Black Flag - The Process Of Weeding Out

(apparently I forgot to publish this review after I wrote it. oops.)

Black Flag need no real introduction - especially from a 20-something kid from the New York countryside. Chances are, if you like pretty much anything on this blog, you like or are at least aware of Black Flag and the impact they had on punk rock; namely, helping to pioneer hardcore punk, creating one of the most dark and idiosyncratic punk albums ever with Damaged, and then unapologetically following their own muse for years despite alienating much of their original audience. The EP in the upper left corner is a product of the latter phase, and one of the two most consistently discredited albums they ever released. Since I happen to like it a lot, I figure at the end of days, when I've left my corporal body and stand at the gates of an other-wordly utopia, I'll finally be able to cash in this golden ticket of indie cred for never-ending, constantly infatuating pleasure. Or at least, that's my theory on the reasoning behind hip youths smugly dismissing peers and subtly self-aggrandizing using the hard work of musicians and artists they've never met. I mean, come on, why else would they do it?

Now it's no secret that I like way out there bullshit about as much as punk (check out my old blog as testament), so The Process Of Weeding Out works as a happy medium. Instead of taking the hardcore, Sabbath-y sludge, or dopey heavy metal route, the band decided to further explore the sort of raw, quasi-jazz damaged improv-rock they inhabited the B-side of Family Man with. If you're not familiar with Family Man, it actually does deserve a lot of the dismissal it gets. The first side features Henry doing some pretty excruciating spoken word, but if you didn't immediately take it off the table when the needle stung the center, the B-side is actually pretty good. Not as good as this, though, [redundancy]which is why I'm reviewing it of course[/redundancy]. Sorry, I'm tired.
Anyway, The Process Of Weeding Out is 4 tracks clocking in at a little under a half hour, and features Greg Ginn in peak "losing his shit" form, letting lose a flood of messy, stinging guitar improv on top of a somewhat more composed selection of bass and drum grooves. When I first heard this, I was kinda disappointed that Ginn didn't really get more aggressive, but after a few listens, it began to make more sense. There's a lot of repetition here, especially in the title track, but the loose playing style keeps everything sounding fresh and hypnotic throughout. If you're an established fan of the band, you know they always take a while to sink in, and this is no exception - it sounds like Black Flag regardless of how different the material is.

http://www.mediafire.com/?bzzyhqztmju

Discount - Half Fiction

First off, I'm really happy I haven't been the only one posting this month, so thanks to all the staff guys who've been contributing. I've been kind of scatterbrained/preoccupied with things that everyone reading this would find utterly un-compelling. Oh! But I did score a ticket to the way sold-out Paint It Black/Punch/Iron Chic/Vaccine show in Brooklyn, so ain't nuthin' gunna break mah' stride. Especially not that local Laura Stevenson & The Cans/Paul Baribeau show. Not that I feared it would, but you understand comedic phrasing, right?

I figure since I introduced Discount here with their final album, I may as well start heading in reverse chronological order to continuing heaping on the praise. Today I'm covering their second, and most well-loved album, Half Fiction. I already described the band's sound in the last review, but if you don't feel like backtracking, they played really hooky, high quality pop-punk rooted in the classic East Bay sound with the amazing, exuberant vocals of Alison Mosshart at the helm. On their third album, Crash Diagnostic, they mashed that sound together with post-hardcore (and created one of my favorite albums ever) but this one fits the first descriptor to a tee/"t"/whatever. It's about as straight forward as their preceding album, but everything has been smoothed out thanks to a much cleaner production, with the songs having become much more vocal driven (with Alison's voice brought to the forefront where it belongs), more dynamics at play, and the band as a whole sounding just as youthful and honest as they used to, but more practiced and comfortable.
I feel the "honest" remark in that sentence needs to be emphasized: Discount circa-Half Fiction sound like a band who accidentally became something amazing while pursuing something simple and personal, like playing the music they wanted to hear or simply trying to express themselves. As far as my travels have taken me, the band is one of the few that conveys almost no self-awareness, with absolutely no punk posturing or seemingly any intent beyond what's presented in the material. I know it sounds like a case of trying to use an intangible impression as a selling point, but I think it's clear when you give it a listen.

