Abyecta Inténtalo O Muere 7″ (Metadona)
Concurrently residing in Chile, Spain and, surely worst of all, now even the United States, Abyecta pack a lot into this seven-inch single. This is music made by punks who take two hours to get dressed for punks who take two hours to get dressed, the charged-hair, boots n’ braces realm of underground punk that I’ve always admired if not personally belonged. At five and a half minutes, “Inténtalo O Muere” barely fits within the confines of a seven-inch record, but the track benefits from its relatively epic length. Imagine Randy Uchida hitching a ride with The Varukers down the highway to Hell, or the Epic Handshake meme (you know the one) where the two muscular arms are “heavy metal” and “punk rock” and the handshake is “spiked gauntlets”. Songs like this are meant to be five minutes long, with extended instrumental guitar-solo breaks, aggro bridges and fist-pumping choruses. “Amo Y Esclavo” welds Judas Priest / Grim Reaper guitar lines to the powerful gallop of hardcore-punk drum patterns, with no qualms about an epic ninety-second instrumental opening passage. It’s larger than life (metal) and street-level urgent (punk), befitting an unsanctioned outdoor punk fest with active volcanos in the distance, preferably full of melting cop cars.
Bill Converse Zone Zone 2×12″ (Fixed Rhythms)
Lace up those Chuck Taylors and let’s roll out, Bill Converse is playing tonight! The Austin-based DJ/producer is known for his atypical triple-turntable setup, though unlike Queensrÿche’s drum kit, there’s a keen purpose to Converse’s excess. The evidence couldn’t be clearer, as the second record in this double twelve-inch set showcases an absolutely mind-melting live set at Jackie O’Body in Denton, TX, sometime in 2024. It’s a thrilling acid rollercoaster, though if I insist on likening the performance to a carnival ride, the bumper cars are a similarly-appropriate attraction. Arpeggiated acid lines are bouncing from all angles, but Converse has a keen sense of order and pacing, whipping up a hero’s feast of analog dance grooves. Don’t let the live aspect scare you, either – the recording is crisp and full-bodied, if lacking the screams and hollers of what must’ve been a frenzied dance crowd. The studio tracks are great in a different way: “770” is like a Satanic mass derived from the Dr. Katz and Seinfeld themes; Converse’s plucky MIDI bass over pitched drums is a highlight. “Lure Me” chops it up with a laser security system fit for the Bellagio, and the title track is a steam-engine running on acid, like when Jamal Moss presses all the buttons at once and it somehow sounds euphoric. I’d say someone should get Converse a fourth table, but until we understand the possible ramifications, certain forms of power are not to be messed with.
Early Grave Sewer Baby Eaten By Worms 7″ (Stupid Bag)
Philly upstarts Early Grave have fun with metal aesthetic signifiers (see: band logo, cemetery-themed art, machetes and scythes brandished in group pic) while clearly worshipping the one and only true god: hardcore punk. They released this nine-song demo late last year, which Stupid Bag has now upgraded to an attractive seven-inch slab. They’ve got a great thing going: the music recalls the frantic speed-runs of Neos and Gang Green with a smidge of Septic Death’s gloriously-confusing songwriting and the occasional fast-core bludgeoning redolent of Slap A Ham’s late ’90s output. Perhaps it’s the vocals where the metal influence seeps in, as they reached into the cauldron for United Mutation’s grizzled mutant intonation and accidentally pulled out a severed larynx with the fiendishness of Glen Benton. As a trio, it’s either the bassist or guitarist responsible for the vocals (no front-person!), which is far less prevalent in hardcore than metal. But I digress: Early Grave named their damn thing Sewer Baby Eaten By Worms and seem to approach their frothy speed-core from the perspective of that sewer baby, writing and contorting among so much unspeakable vermin.
FRKSE Through The Slow Dusk LP (Iron Lung)
There’s a rich allegory to be gleaned from the arresting cover of FRKSE’s Through The Slow Dusk, though it’s unclear to me exactly what the decapitated horse-head’s vomited objects imply. It’s been fun to ruminate on though, particularly while jamming FRKSE’s newest iteration of discomfiting underground electronics. Through The Slow Dusk is the closest FRKSE has ever come to sounding like a “real band”, with recognizable percussive elements (is that a trap-kit in there on some tracks?), synths and vocals, recorded by none other than Martin Bisi. As such, it sounds like Public Image Ltd. had they signed to Broken Flag instead of Virgin, with imposing fields of dub-constructed post-punk given an early industrial walloping – the punishment is in fact the reward. FRKSE aren’t interested in glorifying historical frights, though… the group has always wielded a dark-knowledge, deep-web lexicon rooted in the contemporary, and the lyrics of tracks like “Sort” (“Forbes list of dilettantes: / spreadsheet / populate the cells”), “Coax” (“Online broker / saw me in a magazine”) and “Fled” (“I want to be white / I want to be white like overexposure”) don’t play games. For those intrepid Iron Lung Records fans who listen to more Einstürzende Neubauten than Infest, their misanthropy is once again rewarded.
