary, the mysterious rise of Vagrant Records, and even a little Evanescence (it’s in the emo-angelic vocals of Andrea Lisi and not necessarily a bad thing!). Some moments are more pensive and anxious in a manner befitting Texas Is The Reason and Mineral, but for the most part Cool Moon sounds radio-ready: “Is This Thing On?” behaves like an early Paramore b-side awaiting discovery. I presume the majority of my readers aren’t clamoring for poppy emo-derived radio rock, and to be honest I wasn’t either, but I’m not impervious to the style; Cool Moon made a believer out of me with Crossing The Finish Line. 
CS + Kreme entered my life in 2020 care of the stellar howwouldyoufeelwithoutthatthought EP, which sent me on an impassioned mission to scoop up some prior EPs and Snoopy, their album of the same year which cemented them as a unique sonic entity in the all-too-homogenous experimental field. I was thrilled that they were coming to town in 2022 (and bummed when they cancelled!) and eager to dive into their follow-up full-length Orange as soon as the vinyl dropped. It certainly sounds like CS + Kreme, from the reptilian drum machines to the gothic fairy-tale strings and keys, but I’m having an unexpected difficulty settling in and connecting with Orange. A track like “April Fools’ Day” struck a chord with me immediately, its sixteen-minute run-time passing in a blip, but the tracks here feel more passive, like they’re milling about at the station waiting for some sort of train that never arrives. The disposition is unsettled and grey, much like the frothy, toxified seaweed on the cover, and while I certainly dig that mood (and CS + Kreme are masters in conjuring it), I only really find myself pulled into “Would You Like A Vampire” (featuring Bridget St. John). Its richly melodic acoustic guitars and ominously repeated vocal offer some sort of poisoned Balearic folk groove, all churning and spooky, as if Shackleton lightly remixed Comus (and perhaps he should). Even though I’ve instantly fallen into CS + Kreme’s sonic portals in the past, I’m going to keep spinning Orange on the chance that there’s some upside-down hidden doorway I’ve managed to keep missing. 
You heard the man: Earnest Knuckle (aka Bethlehem, PA’s Earl Kunkel) plays banjo and guitar along with, that’s right, snippets of samples. The acoustic guitar and fingerpicked banjo can be lively, lyrical instruments full of rich melody, but Earnest Knuckle doesn’t dive deep so much as briefly idle away on them in the way one might whittle a piece of wood into a smaller piece of wood. They’re definitely more “pieces” than songs, appealingly simplistic and unhurried. In between each piece is one of those sample snippets, and I can’t piece anything together but randomness from them. As they all appear to be short bits of TV dialogue, this album often feels like I’m sitting on a worn-out couch next to Earnest Knuckle as he mutes the TV during every commercial break and teases out moody little tunes on his banjo or guitar until the show comes back on. Taken as a whole, it’s an agreeable domestic affair thanks to its rigid conception: a private lonesome evening at Chez Kunkel. Available now at his elusive Bandcamp page for a prehistoric price of ten bucks, or as he puts it: “the item is operating at a loss, yes, a horrible business model but that isn’t the point”.
Props to Toxic State for staying true to their mission of scabrous punk lunacy, embodying the low-level delinquents that Robocop and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toss in garbage cans on their way to the final boss. This one comes from resident rocker Mateo Cartagena, whose work you surely know from Warthog and Dawn Of Humans, now messing around with a drum machine and the rest of his gear for some zonked-out devil-worshipping bedroom punk. The drums are clearly synthetic and the guitars are clearly overdriven, rolling out in a continual metallic racket not unlike Midnight covering The Misfits, or Venom (if Venom from Spider-Man was also a member of the band). Factory City Children feels kind of throwaway by design, but some of my favorite punk records are the ones with absolutely zero aspirations besides “somethin’ to do”, so why not? “Gut The Pig” ends with some nice robotic malfunction sounds and “Hell Man 88” follows with a fist-pumping Flying V riff, evil goblin vocals and a great improvised rant to close it out, leaving none of Cartagena’s enemies unscathed. Pretty much exactly what I’d want out of a Toxic State solo project! 
