Kaloomps, British Columbia group Headcheese have been messin' about for way longer than my intuition tells me as it still feels to me like their first Demo and self-titled debut mini-LP dropped just about yesterday, even though their most recent previous record Expired is actually like three years old by now. Anyway, this group has certainly left a thorough impresson in my faulty memory with a number of records that feel like an endless tug-of-war between successive impulses of elaborating on their sound and then dumbing it down again in the most thrilling way possible. Their newest one might well be their magnum opus so far though, with the group operating as a simultaneously tighter and rowdier-than-ever wrecking crew, pummeling into submission their most coherent, fleshed out bundle of chemically unstable creative outbursts so far, which no serious devotee of inventive, shaggy noise inbetween the worlds of KBD-injected garage punk, oldschool propulsive west coast-style hardcore and maybe even some particles of No Trend-, Broken Talent- or Flipper-esque proto noise rock mahem should miss out on.
Normally i tend to just skip this kind of a teaser release but it's been a slow summer anyway and this shit coming from a Glasgow, UK group is simply too freaking brilliant to not post here, a massive step up after their already really neat demo from last fall and i simply can't wait till the full 7" containing these two songs drops sometime later this year hopefully, for more of that cleverly conceived and infectiously catchy-and-noisy-as-fuck oldschool hardcore mayhem.
The modern-day cowcore veterans from Austin, Texas return just a year after their quite good but also a bit too long and somewhat disjointed previous dose of pure chaos that was the Miracle Whip-It LP on Digital Hotdogs. This new EP now is in a way the exact opposite of that, their most condensed and coherent record so far with all the excess fat removed, eight minutes of super-dense excellence bursting at the seams from an abundance of clever ideas, heavy duty hooks and melodies in a massive spell of heavily Dicks-informed insanity.
A thoroughly convincing debut EP we got here from this Providence, Rhode Island group who infuse lots of KBD-drenched garage punk roughness into a sound dominated by more of an overall hardcore energy with simple, effective early '80s-style hooks. A well of delightful chaos that gets the balance just right between unkempt shambolic noise and mayhem on one hand and an insanely catchy quality on the other that gets you hooked immediately.
Two bands from the greater Los Angeles area have pooled their resources for a true god-tier hardcore split here that shall one day be regarded as one of the great roaring '20s split releases in a leage with, say, last year's Stunted Youth & Save Our Children LP. Naturally, the Animated Violence tunes garner most of my initial attention for not only did these dudes already catch my ear with two kickass tapes since 2022 but also considerably upped their craft and insanity on here with a sound as eclectic, playful and inventive as it's catchy, melodic and noisy-as-fuck nonetheless, making for a wild and bumpy unpredictable ride. But as much as this shit is right up my alley, that should by no means lead me to discount the Total Vacation tracks here which on the surface revel in a simpler early '80s oldschool direction yet are in no way less thrilling and packed with bright ideas and weird flourishes, only these tend to be more spread out here over roughly double the amount of shorter tunes and there's absolutely no arguing with instant hits like Chimera and Perspective / For Once.
Okay so here we have yet another Alien Nosejob record showcasing Jake Robertson and accomplices in full-blown hardcore mode, superficially similar to what we've heard a couple times previously, most notably on their two hardcore 7"s via Iron Lung Records, though this wouldn't be a true Alien Nosejob LP if it didn't come up with plenty of neat surprises and bright ideas along the way. Also, by no means is this a straight rehash of said 7"s which veered closer to a harsher '80s-informed style more appropriate and in line with the influences that permeate through much of the Iron Lung Records catalogue. Here, the overall vibe is much closer to earlier incarnations of the west coast punk scenes with the usual suspects such as Germs, Circle Jerks and Adolescents looming large and as much as Alien Nosejob were never shy of catchy melodic hooks even on these, their most uncompromising records to date, they really come to the forefront on this one and it would always be unfair to shrug off any AJ record as a just a curious oddball genre excercise as i've always felt that even at the rawer end of their pretty eclectic musical spectrum, the group pours in just as much effort of plainly superior craftsmanship and songwriting prowess as with any other release of theirs. These records ain't mere curios but central pillars of their incredible discography, carrying the unmistakable handwriting of these modern-day garage punk auteurs.
