Impotent Fetus, the marvellous new-ish cassette sublabel of the equally fantastic Stucco empire, has already brought quite a bit of joy to the world recently with that Septic Yanks tape. In the meantime, they've already released two new puddles of noise to bathe in, made by two groups of unknown whereabouts, easily upholding the high quality standards. Fugitive Bubble create a delightful and inventive mess of fuzzed out hard-, noise- and weirdcore, at times reminding me of Das Drip, Warm Bodies, Vexx, the early output of NAG or Kaleidoscope. C-Krit, on the other hand, sound a lot like a disfigured crossbreed between Soupcans, No Trend and Lumpy & The Dumpers. Also, their fucked up rendition of the Screaming Sneakers evergreen Violent Days is pure gold.
Two noisy new artifacts brought to us by New York's exquisite D4MT label. First, there's a new extended play by hard-/postcore powerhouse Kaleidoscope on which their sound comes across a tiny bit more more simplified and straightforward than on last year's killer debut LP, yet as inspired, playful and inventive as ever. Similar things can be said about the debut album of Straw Man Army, a duo i can't find much information on, but at a quick glance they seem to consist of none other than Kaleidoscope's drummer boy and some other dude. Just as you'd expect, this is another quite adventurous ride through the realms of dark post punk both classic and contemporary, sometimes bordering on Crass-style minimalism, Wipers-esque melancholia while also reminding me of more recent eccentricities by the likes of Murderer or Wymyns Prysyn.
This Seattle group has been around for quite a few years now, but it took them just as long to come up with their debut LP. Thus, it's no real surprise this thing sounds rather mature for a debut record, with a firm grip on this particular subgenre somewhere between the garage-leaning zones of the postcore spectrum and some contemporary noise rock - right in the neighborhood of bands like early Video, Hot Snakes, Ascot Stabber, Davidians or Flowers Of Evil.
Yet another postcore LP by yet another UK group, this time of the more conventional yet thoroughly convincing variety. Think of a mix of old guard staples like Jawbox, Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes… while of the new school, Bench Press, Stuck or USA Nails might come come to mind.
Having only released one 7" before, the maturity of this Dublin group's debut album is quite stunning - nothing less than a fully realized, versatile and inventive take on Noise Rock, Postcore and Math Rock clearly taking some cues from classic 90's and early 00's acts like Unwound, Bastro, Chavez, Frodus, some early Shellac, while still standing on its own two feet. In the current genre landscape, Multicult might also be a somewhat useful comparison.
After releasing a true shitload of EPs over the past few years and their sound showing a steady increase in maturity, it's really no surprise that their debut album comes across as the most accomplished batch of songs by this London group yet, their very own formula made up of post punk, noise rock and postcore elements fine-tuned and engineered into a smoothly running, high precision machine while still occasionaly expanding their musical vocabulary - like some Wire-meet-Big Black-isms in Set Up To Fail for example or the bleak doomscapes á la early Uniform in Human Frailty.
Their debut EP a year ago already was an excellent racket, but what this group from Portland (i think) pulls off on their new full length is just plain awesome, a punchy as fuck piece of noise rock/postcore bliss of the highest caliber. Regarding their sound, they're certainly rooted in the present day, reminding me of acts like Tunic, Death Panels, John (timestwo), USA Nails, Girls In Synthesis. Athough this record doesn't exactly break new ground, as a genre piece - helped by every song having an elaborate and robust composition at its core - it succeeds at every step along the way. A perfect maelstrom of propulsive rhythms, wicked bass grooves, infernal noise eruptions and - as they already showcased early on their EP - a wisely measured and thus extra effective sense of melody, well capable of elevating all that drama to the next level.
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.