Giallo Tenebrarum LP (Convulse)
The black leather glove has been enjoying a resurgence in hardcore-punk’s popular imagery. It’s kind of the perfect visual signifier for modern hardcore bands who want to imply some level of dark trangressiveness without actually getting in trouble for it. Mercifully, the days of bands using pictures of scantily-clad, suffering women without getting called out for it have passed, so the black leather glove offers a reasonable solution: perhaps sleazy celluloid violence is implied, perhaps consensual BDSM is implied, or maybe they just want you to think someone in the band knows how to operate a motorcycle, but whatever the case, it’s safely edgy territory for would-be Youth Attack bands who release records they’d never show their parents. The gloves are central to Giallo’s debut full-length (complete with two band members wearing them in the live photos), but their form of contemporary hardcore hits pretty hard, even if they went bare handed. Giallo’s sound is indebted to groups like Civilized and Vile Gash (and with the slasher movie aesthetic, City Hunter’s presence looms especially large); it’s an overtly aggressive approach, shrouded in feedback without any creeping metal influence, and they do well by it. Their songs are faster than typical, even the parts that benefit from being slow, and I appreciate that about Giallo’s approach – “Sleepwalking” is a shock to the system when it kicks into high gear. The two extended songs on the second side show signs of curiosity: a creeping, textural synth-scape from Terror Cell Unit leads into a demonic, sax-laden slam with throat-clearing coughs reminiscent of Pharmakon’s Hoax-album starter. I hope Giallo washed their hands after, but what do you know: another great reason for those gloves.
Annie Hogan Tongues In My Head LP (Downwards)
There are a dwindling few among us who can claim to have worked closely with Nick Cave, Lydia Lunch, Marc Almond and Foetus; of those, there’s an even smaller percentage that continue to make meaningful work. Annie Hogan is that rare character, having shot through the early ’80s industrial/goth milieu and, like a rent-controlled pioneer, lacking any good reason to leave. Tongues In My Head is her latest for Downwards (champions of all darkly-shrouded musics) and it’s a deviant joy to behold. These six songs are slinky, deliberate and cunning… elegiac synth-pop brimming with trippy peculiarities befitting a morbid German folktale. Think of Leslie Winer if her modeling career started in Alice’s Wonderland instead of New York City, or November Növelet if they were estranged from each other, if or if Kate Bush joined Current 93 in 1984 and was promptly never heard from again. These are fun fantasies for me to conjure up, but I want to make clear that Hogan knows how to write songs, not merely moods or atmospheres. If we still made mixtapes and you wanted to seduce a completely inappropriate crush (your professor, your bully, your stalker fan), “Scorpions” would lure them to your doorstep promptly, handcuffed and desperate. Sorry to talk like this, but why don’t you spend some time with Tongues In My Head and try to not act creepy after!
Julian Heresy Julian Heresy LP (No Coast)
Madison, WI has a rich history of stoner metal with ties to the punk scene, care of labels like Bovine and Rhetoric (both of whose proprietors suffered weed-related arrests and incarceration, if I’m not mistaken!). They lived for it out there, and if the recent arrival of Julian Heresy is any indication, that flame continues to burn eternally. This new group features Bobby Hussy on lead guitar, apparently shifting his worship from the altar of one devil (Jay Reatard) to the more traditionally red-tailed, pointy-goatee-with-pitchfork variety. Hussy enlisted some friends, with none other than Mikey Makela of Bongzilla to lend his vocals to these sloth-paced stoner epics. Makela sounds grizzled on opener “Stash Jar”, but by the time his voice hits on “Emerging From The Quantum Extremal Surface”, he’s more like a rotisserie-marinated Gollum, not dead but far from alive. These boilerplate, slow-shifting riffs demand a good fifty to sixty percent of his throat, but he’s giving one hundred and ten percent here, primed to scare the neighbors so long as Julian Heresy is blasting at the appropriate volume. “In Vino Veritas” takes the angst down a notch, almost sounding like Nothing were they a thousand years old; a brief dual-guitar composition leads into the final track, “Illium Township”, a righteous Spirit-Caravan-on-ludes chonker that praises Sabbath with every fiber of its being. Bringing it back to Gollum, riffs like these bear strong similarities to The Ring – when you feel their power in your hands, it consumes you.
