An stunning second solo effort by some dude who simply knows what he's doing, having so far played in noise rock and postcore groups Pale Heads, The Nation Blue as well as the more folk leaning Lee Memorial and Harmony, among others. This record strongly veers toward the louder side of his discography while still adding a few new ingredients to the mix, covering a quite impressive spectrum including malancholy Wipers-esque post punk with hints of Red Dons or Nervosas, postcore of the rather melodic variety reminiscent, to varying degrees, of Meat Wave, Bloody Gears, Hot Snakes as well as some breathless garage energy á la Jackson Reid Briggs & The Heaters. Tons worth of larger than life drama, the songs to pull it of and a performance powerful enough to make you believe every single note.
Whoa… gotta say i wasn't prepared for the kind of storm this group from Milan, Italy lets loose on their first longplayer. On a surface level this is some variety of vaguely oldschool hardcore punk with strong anarcho influences, some traces of crust - you know, the kind of stuff we've had no shortage of in recent years. But then again, this record is characterislzed by an endless string of colorful, unconventional decisions and flourishes, making what could have been a rather cookie-cutter, decent genre effort into an ambitious, thrilling beauty to behold. Also helped by a production which strikes the perfect balance between relentless propulsion and blown out Lo-Fi scuzz. As far as contemporary hardcore goes, this shit stands completely on its own and simply hits evey single nail on its head.
Man, do i not wanna live in England right now. Well, Cool Jerks still do and their first full length effort paints a convincingly grim picture while excelling on the sonic front once again, ridding their sound of their first EP's garage elements in favor of a simple, modern blend of punchy postcore with noisy textures, comparable to a simplified version of Bad Breeding, Ascot Stabber or Acrylics.
This Melbourne group's debut 7" is a concentrated blast of highly flammable garagecore spiked with additional noise- & postcore accelerants, achieving a resolute punch akin to ADVLTS, Bad Breeding while their unruly garage & oldschool hardcore riot leaves a trail of destruction not unlike Fried E/M, Electric Chair or Modern Needs.
Now that's™ some potent shit coming out of poland, presumably. Equal parts hardcore- and garage punk, efficiently propelled forward by an ultra-simplistic drumming style giving the whole thing an almost cowpunk vibe, but also leaving plenty of room for the noise-laden sonic textures by the string torturing division to spread out - kinda like you might have heard in the past from Bands like Leche, Murderer, Yambag, Lux… maybe even a bit of Wymyns Prysyn hidden in there.
From the same boutique New York noise manufacture that has brought us, among other things, the vigorous and smart hard-/postcore of Kaleidoscope, we're given another force of nature to deal with. The debut album by Tower 7 sure bears some resemblance to the aforementioned Kaleidoscope but, by also taking more than just a few cues from ancient UK crust tradition, manages to deliver a bunch of blows even more relentless. Their tools of choice are obviously a bit more blunt, though equally effective.
A flawless debut EP by a Philadelphia Duo, delivering four precision blows of a quite smart and versatile mixture located somewhere in the contemporary postcore-/noise rock-/post punk neighborhood and reminiscent of such diverse acts as Dasher, Cutie, Donors, Little Ugly Girls, Hit Bargain, Street Eaters, Xetas.
Already a handful of releases into their discography, we kinda know what to expect from a new Flat Worms record by now. However, that doesn't mean they're standing still exactly. Rather, with every new release they managed to focus on and expand upon a certain facet of their garage-, psychedelic- and fuzz punk sound, keeping things fresh and interesting at all times. This time, recording with Steve Albini at Electrical Audio, the result does not only show Albini's trademark sonic characteristics, but also their overall sound seems to embrace some of his legacy as a producer audio engineer, veering into a distinctly noise rock/postcore direction that, once again, was always subtly present on their previous records but never as much on display as here and might be compared to contemporary bands like Meat Wave, Metz or USA Nails. Other small but pleasant surprises come in the form of the title track - a garage jam you could almost describe as relaxed - as well as the 90s indie rock vibes in Market Forces.
It took a while for new material of these Minneapolis punks to surface after their first two incredible 7"s. I'm glad to say though, that their unique mix of chaotic hard-/garage-/post-/weirdcore lost none of its spark and their refreshing disregard for common genre tropes and conventions is on full display here, making for another five glorious minutes of noise, just as i've come to expect from this group.
Sad to hear that not long after their genre-defying/destroying/fucking/deconstructing/exploding album of last year, this EP is already the swan song of North Carolina's hottest address in contemporary hardcore. So take this last chance to marvel at Das Drip's ambitious hardcore/postcore/artcore/weirdcore… certainly never boringcore.
