Another powerful punch in the nuts from that California supergroup sharing members with the likes of Acrylics, Public Eye, Violent Change and Ceremony. Here, they deliver their most compact and vigorous set of new tunes so far, having fine-tuned their formula of equal parts hardcore- and garage punk for maximum impact, fusing the unrelenting force of Acrylics and Bad Breeding with the abrasive garage qualities of, say… early Teenanger or Video.
The second longplayer (ignoring last year's Her Majesty's Ship OST) by this Kaleidoscope-adjacent New York duo sees their sonics shifting into a comparatively downbeat, darker and more cumbersome, yet equally rewarding direction. There's simply no other group quite like them in the current post punk/-core landscape and these chaps clearly maintain their position on the cutting edge of contemporary (art-/post-)punk while simultaneously being perfectly aware of its rich history, culminating in what to me is the crowning achievement of this album - the slow-burning, sprawling Beware, which kinda sounds like classic landmark records of the Chairs Missing and The Argument caliber boiled down to their very essence.
Wow, this group from Borée, France is juggling a shitload of different styles with striking confidence on their debut album. The thing starts out with a short, straightforward, simple blast of hardcore punk, then has them cycling through a wide array of styles including forceful postcore, hard rockin' upper-mid-tempo garage rock/-punk, groovy angular post punk and even some vaguely Pixies-esque, surf-infused oldschool 80s indie-/alternative rock. All of this they pull off with ease - there's not a single weak link on this record. Impressive shit all the way through!
A veritable gut punch, the debut tape of this St. Louis, Missouri group. Hardcore punk with elaborate & flexible anything-goes song structures, at times catchy and melodic, in other parts showing a gloomy post punk / death rock undercurrent and also there’s some of that oh-so-fashionable (don’t get me wrong, i totally love that) garage edge to it. You might be reminded of hardcore-era Hüsker Dü at some points, as well as recent hard- and postcore stuff such as Nopes, Pink Guitars, Cement Shoes or the colorful yet nightmarish hardcore psychedelia of Murderer.
A fun, smart high-energy blow of garage-infused hardcore punk delivered by a group that might or mightn’t be from Long Beach, California, holding a perfect balance between dumb straight-ahead oldschool energy and the various quirks and eccentricities of more recent hardcore phenomena, which sorta locates them on the genre map somewhere in the excellent company of other contemporary troublemakers such as Mystic Inane, Launcher, Fried E/M, Modern Needs or Liquid Assets.
A highly appetizing first taste that is, the debut EP of this London group playing a somewhat hard to pin down, adequately rough-edged yet also kinda catchy style that's like 60% garage punk and 40% postcore, overall reminding me of a rather diverse cluster of groups among which are the likes of The Abandos, Obits, Golden Pelicans, Mass Lines, Dumb Punts and Ascot Stabber.
This Barcelona group plays a certain breed of post punk - the catchy and melodic kind that has been rarely heard in recent months - which i'd say is reminiscent of a rather diverse cluster of genre powerhouses such as Nightwatchers, Sievehead, Red Dons, Criminal Code and early The Estranged. Occasionally they overlap a bit into hardcore territory and in these moments, Acrylics come to mind.
This Philadelphia group's line-up brings together generations of punks, having Chuck Meehan of hardcore dinosaurs YDI among its ranks as well as members of more recent acts like Blank Spell, Haldol and DeStructos. Their first EP explodes right into your face with eight-and-a-half bursts of unpredictable, chaotic and noise-infused hard-/post-/weirdcore roughly in the ballpark of what you might've heard in recent years from bands like Kaleidoscope, Daydream or Fugitive Bubble.
Damn, that's some top-notch quality oldschool postcore shit here, the kind capable of transporting middle-aged fucks like me into higher spheres, elaborate yet unpretentious and with a melodic sensibility that evokes the glory days of Volcano Suns, Moving Targets and Mission of Burma. The monumental opening suite, on the other hand, kinda reminds me of Dragoon, the opening behemoth of Bitch Magnet's final album Ben Hur. Otherwise, 90s Dischord influences rule supreme here with ubiquitous echoes of the likes of Autoclave, Bluetip, Hoover, Crownhate Ruin, Kerosene 454, early Jawbox… you name it! And yeah, of course there's also a bit of Fugazi going on but i'd say they're far from a primary influence here. Hungry Man are able to pull off all that without coming across like a dull ripoff and rather like a band who values its influences, yet perfectly stands on its own two feet, speaking into the present day with their own voice.
A spectacular first impression of a Copenhagen group playing a rather unconventional mix of post punk, hard- and postcore incorporating a rare sense of melody and a strong psychedelic, almost shoegaze-y undercurrent. Also, thinking of the Copenhagen scene, you can't help but register a faint echo of early Iceage and Lower.