Low Jack Market 7″ (Bambe)
As we usher in the backyard-party season, be sure to have some fresh tunes ready to scare off those stragglers who insist on lingering past their welcome. Low Jack is a great producer when it comes to dance tracks with alienating energy, as “Market” reiterates on this all-too-brief seven-inch single. “Market” was originally composed for an “immersive installation” by Australian visual artist Thomas Jeppe, but we receive it in “Radio Edit” form here, a disgruntled array of samples organized in dancehall formation. Pounding low-end meets chattering typewriters (or automatic rifles cocking?) and thrillingly garish siren effects for an energetic sound-clash sure to leave your clothes smelling like some form of smoke. It’s a party ambulance from Sodom, and as the track fades over a bed of rain and reverse-flanged doinks, I’m wishing this track was given an additional five inches of vinyl to explore. Bambe label-head Bambounou snagged the b-side for himself, flipping the original into a vicious electro groove, JJ Fad all dressed up like Mad Max‘s Furiosa. It’s less feral but equally dangerous. Now that I think about it, no one is gonna want to leave if you start blasting either version of “Market” – you’re going to be pulling partygoers out of your futon for weeks.
Jae Matthews Man On The Beat 12″ (Heartworm Press)
Boy Harsher have been on the top of the minimal-synth-pop heap for a while, yet their banger output has all but dried up. Careful is seven years old, “Pain” dates back even further, and while all the soundtracking work has kept them creatively busy (not to mention Gus Muller’s time well spent with Safe Mind), the lack of new club material is glaring. Vocalist Jae Matthews reassures us then that she hasn’t forsaken the dance-floor with this new single for Wes Eisold’s Heartworm Press label, a cover of Buzz Kull’s “Man On The Beat”. Buzz Kull has been lurking around the Heartworm corridors for a while now, their sexy, fashion-forward dark-wave a latex-tight fit, and Matthews takes the opportunity to reassert herself as the most gorgeously bleary dark-wave siren in the game. Over a nimble synth sequence, an unflagging goth-industrial beat and some atmospheric pads to help dim the lights, Matthews’s breathy intonation will have all the bat-kids flapping their wings long into the night. In true new-wave fashion befitting a Kaos Dance Records release, the b-side is an extended version, care of the Los Angeles duo Spike Hellis, splicing in the original Buzz Kull vocals alongside Jae Matthews for a celebration of all things black, leather and lust-scented (I think I may have just described a specific Diptyique candle). It’s not quite Lemmy Kilmister with Wendy O. Williams, but what is?
Minot Walls / People Pleaser 7″ (no label)
Just had a great idea: what if there was a band where the drummer stands, and the bassist, guitarist and singer all sit? It’d be a refreshing change of pace for what is one of the most worn-out and predictable features of rock music. Missoula, MT’s Minot can take my idea for free, as they’ve already got a standing drummer in Noah Mackinnon – all he has to do is tell Flora Holland (guitar) and Alex Molica (also guitar) to take a seat. Thanks in no small part to the Wäntage USA label, I’ve always had fond thoughts of Montana’s underground rock scene, of which Minot reside; on this self-released lathe-cut single, they showcase their rudimentary fuzz-pop leanings. “Walls” locates the urinal in the far corner that still has Cramps and Dead Moon stickers from the ’90s on it and dumps a fresh bucket of ice cubes in there. I prefer this stripped-down and first-attempty style to “People Pleaser”, which looks back to the flower-braided ’60s for inspiration, a sound I personally am content to leave undisturbed in the mold-riddled dollar bin. Not sure I need to harp on such details, though – if I’m going to experience Minot, it’s hopefully blaring from the other end of the bar while I’m doing shots with Mordecai, and then faintly audible across the street once Mordecai have convinced me to steal a horse from the nearby stable and ride it home without a saddle. Welcome to big sky country!
Pura Manía La Banda Es La Ley 12″ (Roachleg)
By the early ’80s, punk rock began to fantasize how it might sound in a post-nuclear fallout situation. It’s no wonder that in our current moment, punks are drawn to similar aesthetics: desolate, flanger- and chorus-effected guitars; primal, tom-heavy drumming; a synth that buzzes like some sort of infrared scanning device used to locate survivors. Vancouver’s Pura Manía are preparing for the wasteland with this new six-song EP, a spikier counterpart to fellow Second Empire Justice-worshipping Canadians Home Front. “Zona De Alto Riesgo” translates to “High Risk Zone” and it ties today’s anxieties to that paranoid, retro sound nicely. It’s almost a comforting nostalgia when those woah-ohs hit two minutes in, at least until you remember the rate at which innocent people are dying. Pura Manía have every right to hammer on the negative endlessly, but they wisely mix up the vibe, going from warning-alarm downer punk to major-chord crowd pleasers like “Planeta Gótico” and “Amor De Coladera (Veneno Y Glam)”, the later of which is a perfect set-ender for when you just want to lock arms with a stranger in a Templars shirt and sing along to keep from crying. The cover lightens the mood as well, a mischievous gang of punxsploitation Madballs ready to swipe all of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera’s acid for themselves. It might not seem like it at the moment, but the punks are bound to win.
