I'd almost forgotten about this San Francisco group yet here they are following up their impressive 2019 debut album with a new EP showcasing their quirky and inventive sound on the fringes of noise rock, hard- and postcore in a shape both rougher and more refined at the same time, echoing some of the greatest noise-/weirdcore releases of recent years including those by the likes of Warm Bodies, Sniffany & The Nits, Vexx, Dots, Judy & The Jerks or Mystic Inane.
An incredibly self-assured debut tape by a group from Victoria, Canada bursting onto the scene fully formed and mature, bringing to life inventive, haunting and elaborately constructed epics compacted into short, dense hardcore tracks in which they let only the murkiest tendencies of noisy hard-/postcore groups á la Acrylics, Vidro, early Bad Breeding collide with an overall aesthetic branching out deep into the suppressed subconscious, uncanny realms of death rock-/dungeon related or otherwise "blackened" or metal infused noise.
A simply delightful debut LP by this Philadelphia group, brought to us via local label SRA Records. I wanna describe this shit as a mixed bag in the best sense possible, an eccentric repository of slightly cowpunk-infused art punk hovering somewhere between garage- and noise-heavy hardcore shit with a certain KBD-extension somewhat reminiscent of early Electric Chair plus a touch of Soupcans on one hand, and then on the other, there are some ubiquitous echoes to be found of old acts on the intersection of '80s noise rock and proto-grunge like, say, U-Men, Scratch Acid, Volcano Suns, Butthole Surfers, Minutemen, Saccharine Trust, Feedtime and very early Meat Puppets, just to name a couple of the most obvious references.
Another beauty from italian powerhouse label Goodbye Boozy Records. You might remember Buenos Aires group repulsion switch from their 2019 demo and a bunch of EPs they put out since then. Here, we've got easily their strongest batch of tracks so far of their refreshingly simple yet equally explosive, garage-flavored oldschool hardcore sound. Another known quantity here at 12XU headquarters is synth punk guru Klint from Schleswig, Germany who takes charge of side b here with his usual workmanlike precision, curious experimantation and a new couple of tunes mostly on the rougher edge of the spectrum, perfectly complementing the RS tracks.
In recent years there's never been a shortage of solid oldschool hardcore punk releases but rarely do they ever feel as refreshing and charming to me as these NYC kids' debut LP, paradoxically channeling the spirit and youthful energy of Washington DC in the early-to-mid-eighties, kinda bridging the gap from the scene's humble beginnings to the rawer side of first-wave emocore groups - think less Rites of Spring and more along the lines of Gray Matter, Government Issue and you're on the right track, more or less.
It's been a whopping five years since we last heard of this Los Angeles group. Their first LP (duh!) is a bit heavier on the hardcore- and garage punk side of things after their older shit had been leaning stronger into its synth-/electro punk tendencies. Those relentlessly brutal electric beats are still front and center here though, giving especially the epic opening shot Open World kind of an industrial-tinged, cursed Ausmuteants-meet-Big Black vibe… with additional overtones of Crisis Man maybe?
Crawling out of the same brown puddle that previously spat out the wonders of Scab Breath we get two more raw and delightful clumps of garage punk, this time with more of an hardcore edge to it and a slight note of KBD muck. An attack on the senses just as straightforward as it's crude and shambolic - traits you might also find in recent acts á la Modern Needs, Liquids or Fried E/m.
Members of Bib and Nihilistic fit, among a whole shitload of other groups, deliver their first EP here and it's hard to not get excited in face of this explosive force. These are super-solid, mature and elaborate song assemblies made up of a timeless postcore sound which is also perfectly able to slow things down - like in the doom/sludge-leaning excercise Face Down - without boring you to death. Always always a sign of compositional excellence if you ask me. In recent years, we might've heard similar blasts from bands like Romance, Shove, Ascot Stabber, Flowers of Evil or early Bad Breeding.
Members of Diode and Freakees gift us yet another attack of deliciously off-the-rails noise, this time closely scraping past the rough coordinates of post punk, post- and weirdcore. Some repititive The Fall-esque riff leads into pure hardcore anarchy in All the World. Give Me Mine then has a distinctive early Minutemen-meet-James Chance kind of energy to it. Further you might find some traces of Flipper, Saccharine Trust or The Pop Group in there or alternately, you might identify bits and pieces of more recent shit á la Rolex, Big Bopper or Gay Cum Daddies.
A sonic experience wonderfully out of touch with the zeitgeist, crafted by some Bellingham, Washington group. Prime influence here seems to be a whole battery of early-to-mid eighties, loosely SST and Touch & Go-connected stuff - on the more strummy, folk-infused side of things admittedly, but never afraid of spontaneously morphing into short bursts of hardcore punk either. Most obvious amoung those influences would probably be shit among the lines of Angst and Meat Puppets, early Dinosaur Jr. and, secondarily, U-Men, Mudhoney and 80s Scientists, some very slight hints of Dicks and Wipers. Or alternately, you might think of more recent Acts like early Milk Music, Dharma Dogs, Chronophage and Damak.