Holy fuck, what this Wakefield, UK group is pulling off on their debut EP is pushing so many of the right buttons for me. Rooted in timeless buzzsaw-guitar post punk with more than just a bit of a Big Black edge, this shit also incorporates much of a catchy garage punk immediacy, noise rock sonic assault and relentless hardcore propulsion with plenty of melodic scraps and fragments peppered all throughout. This is so fucking up my alley and reminds me of another crop of UK post punk acts that either predate or avoid the more gentrified nature of the current UK landscape, the closest comparisons i can come up with from the top of my head would be Leeds-based groups Cool Jerks and Coded Marking, but that doesn't tell the whole story either.
This group's debut EP is Indiana DIY punk at its best that on one hand appears to have quite a few things in common at least spiritually with the state's early eggpunk scene as it certainly has a similar air of chaos, inventiveness and unpredictability you'd expect of a Skull Cult or Erik Nervous record for example, even though the rough sonic parameters here are often of a completely different nature, ranging from propulsive straight-ahead garage punk and a no-bullshit hardcore energy reminiscent of another indiana curiosity - that whole Zhoop/Feed/Djinn/Brundle/etc. clusterfuck - to plenty of geographically rather unrelated postcore vibes of the Wymyns Prysyn or oldschool Hot Snakes-/Drive Like Jehu variety, various stages and incarnations of NYC's Science Man or the fuzz punk excess of early The Gobs. Anyway, as you may have gathered, there's always some thrilling and unexpected shit happening on this record.
Here's an odd one for you, and i mean that in the most positive sense, coming from a group presumably from Charlotte, North Carolina. The thing starts out as very much of a hardcore record, though even throughout the first couple tunes you can't help but notice that pronounced spaced-out psychedelic undercurrent and an increasingly catchy, melodic quality as well as some top-notch ability of song construction underneath that really goes into overdrive in the fourth track Misery, after which the record then incrementally slows down the tempo with each track and leans even more into an acid rock-driven post punk, postcore and art punk vibe that reminds me a bit of recent Science Man, Optic Nerve and there's even a slight bit of LoFi-era Poison Ruin in Make A Case. Inevitably, the record eventually reaches something of a full-on space rock territory yet retains all of these at times subtly emo-fied, melancholic undertones and ist melodic brilliance and you know what, at no point does this group sound much like anything else around really - the best comparison i can come up with for the second half from the top of my head are the likes of recent Shrudd and some of Electric Prawns 2, but really that's kind of a stretch already. You also may compare the larger-than-life drama of the record's middle section to Tom Lyngcoln's Raging Head LP or his more recent band and spiritual successor to that one-off record, Metho. But none of these comparisons truly stick here. This record is freakin' unique is what i'm sayin'.
This group from Kansas City has hammered together a thoroughly impressive debut Cassette here, available via the local powerhouse Dirtbag Distro, made up of eleven punches of deliciously raggedy and pissed oldschool-ish hardcore. I do think the bandcamp blurb mentioning Minor Threat and Black Flag kinda undersells this record though, which actually comprises of a lot more than just your average retro early '80s hardcore rehash, keeping things thrilling and unpredictable all the way thanks to tons of neat little quirks and creative brainfarts, enhanced with a constant garage-y, KBD-ish undercurrent and pulling it all off in a way that to me feels as much in conversation with the weirder end of the more contemporary hardcore spectrum as it certainly is with the ancient classics and as far as those are concerned, there's always a peculiar, eccentric quality to these tunes and an offbeat layer of dissonant noise that often reminds me way more more of oddities of the Gray Matter, Flipper and Really Red variety (though i do get the Germs comparison), rather than the usual suspects of old.