Reek Minds Eternal Reek 7″ (Black Water)
Portland’s Reek Minds share multiple members with Alienator, whose profile is steadily growing if the number of t-shirts and hoodies I see people wearing is any indication. Don’t think of them as twins, though, unless you’re thinking of Basket Case, Reek Minds being the malformed, basket-transported monster. Eternal Reek is their third and newest seven-inch EP, and it remains far too frantic and unsavory to move a lot of merch. While still a tangled mass of hardcore patterns (blast-beats, d-beats, scissor-beats… maybe even a false-start breakdown or two), the recording is ever so slightly cleaner this time around, and their songs showing a willingness to honor the mid-tempo menace of local legends Poison Idea, if only for brief flashes of time. They remain indebted to Siege, but by allowing other hardcore reference-points to enter their pungent brew, Reek Minds avoid writing the same songs over and over. “Desolate” could’ve been an Alienator song, as far as the crawlspace-tight filthy crossover thrash riffing is concerned, but Reek Minds gather a gang of those DRI skankermen and beat it to a pulp. If the increased technical prowess concerns you, fear not: their hearts still went with fresh entrails on the cover.
Sealer Sealer 12″ (The Ghost Is Clear)
Against all conceivable odds, cool music continues to proliferate in the generic-store-brand state known to us as “Ohio”. Cincinnati’s Sealer are fresh as a daisy, though their stylish noise-rock is fixing to trample any nearby bouquets. From the jump, “Seeing/Peeling” hits you with an upper-register monotone vocal delivery and fist-hammered notes redolent of the one and only KARP. I’d be happy to settle into a full album of pure KARP worship, but Sealer doesn’t go easy on us, adding some satisfying bounce to the song before dropping off into a saxophone-aided dirge. It feels like going from sober to wasted in two minutes, and it’s a nice way to kick things off. The five other tracks play around with post-hardcore noise-rock’s conventions like chewing gum on a finger, extending breakdowns into full songs and bending Black Flag riffs into Jesus Lizard angles. It doesn’t feel like this music is particularly dangerous or disturbed, but rather true to the group’s married-guy noise-rock essence, one of mostly-stable men pursuing healthy and creative ways to blow off some of the steam that builds up no matter how seriously they might practice yoga or not. Been there!
Ben Vince Street Druid LP (AD 93)
We were due for a fresh solo full-length from collaborator-about-town Ben Vince, and that time is now. Check any hip London-centered experimental release from the last five years and there’s a good chance that Vince lent a helping hand, or at least is tight with someone who did. He generally contributes his tastefully-processed saxophone (that Joy O collab from 2018 is ace), but on Street Druid it’s all-hands-on-deck for Vince, as he utilizes guitar, bass, voice, synths and drum programming to flesh out these pieces. Anyone familiar with his work might expect a tasteful, warm-ambient melange of horns, synths and electronic rhythms, and I’ll assure you now: that general assessment rings true for the album’s duration. For as pleasant as Vince’s music always is, there’s something about Street Druid that clocks as directionless… all the proper parts are in order, but it can feel as though Vince forgot to bring an itinerary or even a map. “Sentient Kinetics” is one of the more vigorous pieces here, reminiscent of Shackleton in a way that makes me want to put on Shackleton. “Deepbluereflection” is as beautiful as the title implies, but it feels comfortable as a background setting, the atmosphere to support something more interesting (or, God help us, vibes-based social-media content). Street Druid is soothing, artfully-crafted music, but by the lofty bar AD 93 has set for its visionary outlook, it falls a little short.
Winged Wheel Desert So Green LP (12XU)
Winged Wheel’s existence has been defined by transformation. The group started as a long-distance project, a successful series of file swaps turned into a band once they gave it a name, and then in 2024, Winged Wheel actually sat down in the same room, further unfurling their dextrous Americana-psych. I forget what year we’re in now, but Desert So Green is yet another reinvention, and perhaps the most exciting one yet, the sort of thing that will get you to stop calling them Winged Wheel and start calling them Winged Wheel. The band, featuring a variety of underground rock stalwarts (Fred Thomas, Matthew J. Rolin, Steve Mutha F’in Shelley and more), dug their heels into songwriting (rather than vibewriting) this time around and the results are glorious. You can’t pin their sound on any conspicuous set of influences, though their approach isn’t so foreign as to fully bewilder. Oren Ambarchi gone post-rock tropicalia? Stereolab dressed as Sigur Rós for Halloween? Kevin Shields’ missing 1995-2005 songs discovered by Jeff Parker and intercepted by Colin Newman, glam-era Brian Eno sitting shotgun in the getaway car? These are all wrong statements, but I’ve accepted that I’m losing to Winged Wheel this round. If every band was able to bridge the gap between the fresh and the familiar like Desert So Green, I’d stop yapping so much and simply sit back and listen, wrapped up in the sensation of previously-unconnected cerebral neurons firing back and forth for the first time.