Sometimes it’s easy for me to forget that underground rock happened in Seattle between the first punk and hardcore waves (think Solger and The Fartz) and the grunge explosion of the late ’80s. People who “were there” often champion The U-Men as the saviors of that mid ’80s time, but until I really dig into their records, I’ve got this reissue of The Fall-Outs 1986 cassette album to fill in at least one gap. I hadn’t heard of them before, but the fine folks at the charming Hex Enduction record shop gave this one a new coat of paint and a fresh vinyl issue and I can understand their compulsion to do so. These songs are fast and fun poppy garage-rock / borderline-punk, calling to mind their compatriots The Fastbacks as well as The Replacements and maybe even a touch of Nasty Facts (“The Other One” in particular). Looking youthful in their striped sweaters and mod haircuts, I can picture The Fall-Outs schlepping their Fender combos across town, livening up the same dive bars that Mark Arm and King Buzzo frequented. Do you think they slammed and wormed to the Fall-Outs lively rendition of “Bright Lights, Big City”, or did they already have other ideas in mind? 
There are no shortage of American hardcore bands trying to sound Swedish, but a lesser known phenomenon is the Swedish hardcore band trying to sound American. Could be nothing more than a coincidence, but Stockholm’s Gluer seem to be reflecting many of the current trappings of underground American ‘core, from the spooky tattoo flash artwork to the band name that adds an R to a pre-existing American hardcore band name. Of course, it’s the sound that matters, and Gluer operate in a similarly grimy American fashion, stomping and sulking like Gag and Spy and the like. If we want to split hairs, Gluer seem less interested in mosh breakdowns, preferring to focus on frowny mid-paced grooves with a scratched-up attitude, which positions them closer to the punk end of the spectrum as opposed to the ever-growing tough-guy beat-’em-up scene. Cool with me – punks beat thugs any day – and to be honest, for as derivative as Gluer might be, it still sounds pretty good to me. Plus, it seems that the singer wears glasses, and there needs to be more bespectacled front-person representation in hardcore.
Luomo’s “Tessio” is without a doubt my favorite house track of all time, so you can imagine my surprise hearing its vocal lines reworked by Italian electro-sleaze artists Hard Ton! Someone had to do it, I just wouldn’t have guessed it’d be them. “Tessio Acido” is a fine tribute, a pulsing Knight Rider bass-line with acid gulps that minimizes the deep emotion of the original for a surface-level flirtation. It seems secondary to “Release” anyway, the title track featuring the vocals of Roy Inc., who offers a breathy leather-daddy presence well suited to Hard Ton’s general aesthetic (and ball gag sleeve art). Kinky can easily be corny no matter what the medium, but Hard Ton is too much fun (and too proudly gay) for even minor second-hand embarrassment to stick. One of the few acid-house groups who can title a track “Electrosexual” or “Chocolate Black Leather” with impunity. In Hard Ton’s world, there’s no shame in freely participating; it’s the self-conscious wallflowers who need to check their inhibitions. 
There’s gotta be a hundred intentionally-evil bands or noise projects out there going by the name of Heaven’s Gate, and while I was skeptical on face value, I’ve come to the conclusion that this Heaven’s Gate is now the only Heaven’s Gate I willingly acknowledge. Check the credentials: current and ex-members of Combatwoundedveteran, Warthog and Municipal Waste with goddamn Paul Mazurkiewicz of Cannibal Corpse on drums! Logistically there’s no way this doesn’t rage, and rage it does. Heaven’s Gate opt for kind of a fast-core / thrash combo, mixing Terrorizer’s grind beats with S.O.D. style dirge pitting. The recording is punchy and clean, somewhat recalling the more inspired moments of the Y2K thrash revival, although Heaven’s Gate approach the staunchly underground style with steely professionalism. Only five tracks here (and a masterful b-side etching), but they average a few minutes a piece, moving between modes of attack with fluidity and intention. I swear, there will be full nuclear armageddon decimating the planet and there will still be great grind bands popping up in Florida, long before the water’s drinkable again.
