Like a smelly puddle of pure hard- and noisecore disgust, this neat little tape by New York group Opsec has kind of an extensive Flipper- and No Trend feel to it just as well as bits and pieces of more recent phenomena like Soupcans, C-Krit, Stinkhole, Crisis Man, Black Button or Mystic Inane.
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Synth punk maestro Klint doesn't need an introduction here at this point, i guess. His half of this awesome split cassette gives us another three artifacts skimmed off the top of that bottomless pit of pure creativity that dude seems to magically conjure up as soon as someone allows him to plug a cable into anything.
Orrendo Subotnik from Pisa, Italy then craft a very different, yet no less exciting soundscape. Having sent some shockwaves already with their ultra-rough second tape last year, their sound comes into much sharper focus here. A weird mixture that is, charging up the noise pop and fuzz punk of acts like early No Age, Male Bonding or Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger!, noisy and darkly melodic post punk á la Die! Die! Die!, Piles or Times Beach, with a decidedly hard-/postcore kind of energy and a sense of widescreen drama you might expect of Lower or early Iceage… among tons of other stuff i've yet to unpack.
Punter came up with an excellent demo in 2020. Their new EP on Drunken Sailor Records elevates their sound to a whole different level though, combining the strengths of "heavy" metal- and hard rock-infused garage acts á la Polute, Cheap Heat, Cement Shoes or Stiff Richards, the hard rockin' hardcore attack of, say, Cutters and Cülo, postcore of the Dollhouse, Acrylics, Flea Collar variety and all the drama, rage and melancholy of Pist Idiots, Jackson Reid Briggs & The Heaters.
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A beautifully out-of-fashion 7" by a Leeds group creating a sound located amidst the rough coordinates of math rock, postcore and noise rock, obviously paying trubute primarily to the 90s-to-2000s era of Dischord Records and in particular to groups of the Jawbox, Autoclave, Hoover, Lungfish, Q and not U variety.
This Greenville, South Carolina group kicks up an excellent racket located somwhere inbetween the gears of garage punk, post punk and postcore bearing some similaritiy to more recent stuff á la Big Bopper, Mystic Inane, Dollhouse, Cutie, Wymyns Prysyn, Crisis Man… just as much as to classic pieces by the likes of Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes, Nation Of Ulysses, Rites of Spring or Gray Matter.
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Having made somewhat of a splash with their unpredictable 2019 demo and a more conventinally hardcore-leaning EP in 2021, the Richmond, Virginia group is shaking things up once again with their first full-length effort, significantly slowing things down and seemingly taking plenty of cues from left-field 80s acts on the experimental intersection of hardcore punk and (proto-)noise rock in the vein of, among others, Flipper, No Trend, Spike in Vain or Broken Talent, while also not entirely dissimilar to more recent groups like Soupcans, Vulture Shit, C-Krit or Stinkhole.
Album-Stream →Just another quick roundup of noises and disturbances out of the extended hardcore orbit. Starting off the batch with Sex Hater of Kansas City, who will surely please admirers of chaotic and downright filthy hardcore shit in a similar vein to groups á la Total Sham, Fried E/m or Launcher.
Speaking of filth, Clinic from Fresno, California dial that certain aspect even further - their latest EP feeling like one single murky puddle of primitive anger and deep despair, not entirely dissimilar in some places to the early Beast Fiend EPs.
pH People, a group of unknown origin, then slow the tempo down considerybly while by no means lacking energy - their tape on Urticaria Records is a potent mixture from the fringes of harcore punk and (proto-) noise rock with clear echoes of mostly older stuff á la Flipper, Spike In Vain, Noxious Fumes or Broken Talent.
And lastly, there's one for the dungeon dwellers among us in the form of Philadelphia's Alien Birth who deliver an oldschool metal-infested beast kinda like a mix between a more primitive Poison Ruïn and Golden Pelicans going all in on their sleaze rock leanings.
Back from the literal ashes of a certain practice space apocalypse, noise rockers Trigger Cut return as strong and vital as ever with their newest LP which sees the group increasingly carving out their own little place inside their genre while skillfully paying hommage to numerous classics all the while - think of shit like Bastro, Distorted Pony, anything Albini-related… also some real surprises here, like the opener Water Fukkery, having a melodic oldschool emo-/postcore vibe to it reminiscent of classic acts in the vicinity of Drive Like Jehu, Autoclave, Quicksand or Jawbox. Without question this is their most diverse, inventive and playful record to date.
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Just a quck hint here about three excellent new tapes courtesey of the ever-reliable 11 PM Records. The post-/math-/weirdcore powerhouse Rolex doesn't need any introduction, i think, delivering a snappy three-and-a-half minutes long fireworks of eleborate, hyperactice and chaotic postcore. Phantom then represent something of an opposite to that with oldschool hardcore punk of the most primal and unruly kind. Z-Pak, last but not least, appear to to combine the qualities of both aforementioned acts. What's not to love about that?
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The Washington group's full length debut is certainly the most Dischord-sounding new Dischord release i've heard in years, liberally but skillfully plundering its way through fourty years of postcore legacy like a wonderful anachronism. That makes an old fart like me brim with joy and given the participants involved here - all of them having had their part in shaping the aforementioned legacy - i'm not at all surprised by the strength of this album.
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