As far as the actual songs go, this is flawless from start to finish. And in case that didn't sound like hyperbole enough, I'd probably call this one of the best pop-punk albums ever. It doesn't tread into experimental territory like Crash Diagnostic, and aside the comparatively subdued "Toxic Home", this is pure, energetic, often surprisingly pretty pop-punk without a single weak moment all the way through. I don't know if I can really list highlights considering how consistent the album is both in terms of style and quality, but I'd probably list "Torn Jeans", "Keith", "The Usual Bad", and "Dreamt This Was A Castle" as my favorites. None of them have quite the emotional impact on me a lot of the songs on Crash Diagnostic (or challenge the position of "Math Won't Miss You" as the best Discount song), but that's more of an issue of sentimental value than anything you should be concerned about.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ngyymmwgvx6

If you're new to the genre, or just looking for the greats, this album is pretty much mandatory; up there with Crimpshrine's Duct Tape Soup, The Broadways' Broken Star, Dillinger Four's Midwestern Songs Of The Americas, Apocalypse Hoboken's Easy Instructions For Complex Machinery, and pretty much everything J Church ever did.
I mentioned this in the Crash Diagnostic review, but it bears repeating: if you dig Discount and Alison Mosshart's vocals, that's criteria enough not to bother checking out The Kills or The Dead Weather. If I wasn't informed that Alison was involved with either unit, I would've had no clue - and she provides most of the fucking vocals! Don't bother unless super-affected, incredibly dull, yet critically lauded pseudo-garage rock bullshit is up your alley.

Anti-Product - Another Day, Another War

So here I am again, completing a draft post from the previous month (February) to fill an self-installed quota of 10 posts per month. Kinda cheating at this point, but well... it was arbitrary and is subject to no more criticism than what I personally deliver. On with the show...

Anti-Product were an awesome crust-punk band from NY who released two EPs, an LP, and a bunch of compilation tracks from '95 to '02. Apparently they were at the ends of their respective ropes when they set up the tour Please Inform The Captain This Is A Hijack and Submission Hold, 'cause only a week in, they split with a final show at 924 Gilman. They swapped line-ups a few times over the course of their existence, and as such, their sound morphed from a completely ripping, start-stop, vocal-interplay driven crust/hardcore band to the darker more melodic entity seen on their sole LP, The Deafening Silence of Grinding Gears. According to wikipedia, they apparently enlisted a cello player towards the end of their run, but I'm not entirely sure they recorded anything with her. To be honest, I've never even listened to any of their compilation tracks or even their unreleased 3rd EP, which I guess was tacked onto their EPs Of AP compilation years back. I realize a crust punk unit with a cello sounds like an odd proposition, but with hindsight (and assumptions) as my guide - namely supplied by the awesome Seattle crusties, Oroku similar timbre - I can give you the unfounded promise that it's pretty cool.
Anyway, though, this is Anti-Product's first EP, and as far as I'm concerned, their best. Like most things I've posted, these guys were pretty influential on me (as well as one the first few bands in the style I checked out) and something of a floodgate-opener into the more visceral world of punk rock. And that's just what this is - visceral. This EP could be described a bunch of relatively standard, grinding crust punk songs with a couple maniacs set loose on it; the intensity and rate of delivery of their voices often overtaking the riffs and cracking the continuity through brute force. To drain that statement of all colorfulness, the prosody and hooks here are fleshed out primarily through on-the-dime dead halts and re-starts. The band speeds along under a chaotic-yet-tight mess of screaming vocal interplay, with Taína Asili's youthful shriek contrasting the insane aggression and total lack of lyrical clarity of the other vocalist(s)*. The result is one of the most infectious, aggressive, and energizing pieces of music I can think of. There may be crust bands with similar (or excelling) levels of aggression, but I have yet to find one with the same balance of raw power and catchiness that this incarnation of Anti-Product offered. It's short, raw, and powerful, and even if you visit this blog primarily for the pop-punk shit, I'd still urge you to check this out.