The Heavy Metal madness continues unabated, now that their fourth album (originally released by Static Age on cassette in 2019) has received the royal treatment from Total Punk. They’re a punk duo(?) from either London or Germany (or both?), and if you haven’t already heard them, you can really start anywhere, just be sure to start somewhere. They seem most at ease when skewering the world around them, from war pigs to the grumpy convenience store owner across the street and everyone in between. Just be warned though, their punk doesn’t follow any traditional aesthetic guidelines so much as lampoon them – it’s like if the DIY squat-punk of the early ’80s was airlifted into Cleveland’s scene of outlandish punk comedians. The vocals sound more like sketch-comedy characters than any sort of consistent vocalist; someone named “MC Ice Brainiac” is credited with vocals on the rousing “MF Golf”, but that can’t be some actual other person outside of the band, can it? The presentation is all so demented and funny and inexplicable that Heavy Metal would probably manage to alienate even the least-serious members of Woodstock ’99 and Perverts Again at a party. Some of the songs here are already released, some probably should’ve never been released, and if you want to start with a prime example of Heavy Metal’s glorious lack of sanity, the one-two punch of “Sprinkle To Cone Ratio” into “Straight Jacket” lands like Men’s Recovery Project on a Crass Records diet. 
You might see the cover photo of Heavy Mother seated at a table in wacky wigs and sunglasses and think “nope”, but after I explain that they’re members of The Cowboys alongside a one-time drummer for Circuit Des Yeux and gosh-darn Eddie Flowers of The Gizmos on vocals, I’m expecting to you change your answer to a yes! This Time Around is their debut and it’s a good-time rock n’ roll affair with a bad-boy attitude. The music is straight-forward and somewhat typical by garage-rock / first-wave punk metrics, tuneful in the right spots and always willing to party down. Reminds me of The Sonics with a touch of Tha Retail Simps (who were probably influenced by The Gizmos in the first place), punk music meant to be accessorized by pool tables, cigarettes and bad mustaches. Perfect stuff if you’re the type of delinquent who rips bongs to “Louie Louie” on a weekday night (which is covered here!), or simply wish you were. 
Curious one here from the always engaging iDEAL label (who apparently relocated from Sweden to Portugal?). Featuring an ex-member of the Brainbombs-related No Balls, this is something else entirely, a grotty collection of aggressive electronic shocks and industrial synths deployed in a loosely dancehall fashion. Imagine Beau Wanzer’s splatter-core synths played one finger at a time by The Bug and you’re in the general sonic vicinity – oppressive tones, aggressive pulses and, most strikingly of all, vocals that resemble some death-metal form of Reggaeton. British-born Jamaican vocalist Tony F. Wilson really digs into his guts for these vocals, sounding like Flowdan going full Gollum, or Nazamba if he fronted Darkthrone. “Liquid Breakfast” and “At War” are great places to start, with tweaked synths spiraling into the ether in a manner redolent of post-reunion Throbbing Gristle as Wilson chokes on his evil growl with zero reverb and maximum compression. Seems like every form of music can benefit from being absolutely distorted to hell along with the addition of guttural vocalizing; Reggaeton’s now part of that club as well. 
By chance or pre-meditation, London’s Index For Working Musik squeeze a lot of different stylistic choices into their mostly straightforward sound, and I can’t get enough of it. These songs move with the effected guitars and hushed vocals of Duster, the alienated emo of Elliott Smith, the languid momentum of Bedhead, the trippy ensemble feel of The Olivia Tremor Control and the loose noise of Minmae. Sounds like a great way for a band to be, and in the case of Index For Working Musik it truly is! Plus, they seem to share some unspoken kinship with groups far less pop-oriented and palatable, as if they could easily take their rock band on the road with one of those field-recording ambient keyboard projects and it would still make for a pleasant and coherent evening out. They write songs, to be sure, but make the absolute most of their eight-track recording, imbuing these songs with a wonderfully woozy headspace… at any given time there’s at least one musical aspect disconnected from all the rest, and it rules. There aren’t many groups that I know of that could bridge the gap between Grouper and Lewsberg or Amateur Hour and Modest Mouse, but Index For Working Musik aren’t many groups. 
