People's Temple /​ Hood Rats /​ Hickey

Three hard­core re­leas­es es­pe­cial­ly stuck out this week, all of 'em more or less tread­ing off the genre's beat­en paths. The most con­ven­tion­al­ly sound­ing - rel­a­tive­ly speak­ing of course - is the EP by People's Tem­ple on NY la­bel Roach­Leg Records, giv­ing us an ex­treme­ly tune­ful vari­a­tion on 80s hard­core, at times com­ing across like a blend of Cir­cle Jerks with ear­ly-to-mid­dle-era Naked Ray­gun and with oc­ca­sion­al flour­ish­es of Hüsker Dü to boot. Of more re­cend Bands, Fried E/​m might al­so fit the bill.
Hickey's tape on Arch­fiend records then in­fus­es con­tem­po­rary strands of garage-, synth- and egg­punk weird­ness with plen­ty of old­school hard­core en­er­gy, along the way al­so evok­ing the some vibes of Flip­per, Spike in Vain, Bro­ken Tal­ent… With this re­lease, we might just be en­ter­ing the eggcore era!
Montreal's Hood Rats op­er­ate in a vague­ly sim­i­lar ter­ri­to­ry, al­so hav­ing a sound ground­ed in garage punk brim­ming with lo-fi egg­punk quirky­ness just as much as with an un­kempt KBD en­er­gy and the tunes to make it stick.

Al­bum-Streams →

The Vortex - Executive Dysfunction

This San­ta Ana group emits short and noisy KBD-soaked ar­ti­facts, equal parts old­school garage- and hard­core punk with the oc­ca­sion­al touch of Gun Club. The over­all im­pres­sion ain't too far off Neo Neos or any of mae­stro Voltaire's var­i­ous hard­core projects, ear­ly Erik Ner­vous and maybe some hint of Launch­er, meshed to­geth­er with some beau­ti­ful ac­ci­dent of the kind that might've just as well oc­cured on some ran­dom Deluxe Bias or Im­po­tent Fe­tus re­lease.

Al­bum-Stream →

Peacemaker - See You Dead /​ Greed

Here's yet an­oth­er short and sweet tape car­ry­ing one of those de­li­cious old­school hard­core/KBD-style/­Garage Punk hy­brids, so sim­ple and el­e­gant and flaw­less in its ex­e­cu­tion. I nev­er get tired of this kind of shit.

Big Jar of Mayo - Big Jar of Mayo

More qual­i­ty shit cour­te­sey of Deluxe Bias. This ab­surd­ly short cass­in­gle of noise in the realm of KBD-in­formed weird­core, garage- and post punk will sure be a de­light to folks who've al­ready de­vel­oped a huge bon­er for Mys­tic Inane, Rolex or Fried E/​M.

Septic Yanks - Septic Yanks

An­oth­er moldy wet lump of ul­tra­con­ta­gious punk shit, equal parts garage punk, KBD-style mis­chief and hard­core punk of the very old school. Not too far off from stuff like Liq­uid As­sets, Fried E/​M or Launch­er.

Al­bum-Stream →

Liquid Assets - Offshore Accounts

I've al­ready failed to men­tion this group at least two times and feel kin­da bad about that - al­though you might have heard them al­ready on some of my "Verspan­nungskas­sette" mix­tapes. So, if you haven't been ac­quaint­ed with this Ot­tawa group's chem­i­cal­ly un­sta­ble garage-/hard­core-/KBD-style punk ex­trav­a­gan­za yet, here's your next chance. This tape, brought to us by malasyan punk strong­hold Pissed Off! Recs, con­tains pret­ty much every note of their de­mo tape and 7" re­leased last year in, as it ap­pears to me, most­ly re-record­ed and ex­tra ex­plo­sive ren­di­tions.

Al­bum-Stream →

Freaks - Freaks

An un­re­lent­ing storm of raw KBD-meets-ston­er punk kicked loose by the Freaks of Philadel­phia, en­forced with loads of hard­core propul­sion. Starts out kin­da like an amal­ga­ma­tion of ear­ly Milk Mu­sic or Di­nosaur Jr. with Every­thing Falls Apart-era Hüsker Dü, then set­tles in­to a mode that comes across like a mix of Tarantüla/​Cülo, Fried Egg, a hint of Launch­er and some added sludge and death rock vibes, the lat­ter re­mind­ing me of Be­ta Boys.

Al­bum-Stream →

Modern Needs - Survey of the Animal Kingdom

San Francisco's Mod­ern Needs let off one de­li­cious fart af­ter an­oth­er in­to the at­mos­phere, con­sist­ing of straight, sim­ple & ef­fec­tive Fuzz rem­i­nis­cent of ear­ly 80s west­coast punk & hard­core as well as plen­ty of crude KBD-vibes. As such, they make good com­pa­ny to oth­er con­tam­po­rary bands like Launch­er, Frea­kees, Beast Fiend or Liq­uid As­sets.

Al­bum-Stream →

Pink Guitars - We Are Made Of The Sun

Just like its pre­de­ces­sor, the sec­ond EP by this band from Buf­fa­lo, NY turns out to be an­oth­er high­ly con­cen­trat­ed dose of un­con­ven­tion­al, in­ven­tive and at times strik­ing­ly melod­ic hard­core fun, al­so ex­pand­ing its styl­is­tic ten­ta­cles in­to places of garage-, fuzz- and KBD style punk.

Al­bum-Stream →