(I'll post it later)

The band's second EP is almost as good and in the same style, but their full length is an entirely different beast. On The Deafening Silence... they melded the dark, melodic angst of the more impenetrable 90's emo bands with the crust foundation to great effect. Like most of the painfully unhappy sounding emotional hardcore bands of yore, it doesn't really grip me like it used to, but I'd still recommend it to those interested. Maybe I just lack the correct levels of self-loathing these days...

*I'm not sure whether there were two or three people contributing vocals on this EP. It sure sounds like 3, but there's not much info on the band circa '96. Anyone have the original EP?

Biohazard-Urban Discipline

This record is a great. A necessity I'd say. Chamber Spins Three into Punishment into Shades of Gray into Business. Can't beat it. Just found out I'm seeing them at some show in Mass with Blood for Blood in March I think? Gonna be sweet.




Fun fact: My little brother thinks this band is sweet. He's 8. He says the guitar parts are "groovy". He's right. Thanks for the input, Nick.




Here's proof. Great video. Check out Rick Ta Life


Download it!
http://www.mediafire.com/?2ddoiny4jnn

Personal favorite song: Business

Check out State of the World Address while you're at it.
http://www.mediafire.com/?uijz0zfjlwt

Black and Blue-Demo 2011

Black and Blue from Chicago just dropped a demo earlier this year. Members of Thought Crusade and Expired Youth (check them out if you haven't yet) I heard talk about this for a while. A lot of hype and they definitely deserve it. All of it.

Black and Blue plays an early NYHC style of hardcore (think Warzone, United Blood era AF, Cro-mags etc) and they do it really well. There are a lot of bands trying to do that style right now and even though I like most of them, this band is doing it better. They also add in clips from Notorious BIG, Big L, Nas etc. in their songs and I think it's pretty damn sweet. That might sound weird but believe me it fits and flows with the rest of the music perfectly. I'm not sure what they have planned next show-wise or record-wise but hopefully they don't just stop with this demo because I want to hear more.


"Stop wasting your time. Stop showing your face"

Check it out!
http://www.mediafire.com/?t090256rx3w0v6g

Iron Chic - Not Like This

You may know the band Latterman and their honest lyrics sung passionately in gang-vocal fashion. Iron Chic had two members of Latterman within their ranks and I believe are now only left with one. However, Iron Chic's sound is still very comparable to that of Latterman. Though it's apparent these guys have matured a bit. The lyrics are wonderfully sarcastic but I feel as if there's a sense of relativity that pokes it's way through. Don't get me wrong though, there's not a single song on this record that doesn't lack a certain charm that demands to be sung along to. The sarcasm in the lyrics is definitely a great thing, it's come across as brutally honest with all the bullshit put aside.

Not Like Thisopens up with a mid-tempo drum beat that's filled with energy. There's your punk rawk bassline going on and some jangly guitars. A lot of the record follows this formula but Iron Chic isn't afraid to speed things up either.



DOWNLOAD AND SING ALONG - http://ironchic.bandcamp.com/album/not-like-this

Dead Ringer - Demo 2010

I was introduced to New Jersey's Dead Ringer through the now-deceased Mitch Clem Forum ("Clorum" for short) after vocalist Kristia Moya joined to share her new band's demo with the posters. Reading through the thread, my skull nearly cracked open when I saw totally unanimous praise for this band throughout. In my 3 1/2 years as a boardie, I'm pretty sure that was the sole instance of complete community acceptance of literally anything a single boardie had to share. Punknews and B9's board seemed to feel the same when I dug around the net for more info, so, intrigued as hell, I coasted along the wave of awe and hype, downloaded the demo and got to work on weighing its worth. After one spin, I added my compliance to the forum's anomalous chain of thumbs up, filed it away for some reason, then hastily moved into a 90's hardcore and powerviolence blitz that lasted for several months.