Jim Kuczkowski was responsible for recording and mastering some of Loli & The Chones’ records, so it comes as no surprise that someone as close to God-tier punk like that ended up starting his own band and playing in a similar style. Lousy Sue are budget-rock punks ready for the 11:00 am opening slot on Goner Fest, proudly simple and even more proudly dumb. The drums are all snare and tom (with crash on the chorus), the guitar strums along to every eighth note and multiple members of the trio provide vocals, either backing each other up, cheering each other on or stepping on each other’s toes. Certainly not as fast as your typical Loli & The Chones tune, and while I prefer more of a nervous tempo to Lousy Sue’s penchant for laid-back swinging, it’s a matter of personal taste. Pretty simple and timeless, and if you didn’t know their version of “Shut The Fuck Up” was a Buck Biloxi original, that might just mean you spend most nights sleeping in a bed instead of on someone else’s couch. Artless Artifacts is almost anonymous in its delivery, so timeless and true is their troglodytes-on-beer garage-punk. 
Pour some water on your sauna’s heat rocks, the duo of John Talabot and Velmondo have arrived with this rich debut collection of tropical new-age ambient. John Talabot has been early to a number of dance trends over the past fifteen years or so, but is arriving on the blissful wellness-ambient tip a little late; no worries though, Mioclono offer strong support for the timelessness of this sound when done right. Take a track like “Myoclonic Sequences”, for example: it’s patient and exotic, with lush tones pulsing and vibrating at various angles throughout, tuned wood-block percussion keeping effortless time, and some sort of flute that starts puffing a few minutes in, as pleasurable as a parrot on your shoulder. “Fog And Fire” comes next, and is a rich sixteen minutes of synthesized hand percussion, ominous vocals and lush hum, like Nuel’s Trance Mutation stretched across the Amazon. “Pell De Serp” is very much in line with electro-Gamelan acts like De Leon and Journey Of Taro (as well as Raime’s spacious minimalism), as all three replicate traditional Eastern percussion for heady synth-worshipping audiences. Unlike those other two, who opt for sketches and truncated drafts, Mioclono stretch and extend their grooves from sunrise to sundown; the results are calmly eternal. 
Been a while since the phrase “Brooklyn sass-rock” entered my consciousness, but as society tries to reconfigure itself into something reminiscent of the pre-Covid era, it’s only natural that this style would rear its head yet again (much like an old-timey STD). New group Model/Actriz are precisely Brooklyn sass-rock, and they seem almost tailor-made for usurping the niche previously occupied by the disgraced (and disbanded?) Daughters, one of psychosexual drama relaid over sass-industrial beats and violent digital guitars. The Daughters similarities are plenty (in fact, both bands are produced by modern industrial svengali Seth Manchester), but Model/Actriz aren’t a carbon copy – these songs are far more Meet Me In The Bathroom than England’s Hidden Reverse. Dogsbody calls to mind the first couple Liars records care of trash-picked disco beats, harsh noisy textures and a vocalist who simply won’t shut up, though Model/Actriz push things further into electro/wave territories, utilizing more of the studio’s features than a live-to-tape recording. Vocalist Cole Haden sounds like Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart clearing the room at an emo karaoke night, trying to wedge a narrow path between The Jesus Lizard and Panic! At The Disco, and while it’s certainly not for everyone, those for whom it’s for will absolutely love it. As someone who thinks The Vogue’s As Brass In Satin is one of the greatest unheralded albums of Y2K (and a travesty it was CD only), I’m partial to some serious sass; Dogsbody delivers in a fresh and novel way (much like a hot up-and-coming STD).