I wonder if Ceremony backed themselves into a corner by writing what is surely the greatest hardcore-punk intro of this millennium. How can they open with anything else? Live albums are traditionally the territory of grandiose rock-stars, the bloated playgrounds of Peter Frampton and KISS, but the way that Ceremony builds “Sick” into a buzzing fever pitch, practically demanding the explosiveness of No Justice’s last show? The ostentatious presentation of a lavish gatefold double-LP is well deserved. For this career-pinnacle of a gig, Ceremony ran through their definitive Rohnert Park album in full (followed by an encore of other catalog highlights), reminding us that familiar, simple chord progressions can be spun into hardcore gold with the perfect combination of personality, chutzpah, point of view and vocal expressiveness. I would be hard pressed to name a better hardcore-punk album of 2010 (though by all means, let’s have that conversation), and these songs haven’t lost any of their sing-along compulsivity over time, as evidenced by the roaring crowd. The band appears awed by the audience’s overwhelming response, and vice versa; it was surely a memorable night for all parties. Though vocalist Ross Farrar has far less snarl in his throat here at the Palladium (is it true he’s gotten into, gulp, clean living??), these songs have claimed their spot within the perennial hardcore canon, much as I expect Keith Morris to be belting out “Beverly Hills” and “Deny Everything” when he’s Marshall Allen’s age. 
Among so many bland electro-pop spreads, Diagonale Des Yeux is an ominous chunk of Roquefort. The French duo consists of Panoptique and Eye (aka Laurène Exposito, not the Boredoms bandleader), both of whom got up to plenty of entertaining electronic (or should I say electronique) escapades on their own prior to joining forces. The chemistry is undeniable on Madeleine, an album that plays with post-punk convention like feline with feather teaser. Across twelve tracks, they take us through every cluttered room of the avant-pop no-wave post-punk charity shop. “Baby Buddha” is straight-up guitar and drums indie-pop; “Le Rayon Orchidée” is dazed synth-wave, like Mary Moor’s “Pretty Day” drunk on love letters; the title track allows weird keys(?) to plink and plonk all over a schoolyard vocal melody and insistent synth pattern – it reeks of covert Pierre Bastien involvement. It’s unbridled, infectious fun, open to ideas that more self-serious artists would never consider. “Cherry Ann” feels like Chrisma (and nothing ever really feels like Chrisma), a homespun take on the winking glam of La Düsseldorf with Autobahn vocals… it’s a peculiar glee. If your wardrobe has been all black for years, Madeleine might give you a reason to reconsider the joy of color.
Hard to think of a more fertile environment for guitar-centric experimental music than the cities of Göteborg and Malmö, a connective scene from which countless configurations of like-minded artists have spawned over the past decade or so. Case in point: Eternal Music Society is a recent quartet (drums / drums / guitar / bass) whose members span a wide variety of projects. This includes not only two Andreases (Malm and Johansson) but one Sofie Herner as well, whose group Neutral (and solo-project Leda) are responsible for some of my favorite post-industrial music, this era or any. With both goodwill and high expectations, I have to admit that Eternal Music Society isn’t doing it for me. They purposely take the extended no-change techniques of France and Water Damage (and in the latter’s case, cop a similar multi-drummer presentation) and apply it to four simplistic patterns. I generally love songs with two notes or less, but “Plain” hits like something Earth would’ve left on the cutting room floor for their Pentastar album. It limps along until “Can’t Heat” (excellent title!) shuffles into place, teasing out a Fugazi-esque progression in the manner of Moin, only longer and far less dynamic. Same goes for “Unknown Voltage”, like a worn-out vinyl copy of Unwound’s Fake Train caught in a skip. “23 Is Eternal” goes into hiding for a full fifteen minutes, the twinkle of a Mogwai intro left unresolved. I like the concept here, I can just point to other current artists who make more of a meal of it. I hope they’re securing their bag, though – why pay to fly all of Water Damage over for your avant European music festival when Eternal Music Society can take the train?
It’s 2026 and the emotional-hardcore territory once held by Beatle/Spock haircuts has been supplanted by bald heads with greying beards. The shocking twist: these are some of the same men, only older. King Slender’s music hearkens back to that More Than Music Fest era without trying to fit into those old clothes; it’s a thoughtful and honest form of hardcore that values honesty and thought over much anything else. Not quite screamo but certainly Ebullition-friendly, King Slender use jagged-edge riffs that push, pull and spasm in ways that remind me of Yaphet Kotto, Funeral Diner and Universal Order Of Armageddon. King Slender never fully lose control in a fall-on-the-floor convulsion, nor do they ever give in to the cowardly temptation of pop hooks; the group prefers to tread a brooding middle ground that simmers between melody and aggression, one third Dischord and two thirds Level Plane. As per hardcore’s prevailing ethos, it’s a communal affair, from three of four band members contributing vocals (cat got your tongue, guitarist Justin LaBarge??) to the five different labels that put together this handsome package. If I ever become a ‘colored vinyl guy’ please notify my treating physician, but the vinyl’s opaque black / translucent green swirl echos the cover’s impressionistic swimming hole beautifully. 