SO HERE WE ARE IN THE FUTURE. I had almost completely forgotten about this betwixt the aforementioned marathon and my current free-jazz/krautrock/noise/bullshit bender, but I noticed it sitting in my itunes library, noted that it was only 3 tracks deep, and decided to give it a review. Honestly, I'm a little confused by the memory of my initial reaction. I guess I was feeling especially non-critical at the time, but well... this is sort of dull. I mean, it isn't bad or incompetent by any means, and the band are certainly tight enough, but... this is the band that spawned a 3 page thread of comments like "this is great stuff" and "one of the best things I've heard this year"? Dead Ringer are made up of two members of Exit She Calls (a band I'd never heard of until their side project made waves) and play really generic 90's pop punk. Y'know, that grinding, not-so-hooky brand of uptempo pop-punk/skate-punk you'd expect out of Fat Wreck or Epitaph circa '92-'97? That's what this sounds like, except it's approximating Lemuria's schtick, whether by influence or chance. Of course, this only really extends as far as a similar vocal approach, what with the pristine female leads and the warbling, Calvin Johnson-esque accompaniments - otherwise, these three songs sound lack the dynamics, non-standard song structures, and consistent use of odd time signatures that make Lemuria so appealing.
As I said, though, there's still nothing necessarily "bad" about what these two are doing, but that's also where the problem lies. The band constantly hints at being able to play much more enticing, memorable music, but they never push beyond the tribute phase to sound anything but faceless and inoffensive. There's a reason this style of pop-punk was expanded upon so heavily in the 00's - it got worn the fuck out during the preceding decade and would have been pointless not to take cues from neighboring genres and draw from a wider pool of influences. It's the same thing that happened to hardcore punk in the early 80's, and again during the mid-90's. I feel like sort of an asshole bashing this upcoming band publicly, but it's only because I feel like they have the potential to be a lot more entertaining than this... like, I wouldn't bother calling out a shitty band I saw no reason to pay attention to or had any hope for.
I'm starting to sound like a faux-altruistic prick refuting my review, though, so here:

http://deadringer.bandcamp.com/album/demo-2010

One last thing: considering Dead Ringer states that they're for fans of Discount (among others), it's amazing how little this sounds like Discount. Unless they meant that both bands have a girl singer and that's probably your only criteria. In which case, yeah, spot on.

Tim Barry

Folk-punk is getting pretty big. I mean, it's a good direction for punk, but the sheer number of bands coming out is kinda overwhelming. Seems like every frontman of a band is picking up an acoustic, with the likes of Dave Hause (The Loved Ones), Frank Turner (Million Dead), Chuck Ragan (HWM), Jim Ward (At The Drive-In/Sparta), Brendan Kelly (Falcon/Larry Arms), Joe McMahon (Smoke or Fire) and Ben Nicols (Lucero). The list goes on and on. With so many dudes trading Les Pauls for Martins it's hard to keep track of all of 'em. A lot of the material coming out is just... boring. Frank Turner in particular is boring as all hell. I can't get into him just because his voice is too pristine and all of his songs just sound like a rehash of his earlier material. Lucero was great, but c'mon Ben Nichols, how many times are you gonna cover "Kiss The Bottle?" Nevermind Dave Hause, I have a hard time getting through the sea of cheese and forced country riffs of any Loved Ones album. Chuck Ragan for awhile was seemingly the only dude with a knack for this sort of music. I mean, Rumbleseat was fucking awesome. "Feast or Famine" was an amazing album, and even his tirades in Saw Wheel stand out as a cookie-cutter example of what other frontmen should be doing, instead of playing crappy, whiny low-fi acoustic songs with some country pull-offs and hammer-ons. Don't even get me started on the No Idea/Plan It-X bullshit too. I mean, Defiance, Ohio and Andrew Jackson Jihad are good, but Rosa, Ghost Mice? What the fuck is this crap. Spoonboy? The only good songs on "I Love You, This Is A Robbery" aren't even done by Spoonboy. Are you fucking kidding me, how do people listen to this garbage?

