Trigger Cut - Soot

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.

Al­bum-Stream →

11 PM Records' latest Batch (Rolex /​ Phantom /​ Z-Pak)

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?

Al­bum-Stream →

Hammered Hulls - Careening

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.

Al­bum-Stream →

Wetnap - Gnarled

The full-length de­but of this Tokyo group kin­da plays out like a round-trip through some of the most jan­g­ly and melod­ic sec­tions of late eight­ies to nineties in­die rock, noise pop, post- and emo­core, con­jur­ing up the spir­it of groups like Pol­vo, Su­per­chunk, Un­wound, Bitch Mag­net, Lync, Di­nosaur Jr. and many more, with the oc­ca­sion­al flash of Slint thrown in for good mea­sure and some shoegaze flour­ish­es par­tic­u­lar­ly of the Swervedriv­er va­ri­ety - all of that bot­tled up us­ing fit­ting­ly rough lo-fi pro­duc­tion val­ues. An al­to­geth­er rare and re­fresh­ing thing these days, at least in its raw and undi­lut­ed form as on dis­play here.

Al­bum-Stream →

Headcheese - Best Before 2022

This group from Kaloomps, BC, Cana­da de­liv­ers a joy­ous lit­tle ride around the weird­er fringes of ear­ly-to-mid 80s hard- and post­core with some mean funky grooves thrown in as well as that cer­tain garage punk ad­di­tive and - to make the mess per­fect - giv­en a thor­ough KBD-style fuck­over. Al­so not too far off from some­what re­cent groups in the vein of, say, Mys­tic Inane or Fried E/​m, among oth­ers.

Al­bum-Stream →

Gluer - Gluer

On their first full length ef­fort, this Stock­holm group kicks up an ex­cel­lent fuss di­vid­ed in­to snap­py to-the-point punk blasts tak­ing place some­where be­tween the poles of garage punk, hard- and post­core with cer­tain par­al­lels to acts like Ten­e­ment Rats, Sick Thoughts and ear­ly Teenanger on the more garage-lean­ing side of things as well as garage-in­fused post­core acts such as Video, Cri­sis Man, As­cot Stab­ber, Bat­piss, Flow­ers Of Evil.

Al­bum-Stream →

Coke Asian - Kegel Excess

The most un­ex­pect­ed gem of this week comes from a Paris group and ap­par­ent­ly has al­ready been record­ed in 2018. This is a puz­zling and over­whelm­ing burst of chaot­ic noise crude­ly wedged in­be­tween the edges of garage punk, KBD-style odd­i­ties and the weird­er fringes of ear­ly 80s hard­core punk. The open­er VVV evokes a vibe kin­da like a mix be­tween fel­low french­men Sub­tle Turn­hips and US hard­core odd­balls Landown­er while Moose Lodge con­jures up the lega­cy of, among oth­ers, pro­to noise rock­ers of the Flip­per, Bro­ken Tal­ent or Fun­gus Brains cal­iber. City Blocks unites the qual­i­ties of Bad Brains and MC5 in a neat lit­tle pack­age. Oth­er times, they evoke The Men­tal­ly Ill or kin­da bridge the gap be­tween Neos and Neo Neos while nu­mer­ous more re­cent groups á la To­tal Sham, Liq­uid As­sets, Launch­er, Cri­sis Man, Frea­kees or Li­po­suc­tion aren't too far off ei­ther at one point or an­oth­er. This shit is as unique as it's prim­i­tive and most­ly un­pre­dictable, more than once de­fy­ing any at­tempt at cat­e­go­riza­tion.

Al­bum-Stream →

Ra!d - Ra!d

As co­in­ci­dence would have it, here's yet an­oth­er group of some­what fuzzy where­abouts al­though the avail­able ev­i­dence gen­er­al­ly points to­ward Penn­syl­va­nia this time. On their most re­cent full-length ef­fort, a war­bly blown-out lo-fi acoustic in­tro gives way to a knock­out punch of a post punk blast that sounds a bit as if the hal­lu­cino­genic haze of groups á la Piles or Die! Die! Die! en­tered the pitch black worlds of Nag. Oth­er times we get some­what more con­ven­tion­al yet nonethe­less ass-kick­ing flash­es of old­school doom- and sludge-lean­ing Am­Rep-style noise rock col­lid­ing with the spaced out acid punk ex­cess of, say, De­struc­tion Unit, Hamer or Su­per-X.

Al­bum-Stream →

Night Babes - NBEP

I haven't got the slight­est clue where these folks hail from and al­so how this EP, hav­ing been re­leased a year ago ap­par­ent­ly, could go un­no­ticed for so long. 'Cos this cer­tain­ly ain't your typ­i­cal av­er­age bor­ing post punk record. Their sound of equal parts post punk and -core equipped with some ex­cel­lent garage propul­sion kin­da bridges the gaps be­tween a wide range of stuff of ear­ly Pro­tomar­tyr or Con­stant Mon­grel cal­iber on the Post Punk side of things, more garage-lean­ing acts in the Tyvek, Par­quet Courts or Go­tobeds vein, plen­ty of Hot Snakes-/Drive Like Je­hu-es­que post­core vibes and even the oc­ca­sion­al hint of Mis­sion Of Bur­ma or Mov­ing Tar­gets can be found in there.

Al­bum-Stream →

Sniffany & The Nits - The Unscratchable Itch

The full length de­but of this Lon­don group is a per­fect storm of de­light­ful­ly off-the-rails hard- and post­core, of­ten per­me­at­ed with un­ex­pect­ed­ly melod­ic sub­cur­rents and at first glance kin­da play­ing out like a mid­dle ground be­tween weird­core pow­er­house Warm Bod­ies and fel­low some­one-and-the-some­things group Judy and the Jerks… but theres more than just that go­ing on here with mo­ments rem­i­nis­cent of an eclec­tic clus­ter of am­bi­tious hard­core groups á la Acrylics, Cri­sis Man, Mur­der­er, Kalei­do­scope or Straw Man Army.

Al­bum-Stream →