The charm of Bill Nace’s duo album with Evan Parker, Branches, is not unlike holding a lit match until it singes your fingertips, but I knew I wanted a definitive, stand-alone Bill Nace taishogoto record. Unmistakable by its title, here it is! I’ve seen Nace play his taishogoto probably as much as I’ve seen him play a guitar at this point, and this long-player lives up to those thrilling live performances (some of the most exciting improvised music I’ve witnessed from a seated (non-drumming) performer, to be sure). On “Over/Under”, Nace offers an extended improvisation over a bed of warped morse-code (looped from his taishogoto as well). Don’t let the unfamiliar instrument name fool you – Nace shreds like Keiji Haino with his toes caught in a mousetrap for a good seventeen minutes, his fiery tone akin to the liberating torture techniques of acid psych. It never gets boring; I’d liken it to that brief moment of psychedelic transcendence described by people who’ve eaten entire ghost peppers (before the hyperventilating kicks in). “One For Susan Alcorn” takes a more grueling physical path, relying not on a loop but his own repetitive tapping to whip up a divine locomotive. Nace has talked about playing with time as a sonic element, and I can see that factoring into his thought process here, his self-inflicted carpal tunnel syndrome a worthy trade-off for this meditative piece dedicated to the beloved late pedal-steel virtuoso. 
When Noise Pollution released Out.’s sole album back in 1997, you could learn more about the label by typing http://www.win.net/noise/pollution.html into your Netscape desktop web browser; we really, truly didn’t know how good we had it back then. Now it’s nearly thirty years later, and though Noise Pollution have since upgraded to their own domain, they’ve decided to re-release Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Songs for the first time on vinyl. I wasn’t familiar with the Louisville group beforehand, but I can understand how this album might’ve lodged itself in the hearts (and sun-visor CD holders) of those in its immediate orbit for years after. They arrived here mischievous and animated, tearing into their mechanic-shirt punk in the vein of Gas Huffer and New Bomb Turks. Even at this early juncture, Out. were more dynamic than some of their peers, finding a way to work the Danzig-esque “Sing While The World Sinks” into their repertoire with the confidence it demands. While I can picture Out. wandering the train tracks after dark, their sound only ever flirts with the blues, avoiding some of the more cartoonish, poorly-aging aspects you might find on a Devil Dogs or Gotohells release. I was saddened to learn that both vocalist Chad Donnelly and bassist Tony Bailey have passed on since Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Songs first came out, but it’s clear they aren’t forgotten. 
Dr. J Paralysis dropped one of my favorite sing-along downtempo house tracks last year with “Where Do We Come From?”, and this new four-track EP follows that thread for more freaky fun. Slung low and casual, these four tracks coast with nary a foot on the gas, the sharply-fashioned vocal samples burning only the necessary calories. “It’s Only Shadows Talking” is a digi-stepper with echo-drunk vocals straight from the booth; the title track flips a trip-hop break into the spooky fun of a suburban haunted house. The grooves are unfussy and memorable, calling back to the innovative, personality-filled productions of Gene Hunt and Shake Shakir, whereas the atmosphere is unsettling and mildly demented in a way that reminds me of Kool Keith’s run from Sex Style through Spankmaster. “The Delicate Fairytale” isn’t fit for any club I’m aware of, unless there’s an after-hours spot that plays sleazy B-movies with the sound on while a disinterested DJ chain-smokes near the decks in a Jason mask. If such a place does exist, I bet Beau Wanzer is not only the resident DJ, he probably already has “The Delicate Fairytale” all cued up.