To all my haters who never thought I’d amount to anything, how do you explain that this is the second album by a band called Moron’s Morons that I’m writing about, here on my very own website?? Check and mate! If their outfits on the cover and name of their band didn’t already clue you in, Moron’s Morons play snot-nosed first-wave punk in the spirit of The Damned, The Dead Boys and The Pack. The riffing is incessant, the clothes are leopard-print and duct tape, and the lyrics are anti-social and proud. This is extremely typical punk rock as it exists all over the world, and in the case of Moron’s Morons it comes from Warsaw, Poland. How they ended up on Nashville’s Sweet Time Records is a testament to the power of the international punk network, especially if your singer is named Philo Phuckphace and your drummer is named Turd Awesome (as is precisely the case with this bunch of rascals). They sneak in a cover of TSOL’s “Nothin’ For You”, which more or less sounds like their originals, of course. Only you can determine if you need more of this in your life, particularly from a contemporary group of punky Polish jesters such as these. I won’t judge either way.
Extremely not-for-everyone content here, but for those of us whom this is for, rejoice! I can’t think of a label more continuously, joyously ridiculous than Wheelchair Full Of Old Men, endlessly releasing unlistenable projects from the same bunch of Impractical Joker-looking weirdo normies since the late ’80s. Sockeye is their flagship band, and while their anthem “Buttfuck Your Own Face” enters my brain at least once a month, they haven’t really been any sort of an active band for many years. This leads us to 100 Story Building Drowning In Cum, the newest project from Sockeye’s Food Fortunata and Poopy Necroponde (on vocals and guitar, respectively). They cover a couple Sockeye classics, like the uncharacteristically boastful “Tour Song”, and twist the aforementioned classic into “Buttfugg My Whole Life”, with the originals following in the same basic style. They even end with a Collective Soul parody! It’s high-school talent-show rock, simple dopey riffs that are the first ones anyone ever learns, almost engineered to repel anyone who cares about being cool, and it allows Fortunata’s lyrics to take center stage, absolutely ludicrous, nearly Dadaist nonsense humor. Sense is never, ever made, just gloriously impossible stories that make life-long fans out of some people (including me) and send everyone else clamoring for the exits. If you don’t like 100 Story Building Drowning In Cum, see ya!
Not sure if you’ve noticed, but I try to pick up at least one hard-banging fundamental techno EP a month… I don’t care if it sounds basically the same as the one I got last month, or the month before, deep down I know it’s fresh and that’s kind of all I need. Techno can be so elemental and pure and nameless, and I appreciate that about it in a way I wouldn’t with other genres I enjoy. Which is to say, Lions Of God by Spanish producer Indira Paganotto is the opposite of experimental, and I find it perfectly appealing exactly how it is. These four tracks are trance-indulgent big-room rippers, each element precisely formulated and deployed as if luxury automotive engineers were in charge of production. “Legend” sounds like it’s ready to soundtrack TV commercials for a new line of luxury hybrid Mazdas, so maybe I’m not far off on that analogy. Best of the bunch might be the title track, which takes a minute to ruminate on the angelic arpeggio before dropping the kick and an alien voice that seems to be saying “body… butt” over and over, emotional chords seeping through like spilled coffee in a takeout bag. When the acid line hits three minutes in, I close my eyes and picture the scores of young unemployed Europeans throbbing in unison, fully connected to this eternal and derivative beat. I’m right there with them.
No one can point out the inanities of modern life quite like a sharp hardcore band. I mean, how stupid is it that we have to hear about someone known as “the My Pillow guy”? Pittsburgh hardcore band Rat-Nip clearly see the world through They Live glasses, blasting through these six fully-burled tracks in what is quickly becoming the Pittsburgh tradition (I can hardly believe it myself). Rat-Nip clearly take cues from Pick Your King, Urban Waste and Cause For Alarm – the grittiest first-wave urban ‘core – but the thing that stands out most to me about My Pillow is the absolutely lethal guitar tone. It’s rich, thick and heavier than it should be while maintaining a crisp layer of fuzz, truly the meat on the rest of the band’s bones. In a way, My Pillow reminds me of the Denver Youth Attack scene too, although Rat-Nip don’t seem self-consciously desperate to convince us how mean and scary they are… there’s no tolerance for pretense in Pittsburgh. Along with drumming that’s tighter than my lower back when I wake up and a vocalist who enunciates his words with a fierce scowl, you’ve got a pretty unassailable hardcore EP. 