Then there is Tim Barry, the frontman from Avail. What needs to be said about Avail? They made "Over the James", "Satiate", "100 Times"... They are one of those cherished bands that, despite no longer being together, is still in constant rotation on playlists all over the world, withstanding the test of time. Although not so much in the Northeast, Avail is a thing of legend once you cross into Dixie country. Amongst so much crap, Tim Barry's solo stuff epitomizes what the crossover from punk to folk should be. Uncompromising, rough around the edges, and unabashedly honest, still maintaining the spirit of punk yet transitioning flawlessly from something like Avail to a stripped-down solo project that actually represents Americana folk music opposed to 90% of "folk-punk" musicians who are simply jumping on the bandwagon so to speak. Barry's music sounds like it's coming from a kid who grew up on the riverside and struggled his whole life, whereas Dave Hause sounds like a whiny doucher who happened to listen to some of his dad's old Buck Owens records in the suburbs of Chicago. If there is one thing that has not transferred from punk to this seemingly new sub-genre, it is most certainly sincerity.

Recommended listening:

• Manchester - http://www.mediafire.com/?e0rmtnlzm0z
• Rivanna Junction - http://www.mediafire.com/?lxhdmiymyyz
• Laurel Street demos - http://www.mediafire.com/?2ifmiwodydm
  

The Broadways - We All Know That You Can Do It

If the blog's moniker didn't alert you, or you simply weren't familiar with the reference, I'm a huge fan of Chicago's The Broadways. Ever since fellow staffer twoeyes turned me on to these guys mid-high school, I've been close to obsessed with their wares, never going longer than a couple months without giving them a spin. I'd been meaning to pen a lengthy (likely exhausting) review of their sole LP, Broken Star, long before this blog's conception even, but it's a pretty daunting task. If you braved the piece I did on Defiance, Ohio's Share What Ya Got, you have an idea of what to expect - a long winded autobiographical affair laced with commentary about the disc's tangible content and all the sentimental and personal meaning it stews in. Acceptable territory for ctrl+f'ing the mediafire link, in other words. That, or an ever-so-egotistical public journal entry.
Since I haven't built up the intestinal fortitude nor the commitment to sit down for another "deep" marathon post yet, let's take a look at The Broadways' debut EP, We All Know That You Can Do It - 4 super high quality melodic punk tunes that never get old. If you've never listened to these guys before, their sound is steeped in the classic East Bay pop-punk vigor; most notably Jeff Ott's bands Crimpshrine and Fifteen, alongside some prevailing Jawbreaker influence. Fortunately though, The Broadways never get too bogged down in introspection like the latter, nor do they resort to dull, chugging, filler garbage like Fifteen often indulge in towards the middle of most of their records.
Having formed from the dissolution of the awesome ska-punk band, Slapstick, the surviving members were able to get all their chops down in a different genre before tackling pop-punk, resulting in an really fresh, energetic band who sound like they're between newcomer and veteran status (ie a practiced but never formulaic). It's really unfortunate the band chose to split after such a short time together, but as such, the earliest recordings of the band sound exactly like the band performing their final 7 songs at the beginning of the Broken Van compilation - consistently great across the board give or take a song or two. The band members wouldn't really hit a dud note until two of the core members formed The Lawrence Arms, but I know I'm in the minority in thinking that... more on them some other time.
Fortunately, each one of the four songs on here is a classic, and could only be more of an accurate summary of the unit if one of the songs was led by Chris McCaughan. "TV Song" is your quintessential Brendan Kelly sung uptempo track, with a well placed break towards the middle that accentuates the lyrics perfectly. "Ben Moves To California" was later re-recorded for the band's Broken Star LP; the vocals here are a little less nasally sounding than the 2nd version, and the guitar is a little different during Brendan's part, but overall, there's not much difference between the two. I guess that's why this song was left off the Broken Van compilation, but if you're like me, you pretty much need it. By the way, does anyone have the lyrics to what Brendan sings? For whatever reason, they're completely absent from both the booklet and the entire internet. "Broadway And Briar" and "Rainy Day" are definitely the best cuts on here, with the former being a mid-paced anthemic track, and the latter being Hanaway at his most Jeff Ott-y.
Sorry, song-by-song reviews suck and I'm not strong enough a writer to defy that fact. Regardless, you need this:

http://www.mediafire.com/?8rlwnq4wpncrf6p

I also threw in the song "Fuck The Church", which only appears on the Drive Thru Records compilation Where's The Beef?. I really don't know why they left it off the Broken Van compilation, but it's a good one.