To a certain contingent, the title of this record sells itself: Autechre’s inscrutable electronic compositions, as performed on solo guitar. Anyone familiar with the groundbreaking UK duo, and at least a couple people familiar with the guitar, will want to hear what fingerpicking acoustic adventurer Shane Parish has done here, and I can’t imagine many will leave disappointed. The melodic heart at the center of Autechre’s music has long been shrouded in stainless steel, heat-resistant thermoplastics and plastic-coated wires, but Parish, through some painstaking methodology I cannot fathom, transcribed ten of their tracks to be performed on the acoustic guitar, complex compositions re-communicated via six strings and ten fingers. While there isn’t as much top-string drone or as many rollicking patterns as I’m used to hearing from skilled fingerpickers, these tracks are easy on the ears all the same. The melodies might not be as familiar as a collection of Fahey standards, but they don’t buzz or shrill with the digital discordance I’ve come to relish from Autechre’s catalog, either. To be fair, I did not check Parish’s work – he could’ve pulled a fast one on all of us and improvised these pieces over a long holiday weekend and slapped Autechre’s name on it. Who would really know? It’d be an experimental hoodwinking of the highest order, but I’m confident that Parish has not betrayed our trust, and that fellow pioneering guitarist Bill Orcutt, who released this album on his Palilalia label, confirmed the feat’s authenticity. Or has he…
That grey-area Gee Gee Decorator reissue from 2023 confirmed for me that the well of fully-obscure post-punk gems will never run dry – if that insane thrill-ride can exist undiscovered for decades, who knows what else is still lurking on an unlabeled tape or sleeveless seven-inch? One of the brightest recent offerings comes in the form of Concentric Circles’ reissue of a 1984 cassette from Los Angelean duo Pedestal. Erik and Rachel Mueller (your guess is as good as mine: siblings or spouses?) nailed that sort of nerdy, non-macho no-wave style that I find irresistible. Relying heavily on the tacky sounds of the Clavinet, their songs shake with the art-school energies of Essendon Airport and Stick Men. Rachel Mueller’s voice is distracted and unimpressed in timeless post-punk fashion, and she leaves plenty of open space for the jittery sharp-turns that comprise these delightful songs. The Inflatable Boy Clams EP is already on 45 RPM, but if you can pitch it up as far as your Technics will allow, that might resemble the Systematics-meets-Algebra Suicide sound that Pedestal so deftly conjure here. If it wasn’t for the funky bass-playing (warning: there is occasional slapping), this music would be indistinguishable from the best of its contemporary twenty-something practitioners, but considering certain egg-punks’ race to be the goofiest dorks possible, I wouldn’t be surprised if Pedestal are simply ahead of that upcoming curve. 
You’re going to want to google a photo of re:ni and BiggaBush in case you don’t believe me when I tell you they’re the first father/daughter digi-dub production duo to grace these pages. But not the last, hopefully? Do not fear a gimmicky record: you should trust the Zenker brothers enough to know that their Ilian Tape label isn’t in the business of releasing novelties. It only took me one spin of the title track before I was fully on board, as it’s one of the most imaginative takes on dub techno I’ve heard in a minute. The duo amputated a pile of classic dub-reggae drum fills from their original forms in order to deploy them at random intervals, drenched in echo for a wicked-yet-soothing dub hallucination. I tend to rinse “Bass Is The Space” on repeat, but the whole EP is great. “Mae Uprising” slinks with the prowess of a jungle predator and the glistening touch of Hessle Audio’s post-dubstep highlights. Farda P lends his end-rhyming lines to a spry shuffle on “Death By Dubplate”, redolent of Kode9’s collaborations with The Space Ape sans the dark sci-fi leanings, and while I am already completely satiated (and considering running back “Bass Is The Space” one more time), “BigLozTek” wants me to feel its Basic Channel-esque dub pressure, effects colliding like asteroids. I don’t want to suggest that Dennis Rodman should utilize electronic dub music to repair his fractured relationship with soccer-star daughter Trinity Rodman, but… has he tried it?
Congratulations to Rocky & The Sweden for thirty years of speedy hardcore-punk, but more importantly, congrats for thirty years of weed-parody groaners par excellence. After God Save The Green, City Baby Attacked By Buds and Total Hard Core (it’s “THC”, get it?), Punks Pot Head is the pinnacle – there is no topping the deliriously stupid joy once you get the title (and I’ll be honest – it took me half a second). They’ve even got the obligatory skeleton riding a grasshopper through rows of marijuana plants on the cover, because grass-hopper, duh! Maybe weed is different in Japan, because I generally wouldn’t associate it with the high levels of energy that burst from Punks Pot Head. Certain flourishes can lean in the direction of classic ’70s riffmasters ala Thin Lizzy and Deep Purple, but Rocky & The Sweden’s songs are played in a high-speed acrobatic style akin to Lipcream, RKL, Toast and SNFU, staying true to the ’90s era of fast hardcore from which they first arrived. As should be clear, Rocky & The Sweden aren’t taking themselves too seriously, which might explain some aspect of their longevity as a band. If the whole point is to get high and rock out with your friends while brainstorming the next unadvisable weed pun, I fail to see why you’d ever want to stop.