Not sure what Stockholm’s Receptacles are on about with the pie theme here, but then again I’m not sure what they’re on about in regards to much of anything! They’re a severely deconstructed rock trio, seeking out not only wrong notes but wrong chords, wrong rhythms, wrong noises… it’s a true delight. The Pie reminds me quite a bit of Sightings circa City Of Straw, although Receptacles never get dirty or harsh or come close to breaking a sweat. These songs slowly churn like sneakers in a dryer, each player locked into each other yet in a way that defies outside understanding (much like the late great Sightings). Joe Williamsson’s vocals are spoken more like the casually glum stand-up of Mitch Hedberg or Hannibal Burress than any sort of rock singer… the Captain Beefheart similarities are certainly in there, but Williamsson’s delivery slows the proceedings down in a uniquely jarring way. Sometimes The Pie calls to mind US Maple dozing off in those airport massage chairs, but the closer I follow Dennis Egberth’s drums, the more that functional and intricate patterns emerge. There’s plenty of proof here that Receptacles meant to do this, and I’m glad they did.
Loving the picture of Shirese on the cover: it features all seven of them lounging in bisexual lighting, looking like they were just told that the VIP lounge they’re in was reserved for someone else. I liked their first vinyl album that came through here a couple years ago, and they maintain their warped path on Rose Of Smiling Faces. Theirs is kind of an all-things-considered indie-garage sound, as likely to dip into disorienting tape manipulations as a repetitive Rolling Stones strut, a thorough Velvets strum-down or a Roky Erickson acid splash. No anxiety or uptight attitudes here; Shirese love nothing more than to hang in the cradle of a loosely-written psych-rock tune and let it play out naturally. These songs are about the journey, not the destination, with a playfulness that occasionally reminds me of Los Cincos or Eat Skull rinsed of their shit-fi glaze. There are lots of articles about how people have less friends than ever these days, how everyone’s all lonely and scared, but here are Shirese, all seven of them, jamming happily in some carpeted Connecticut basement for hours on end, getting along just fine. Who needs mental, spiritual or emotional help when you’ve got a band?
My Mind were a profoundly disorienting punk group, and Society Problem, featuring at least one of their members, pushes even further towards a sonic strobe effect with Stolen Moment. Imagine a live recording of Neos where the only microphone is in a rack tom, the first Hair Police album if they only covered Fat Day songs, or Harry Pussy if they were a band of cartoon elves. Many of these songs are dominated by the tumble of percussion, with youthful shouting and lo-fi guitar slashes coming from somewhere close by, instruments linking up seemingly at random. The songs are short (there’s something like ten of them), and they’re interlaced with brief and appropriately confounding samples (is that Angela Lansbury run through a reverb pedal?). The record comes in a fold-out screened sleeve with a cardstock insert of Society Problem’s MySpace confirmation email circa 2007, as if I wasn’t already deeply confused about every aspect of the group and this release. Punk can be hard to mess with while remaining punk, but Stolen Moment rips the whole idea to shreds in the punkest way possible. 
Spunky split single here on the Related label, this one pairing Sweat Lodge with Shawnte Orion, whom I keep reading as “Shawnte Onion” in my head no matter how hard I try. I appreciate the confusion inherent in Sweat Lodge’s existence, as it appears they put out a tape in 2013, then became a band called Turquoiz Noiz for two albums’ worth (both released on Related), and now are back as Sweat Lodge? Who can say the inner workings of this trio’s minds, but I like the name Sweat Lodge more, and they offer some fun, crusty indie-rock here. Reminds me of Hickey in that there is a melody buried underneath squalls of noise and muck, delivered without the slightest hint of insecurity or sense that they’re seeking anyone’s approval. Makes sense then that they’d be down with Shawnte Orion on the flip, as he reads his spoken-word poetry over incidental street sounds and, as it turns out, the strum of a guitar, simple percussion and semi-melodic backing yowls. He clearly comes from a punk background, dropping conspicuous references and adding the sound of curbs being grinded to “Pavement Any Flavor”, his oblique ode to skateboarding. Two different approaches to sonic art but both artists seem to be having plenty of fun with their respective choices.
Back to top