The Menzingers - A Lesson In The Abuse Of Information Technologies

Here's an album that took me a long time to get into for some particularly stupid reasons. Have you ever found yourself listening to an album for the first time when suddenly, a track or two will come out of nowhere and make you rock the fuck out like you've heard it a million times? And then you find on subsequent listens that you're waiting impatiently until those fist-pumping anthems start up again, basically ignoring every track that precedes them? Then you get annoyed by the perceived "lack of consistency", forsake the album for other territory, then return wondering what spell you were under jut a few weeks earlier? That pretty much was what happened here. That, and the fact that the production on this particular album is not exactly well-accentuated by the muddying powers of my in-car stereo system. I found the guitar lines getting buried in murk and wrote them off as non-existent for some reason. It's unfortunate to be this dumb.

The Menzingers are yet another "orgcore" band, but what can I say? Though it may be the most retarded and pointless "genre" title ever conceived, it does entail a certain sound quality and style. I also happen to love the shit out of beard-y dudes with gruff voices playing pop-punk way more than skinny "geeks" taking cues from the Dickies, so that's what a lot of this blog will be dedicated to. These guys formed in 2006 in the shithole Scranton, Pennsylvania I got stuck in on my last bike trek. Apparently if you enter Scranton on a bike, but do not carry around a motor vehicle in a capsule like Dragonball, your only hope for leaving that goddamn city is to backtrack about 30 miles and take an unbelievably massive detour AROUND the truly enormous area attached to Scranton. Fuckin' Scranton and it's many attributes. Anyway, A Lesson In The Abuse Of Information Technologies was the band's debut full length from 2007, and while I still don't think its quite as skull bustingly good as their producer, Jesse Cannon ( "I record bands every day and almost all of them are missing something. The Menzingers have it all — the songs, the aggression, the heart, and the passion that most only dream of."), it is a really solid, consistently enjoyable album with only a few weak links.

Like I said before, these guys are an "orgcore" band - a band with two harmonizing gruff vocalist, shards of heartfelt melody, a lot of grittiness, and some scream-a-long moments best suited to live performances and an enthusiastic audience. Apparently they formed from the ashes of a ska-punk band called Bob And The Sagets who I've never heard of, but the ska influence only shines through on the opening track, "Alpha Kappa Falls Off A Balcony" and somewhere in the middle of "Clap Hands Two Guns" (in case you're vehemently opposed to listening to anything that could be considered ska). Unfortunately, the opener is fucking awful, and sounds completely out of place with the rest of the record. It kinda reminds me of the dark-ska moments on Choking Victim's No Gods No Managers, but mixed with lame, attitude heavy rap rock. I have no idea what it's doing on here, nor have I any idea why the band chose it to open the record with it considering it doesn't sound anything like the warm, folk-damaged, pop-punk that dominates the rest of the material.

Aside that, the only track her that could've used a bit of reworking in "Richard Corey", which features a vocal melody that almost brings the song to the emotional peak you can tell the band were aiming for. After those two, the rest is a lot of fun. The tracks of instant accessibility I mentioned before are the awesome title track, "Even For An Eggshell" (check out the reworking of the chorus mid song), and "Straight To Hell", primarily because they feature the most straightforward hooks on the album, but the acoustic numbers "Cold Weather Gear" (albeit it should be twice as long) and "No Ticket", as well as "Ave Maria" are my favorites.

try it here
then
buy it here

Overall, really solid enjoyable album by a band who seem to be improving a lot; check out their newest LP, Chamberlain Waits. I haven't given it as much time as this one yet, but overall it seems like everything has been tightened up and improved a decent amount. I guess an acoustic album is also in the works, but the only article I found for it doesn't give much more info on it than I just did. Here's a video for the single accompanying their new album: