flowers growing in a garbage can

The Menzingers - Chamberlain Waits

2012-02-20T15:19:00.003-08:00

Before I begin:
I'm turning this blog into a zine. It'll be a mash up of music reviews, my comics, personal/political pieces, assorted artwork, and New Yawk scene stuff. I'm also doing a zine covering the history of powerviolence, as well, consisting of interviews, a "best of" list with reviews, and other goodies. I have no idea when this will come to fruition, but you can count on the former seeing the light of day in the not so distant future.

Admittedly, it's been a long-ass time since I had any desire to give the The Menzingers' debut LP a listen. In fact, it wasn't long after completing last year's review that the album's luster wore off and it faded from my priorities list. I guess it would've made sense for me to have rectified this change of heart via an update or something, but well, it's a miracle that I write anything at all, sometimes. Fortunately, the same can't be said about their follow-up, Chamberlain Waits, as it has been percolating in my ears long enough that I feel confident in giving it props. ~~You see, its actually a fantastic concept album detailing the fictional life of Tom Waits' older, seafaring brother, Chamberlain, as he comes to grips with his m,Kkgvd9u2~~

Ugh, I'm admittedly out of practice with this record review stuff.

Chamberlain Waits features a far more clean and dynamic sound than their debut, and features 10 great-to-fantastic tracks of heartfelt, melodic, folk-tinged "orgcore", and 2 comparative duds. This time around, the band put a greater focus on vocal melody and less on really dated sounding dual scream-singing, and it pays off in spades. If you don't have the right ear for it, I can see Tom May's emotive crooning coming across as a bit overstated at times, but for whatever reason, I love the shit out of even his more warbly moments. With hindsight given by a listen to their new single, I now hear this album as a vaguely transitional one. It seems like the band had grown a bit tired of the gruffer pop-punk sound of the debut and followup EP, and were just beginning to inject more aspects of indie-folk/alternative rock into their repertoire. The results are a fairly smooth mash up of the two halves, and I'd even rate the first 8 tracks here by the arbitrary and mindlessly personal scale of "almost perfect"... well, excepting that cheesy screaming section of "Home Outgrown". Holy dicks are "Times Tables" and "Male Call" great songs, though, both lyrically and musically. I'd hate to pull that boring-as-fuck "worth the price of admission alone" cliche here, but well, if you spank it to the altar of punk news idols, these are two tracks you'd be wise to track down. Okay, here's one:

In reference to a major flaw in the first disc, this one fortunately features no short fuses like "A Lesson In The Abuse Of Information Technology" and "Even For An Eggshell", both of which I listed as standouts in the previous review. Their appeal is about as short lived as how fast they get stuck in your head. There are really only two tracks I don't particularly care for here: "No We Didn't" sounds like that yucky opener on A Lesson... reduced to a more merciful brevity, and "Come Here Often?" is sort of marred by grating/dull vocal patterns. I suppose they're not unlistenable, though, and do in fact vary up the disc's prevailing mood... but so would covers of "ALL!" and "No, ALL!". Does that go without saying? I'm tired since I had to rewrite half this fucking review due to blogspot's inability to consistently save my progress.

Yes, that's why my writing sucks. Because of blogspot.

http://www.mediafire.com/?nk0uwjewzmj

So it seems like my opinion of this album is about the same as my initial thoughts regarding the debut - THIS TIME WITH MORE CONVICTION. Although, wouldn't it be just a chuckle riot if I totally denounced everything I said here in a future review of the band? Ho HO.

Neanderthal - Fighting Music

2012-02-02T10:48:00.000-08:00

This will probably end up being a really short review since I'm still on the road, but well... I guess circumstances could be more inappropriate for a band whose discography clocks in at 10 minutes.

"Oh yeah, I'm traveling right now. I don't know if I mentioned that before, but its why I haven't updated lately. Expect more regular posts come mid-March!", he typed excitedly, unaware of the irrelevance of his words. It seemed the internet had turned its back on him a long time ago; like the light from a collapsed star, the dissolution of his audience would take a lifetime to become apparent.

Neanderthal's lone EP is the stuff of legends: incredibly influential, hopelessly un-dated, and incomprehensibly expensive on ebay. Consisting of a pre-Man Is The Bastard Eric Wood and Matt Domino of Infest, Neanderthal was an extremely short lived project that single handedly kicked off (and coined) powerviolence as a genre. At this point, Infest had existed for several years, and No Comment had already put out their first EP, Common Senseless, but this is really where it begins stylistically. As such, Fighting Music is about as pure as you're gonna get, and contains all the scuzz, filth, and heaviness the genre provided before the great emo/90's hardcore gentrification struck.
As the name might make you think, the sound this band produces is primitive, brutal, and mammoth spearing as fuck. Imagine the speed and tantrum-like, bellowing rage of Infest mashed up with creepy, Rorschach-esque riffs and the tremendous grit and intricate basslines of Man Is The Bastard. It's about as rad as that descriptor might lead you to believe, and fits snuggly alongside a number of EPs I've raved about in the past - a short, but really fulfilling listen.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ilzmnzu2mqt

I've never been able to confirm this, but I've heard that Joel Connell of MITB (then of Shrimper label weirdos, Refrigerator) was somehow involved with this band. Does anyone know if Neanderthal performed live shows? If they did, I gotta conclude that Joel filled in on either drums or guitar. Matt Domino is listed in the liner notes as handling both in this EP's liner notes, but I kinda doubt he was doing that Happy Flowers thing where he'd slide his foot around the strings while drumming.

Maybe that was too obscure of a reference.

Tuesday - Early Summer

2011-11-13T16:44:00.001-08:00

This may be an instance where the hoary cliche "preaching to the choir" could rear it's boring head, but well, if you're not familiar with the branches of the Slapstick family tree, you'd be doing yourself a favor by taking a look at this. Personally, I don't hold it in the place of reverence that many people do, but there are certainly some goods to be had here. For instance, while Slapstick, The Broadways, and Alkaline Trio have always kicked my ass, The Lawrence Arms, The Falcon, and The Honor System are thoroughly, thoroughly underwhelming. Emphasis on the former, albeit that statement may come across as heresy; the way I see it, they started off as an inferior version of The Broadways and slowly made their way into a dull-as-shit, glossy alt-punk waste of time.
Less Than Jake and Tuesday fall somewhere between the two. Admittedly, and somewhat embarrassingly, I actually like the pre-'96 material of the former, and regarding the latter, I only have the EP in the top left corner to indulge in.
Tuesday formed in '96, shortly after Slapstick's dissolution, and were able to clamp their collective sphincters for only a year before releasing the godawful Freewheelin' LP in '97. While the Early Summer EP was 4 tracks of catchy, bass-y, hard-hitting pop-punk with the combined vocal front of future Alkaline Trio bassist Dan Andriano and drummer Rob Kellenberger, Freewheelin' sounded like the band spent the intermediate phase smoking weed and listening to stacks of surface-level Midwestern emo albums. And I don't mean that in the American Football way, either; the band essentially took their infectious style of old, sucked all the life out of it, and slathered it in melodramatic cheese. It's a mess measured by the meter stick of those horrible acoustic songs on Goddamnit if you know what I mean.
Giant globs of criticism aside, Early Summer is great as it's followup is disappointing. At the time, the band were a trio, and the songwriting style was decidedly more in the Crimpshrine/Jawbreaker vein than anything approaching 3rd wave emo. Despite that, the 4 songs here sound surprisingly strong and fresh, with solid guitar hooks and as much care put into the verses as the choruses. Dan Andriano's voice has a lot of bite to it here in comparison to all future ventures, and actually sounds like he belongs in a punk band, which plays especially well off of Kellenberger's cleaner harmonies. My favorite song off of here has to be the closer, "So Awake" (which was later re-recorded as the much weaker "Too Much Of Today" on Freewheelin'), but the preceding 3 are just as strong. Also, I'm pretty sure that's the last positive love song Andriano would ever write.

http://www.mediafire.com/?bkmyawhmkq2

This EPs out of print as fuck, but I'm pretty sure you can get it cheap on discogs.com and amazon. After all, pretty much no one knows/gives a shit about this band anymore. Oh, and while I can't confirm this, I heard that The Honor System's demo sets everyone up for disappointment just as bad as Early Summer. At least Andriano didn't postulate that more pro-tools vocal effects would be the key to the kingdom. What the fuck, Hanaway.

Alkaline Trio - Maybe I'll Catch Fire

2011-11-07T12:09:00.000-08:00

This is probably the least musically relevant thing I've ever utilized as an introduction, but it's something that just now crept out from my periphery: have you noticed that, like, 70% of the female populace between the ages of 16 and 35 are clad in membrane-snug black tights? They're probably the most revealing garment I've ever seen achieve this kind of homogeneity, especially when worn as a pants-substitute. To clarify, I don't intend this as a blue-balled, prudish/misogynist jab at women, as I understand almost everyone, regardless of sex, is caught somewhere in the fashion undertow, but I can't help but raise an eyebrow at how widespread this shit is. It's like a nationwide showcase of ass at the molecular level.