Rump State’s 2023 full-length debut never seemed to make it to the States, or at least that’s my excuse for failing to obtain a copy in spite of my desires. Thankfully the tireless non-union employees of 12XU have brought us the follow-up, Psychic Sidekick. Fair’s fair, seeing as this is a half-American, half-Norwegian duo consisting of Mark Morgan (of Sightings) and Gaute Granli. Rump State successfully merges their talents, a suite of warped guitar tangents, pulsing fragments of loops and subdued vocals. If you’ve been following the videos Mark Morgan posts on Instagram (I say “if”, but of course you have!), you’ll recognize his distinctive tones here, full of reverse-delay effects and further unconventional manners of guitar-processing that elude my understanding. He makes his guitar sound like bees swarming a hive inside the engine of a Ford Focus, and Granli knows just what to do with that sort of sound: add his own demented loops and vocals in the spirit of Ghédalia Tazartès (were he a precocious choir boy). Morgan adds his vocals to the mix as well, his singing voice displaying a working knowledge of Alan Vega and Scott Walker but not to be mistaken for either. It’s noise, but exuberant and easy on the ears, avoiding harsh feedback and greyscale static in favor of the juicier fruits out on the harder to reach branches. Weird, but delicious.
A foreboding start to Feel It’s 2026, care of Sleep Paralysis’s mysterious side-long improvisations. Try as I might, I can’t figure out who is behind this project – Feel It’s not saying, and the associated Bandcamp page’s only clue comes from Iowa as the project’s stated location. Could be related to Feel It darlings Why Bother? (they recorded at the same studio), or maybe (hopefully) Slipknot, but whatever the case, A Visitor’s Soundtrack is a free-form outlier in Feel It’s punk-centered discography. Regardless of who is responsible, I never expected sleep paralysis to sound like an after-hours trip through ESP Disk’s hallowed halls of improvised percussion and synths. The drums are propulsive yet analytical, and the Moog explores the retro-futurist sounds that have dazzled and horrified audiences since the instrument’s inception into public life. The instruments play off each other to some degree, but more often than not come across as two different streams of thought simultaneously deployed, reliant on the assumption that free-jazz percussion and improv synths pair well together regardless of what is happening. That assumption is a safe one – Sleep Paralysis are far livelier than the name implies, a flying saucer ready to abduct all your Esquivel records and burn them for fuel. 
Great expectations are a curse, but every now and then, even in this precise reality we’re living in, our optimistic hopes are rewarded. Such is certainly the case with Station Model Violence’s debut album! Even at this early juncture, I can say with confidence that it’ll be celebrated by freaks and scholars as one of the best and brightest releases of the year. The group features Dan “DX” Stewart on vocals (singing in the same world-wearied register as he did for Total Control) with Buz Clatworthy handling guitars and the bulk of songwriting duties. I can confirm that the bedrock aesthetic inspiration DX lays out in his illuminating and entertaining write-up for the record rings true (Iggy Pop at the beach describing Neu! as “pastoral psychedelicism” – I won’t spoil it all for you), though this isn’t a band operating in modes of replication so much as constructing their own world from the ground up, each piece carefully considered no matter how small or insignificant. Their formula prioritizes rapid and unbroken drum patterns (not four-on-the-floor… more like eight-no-dead-weight) and a foundational note or chord trained to take a beating, alongside sheets of guitars running through scales with abandon, synths oozing human fluids and even a horn section when necessary. With so much sonic information, one could expect these songs to buckle under their own weight, but there’s a litheness, a drugged-yet-alert energy that cracks through Station Model Violence like stolen fireworks. It also sounds deeply Australian in a way that I don’t think Station Model Violence themselves can even recognize, nor should they. If not already clear – highest recommendation!
You might hear the terms “folk-punk”, “oogle”, “old-time rock n’ roll” or even “countrified” used in reference to New Orleans’ Twisted Teens. You might notice one of them wearing clown makeup in the cover. You might question the usefulness, in your adult age, of any new band with “Teens” in their name. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, these are red-flag warning signs worth heeding, but I’m here to tell you that Twisted Teens’ more-or-less debut album Blame The Clown is an absolute must-hear! I hesitate to say that it’ll become a staple punk-rock comfort food, one of those timeless front-to-back albums alongside Rocket To Russia and Blood Visions and Guitar Romantic and GI, but my immediate and sustained feelings are in harmony with Jeff Goldblum when he first saw that brachiosaurus munching in a grassy clearing. (“He did it. That crazy son of a bitch, he did it.”) I’ll throw another ugly word out – “soulful” – but Blame The Clown‘s arrival reminds me of when the Royal Headache debut appeared out of equally thin air, where I didn’t realize I needed a Billy Joel-ified melodic punk band (but I certainly did). Twisted Teens are as charming and as exceptional songwriters as Royal Headache, delivering the perfect synthesis of home-spun egg-punk signifiers (drum machines, ambient noise, weird overdubs, etc.), memorable, forceful hooks, and plenty of joyful rock n’ roll energy. Caspian Hollywell’s vocals are the winning key, his gruff, reaching-for-the-note delivery some sort of hard-earned, Gulf Coast mix of Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen and Tom Smith of To Live And Shave In LA (underrated only by the unfortunate people who’ve yet to hear To Live And Shave In LA). Even if you end up losing some of your closest friends to overall-clad train-hopping because of this record, the collateral damage is worth the reward. 
Back to top