Anyway, to start, the handful of somewhat ambiguous jabs I've penned about Alkaline Trio in the past still stand. They are, and probably always will be, complete cornballs of the "dark" and angst-laden persuasion with lyrics that curdle milk. In fact, I could probably lambaste them in the same light as The Gaslight Anthem, who I dissed several months ago for their similarly laughable (albeit totally different) lyricism. Just like the aforementioned band, though, I've gone through a cycle of acceptance with Alkaline Trio illustrated below:
1.) Infatuation
2.) Light criticism of thematic elements/lyrics
3.) Total disdain and/or embarrassment followed by abandonment
4.) Re-visitation and light criticism
5.) Love of the material with a tongue planted firmly in cheek
And yeah, Maybe I'll Catch Fire is an album I really love, regardless of how fucking silly and un-relateable the lyrics are. Alkaline Trio are one of the most well-known branches of the Slapstick family tree and are a (duh) trio comprised of Dan Adriano of Tuesday, Slapstick, and eventually The Falcon, Matt Skiba (who's also in the unheard-by-me band Heavens), and Derek Grant, previously of The Suicide Machines and a zillion other bands.
This album is their sophomore effort, and the follow-up to 1998's excellent debut (except the two putrid acoustic tracks), Goddamnit. I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure this is the band's most popular album, if not just for the band's staple encore song, "Radio", but it's definitely mine. The songwriting here is really strong, and less raw and bass-y than their first album, with the general pace slowed down to allow the melodies to really develop. I wouldn't call this an indie rock album, exactly, as tracks like "5-3 10-4", "She Took Him To The Lake", and "Madam Me" truck it pretty hard, but there's a distinct adaptation of a more rock-esque format here. Unlike almost every pop-punk band of the past 10 years, the dual vocal approach is considerably reserved, which makes the harmonies stand out a lot, especially in "You Got So Far To Go", which is easily one the album's best tracks next to "5-3 10-4", the dark-warmth of "Sleepyhead", and the refreshingly non-accusatory "She Took Him To The Lake". The latter's got a pretty typical theme of heartbreak, but despite the male described being abandoned, blame never gets heaped on the girl for being a vicious heartstomping witch or whatever bullshit you'd find in virtually every Descendents song.

http://www.mediafire.com/?fmey4i4jyym

In conclusion, I'm tired of sitting at the computer writing this. Also, if you've got a bias against this band due to their cheesy, "gawthic" image or perceived "emo-ness", try to ignore the lyrics. The music itself, vocals included, make for a really great package, and even the imagery's pretty vivid and satisfying once you stop taking it seriously. I guess I should probably mention "Radio", though, since everyone loves that song: it's pretty good. Unfortunately, it also contains the line “shaking like a dog shitting razor blades".
Hm.

Mixtapes - Maps

2011-11-04T15:14:00.000-07:00

What sucks is that I actually want to operate this blog again. Also, after about a year's hiatus, I've resumed creating autobiographical comics to publish on a blog or something in hopes of a.) getting my name out there so I may begin freelancing and b.) feeling a semblance of personal fulfillment by putting my artistic leanings to use again. What sucks (while simultaneously "rules") is the fact that these two prospects will fall by the wayside so shortly after reinvigoration, seeing as I'm going vagabonding again for several months and may or may not return in a mindset conducive to writing about this kind of music.

And furthermore, (paragraph of personal bullshit prone to putting off any passerby) HA HA SELF PARODY JDGSJHD

Mixtapes are a Cincinnati, Ohio 4-piece comprised of 3 hairy dudes and a girl with Romulan bangs that play a form of punk music that sidles between the worlds of pop-punk and indie-pop without ever really matching up with the current climate of either genre. Which is to say, there's no intentionally poor production values utilized as a garage band tribute, heavy, springboard basslines, or vocalists that could use a lozenge. Also, as far as I can tell, they came out of fucking nowhere, which is totally confounding if only because of how incredibly good they are. I know "good" is not the most professional or descriptive term, but when so many aspects of a band sound this polished and mature, it's hard not to reach for umbrella terms. I don't like to sink into the eye-rolling depths of hyperbole, but for a debut, this is a pretty much flawless release.
Maps is 10 songs in 18 minutes, and contained within that microscopic running time are enough instantly memorable hooks, melodies, sing-a-long-able vocal harmonies and lyrics than most bands can muster between several LPs. The songs are all super short ditties that alternate between anthems, speedy pop-punk, and pretty acoustic tracks with a crystal clear production that makes the consistent juggling of modes sound perfectly natural and seamless. I wouldn't say there are any tracks here that standout among the rest, but considering the circumstances, I couldn't give a better compliment; in essence, pretty much every track on here is not only cohesive with it's surroundings, but also feels perfectly suited to exist outside of context, say, within a sentimental CD-R or cassette compilation format. Fuck you, I refuse to make a joke about the band's name.
Oh, also, there's a minimalistic yet prevalent use of piano which suits their sound really well.

try it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?uq3w3v2b980998x
buy it here: http://animalstyle.limitedpressing.com/products/13339

The two vocalists' interactions are probably the biggest hook the band employ, though. The earnest, quasi-snotty voice of (male-bodied vocalist) and the smokey, pretty voice of (female-bodied vocalist) intermingle in such a way that the lyrics are constantly comprehensible despite the two's knack for harmonizing. It's kinda like The Anniversary were less putrid and keyboard heavy and more punk rawk. The lyrics might put some people off, as they straddle the line between awkward and self-righteous, but goddamn could I relate to this just a few years back. A running theme here is the comfort in being alone, not partying, and quiet aggrandizement relating to allegiance to the two aforementioned themes. I might be reading too much into the posturing behind their lyrics, but they sound exactly like something I would've written as a painfully self-aware, socially awkward, self-described intellectual who's internal deprecation was only transformed into defensive pride by the upstroke of mood swings.

I dunno.

I want there to be a song called "Watching Porn On A Library Computer". Do you think Dillinger Four would make that song if we got a petition going?

Rivethead - Cheap Wine Of Youth

2011-10-22T19:08:00.000-07:00

Hey, do you guys (not gender specific) remember when "industrial metal" sounded like a cool idea? I actually don't, which is funny, because I was into some really shitty music that occupied the same microcosm in my proto-high school years. Fortunately nu-metal only sounded good as a 14 year old who had exposure to approximately nothing but shitty 70's rock and radio bullshit, so I don't feel much shame in admitting that - especially since I was over dung like Korn and Slipknot by the following year. Why am I writing this as an intro to Rivethead? Well, no good reason, just the fact that there's apparently an industrial metal band with the same moniker sharing a page on last.fm. For a few golden minutes, I thought the not-terrible Rivethead was touring again, but it turns out tattooed dorks with goatees and Ministry-fixations are still writing and performing tuneage for 13 year old angst buckets.

Rivethead’s a band I only got into through exposure to the member’s current/recent projects, and if you look at the list (Banner Pilot, Off With Their Heads, Dear Landlord, The Gateway District, etc), you'll instantly understand why giving this a spin was unavoidable. Cheap Wine Of Youth is their 2003 final statement, unfortunately, and the too-short follow-up to the similarly great 2001 EP, City Sound Number 5. Rumor has it the band actually concluded with a split with a band called Caulfield I've never heard, but it never saw the light of day.
Rivethead were a great, somewhat short-lived unit from Minneapolis, MN that played one of my favorite stylistic variations on pop-punk - Drunkscreechingweaselwithbeardscore. You know the kind; high-paced, sorta simple, super catchy songs with raspy, gruff vocals and tons of interplay/harmonies, and heavy, crunchy guitars that still retain that sweetness we all love as bubblegum chewing, Chuck Taylor brandishing youths. As I noted, this band's sound is definitely indebted to Ben "Complete Piece Of Shit" Weasel's classic-era Screeching Weasel, especially in regards to the clever use of multiple vocalists, but fortunately there's no "wuh-oh"s or early 90's girl-crazy, quasi-misogynistic lyrical cheese to be had.
Cheap Wine Of Youth is 9 classic tracks of 20-something angst, idealism, anger, and just enough sentimental imagery in the lyrics to make me wanna just get drunk and break into abandoned buildings. I guess this is more of a 12“ EP than a full length LP, but hey, if we can consider Gridlink’s Amber Gray a full length, then pretty much anything passes - the point is, despite the short running time (just over 20 minutes), this is a totally fulfilling listen, with awesome, fist-pumping songs like “48 Double Stack”, “Past Days”, “Traffic Street”, and “In My Heart A Warehouse Burns For You”, the very former-most of which is among my favorite songs in the pop-punk galaxy. Most importantly, the very latter contains the line "I love you just as much as I hate the man". Punk rawk.

http://www.mediafire.com/?1qmzfdz4tzm

If you dig these guys sound as much as I do, the next best thing you can do is pick up some Dear Landlord. I wouldn't say I like it quite as much as Rivethead, but it's stylistically the closest of the preceding projects, and just generally kicks the veritable ass. And hey, if you already dismissed the band's full length, Dream Homes, following the insurmountable fortress of hype built around it prior to it's release, give it another shot with expectations only for a solid, straightforward and catchy-as-shit pop punk album and you should enjoy it.

P.S. Eliot - Introverted Romance In Our Troubled Minds

2011-10-09T14:55:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, I'm back.

I may or may not have mentioned this, but I've been traveling/reinventing/mixing things up, so to speak. Did I have time for maintaining this blog? Yeah, probably, but well, I've never been one to not suck at almost everything... extra emphasis on adhering to a self-imposed schedule for creative expression. I mean, c'mon... who needs to actually express themselves through a selected medium? Isn't it always better to just ignore all impulses to create out of apathy/fear of failure until they've built up into black tumors of stress twisted throughout my psyche?

Of course it is.

This is normally the part where I'd give a brief bio of the band... as far as I remember, at least. It's been a while since I wrote anything here, so my old M.O.'s not so fresh in my mind anymore. Unfortunately, there's either close to no biographical information available online, or I'm just incapable of locating any. Basically, though, lead vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Katie Crutchfield teamed up with her sister Alison and one or two more instrument yielding human specimens and formed P.S. Eliot in '07 or '08. Or maybe it was just the sisters on the demo? I guess it doesn't really matter since we're (RAMBLE RAMBLE RAMBLE) not talking about the demo. Speaking of which, P.S. Eliot has released one fuzz-guitar demo called The Bike Wreck!!!, this here LP, an EP called Living In Squalor, and as of April this year, a 2nd LP called Sadie. Also, apparently Katie and Alison were in a band called The Ackleys I just found out about (and now desperately need material from), and currently operate in the adorable fuzzed-out pop punk band, Bad Banana, as well as Katie's acoustic project, Waxahatchee.

Likely uninteresting information aside, the band plays, in my mind, a perfectly balanced blend of lo-fi 90's indie rock and pop punk brimming with incisive, wordy, and somewhat nostalgic lyrics and that special brand of down-to-earth beauty that permeates throughout every aspect of their sound. In other words, this is one of those albums - the kind that I end up flogging for months on end and bullying it onto any friend of mine who'll listen. For your information, this list also includes The Sidekicks' Weight Of Air, Defiance Ohio's Share What Ya Got, and Common Rider's Last Wave Rockers - all near perfect and completely infectious albums you totally need.
The opening track of their hometown's namesake, "Tennessee", is a gorgeous low-key number that sounds like it was written specifically to be played on a foggy, heavy-hearted drive home at night through a shitty sound system. It's one of those songs that sound like they should go on forever. The rest of the album is more upbeat, but it's somewhat murky quality and the non-laughable English Major angsty-ness keeps it from floating too far into the cheery pop-punk realm. It never becomes a downer, though, and while tracks like "Sore Subject" and the amazing harmonica punctuated "Incoherent Love Songs" feature themes of realistic, dull, pain, they still end up on the "uplifting" end of the spectrum.

buy it here: http://www.salinasrecords.com/
try it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?yyxwn44znrt

Sadly, the band just announced they're throwing in the towel after 4 years of activity and a relocation to Brooklyn. I still haven't had the opportunity to see them yet, so there's no way in hell I'm missing their final show in the city this December. If you end up liking this, definitely check out all the aforementioned projects and releases - every one of them is worth a listen, and for the record, Bad Banana killed it at Plan-It-X Fest this year.

Also: Good to be back. Expect regular updates again from now on.
Tentatively.

Andrew Jackson Jihad - Issue Problems

2011-04-13T14:52:00.000-07:00

More polk-funk for the completely uninitiated. I guess I'm trying to set up a basic grouping of current, talked-about bands before I go into the obscurer stuff. So far I've touched on Against Me! (albeit not a folk-punk release of theirs), Defiance, Ohio, Ghost Mice, and... that might be it as far as my memory serves. Oh, I guess twoeyes did a Tim Barry/folk punk rant, too. Alright fine, I just came up with the idea to make this a progression into less familiar territory. Fuck you.

Andrew Jackson Jihad are a two-piece guitar & stand-up bass band from Phoenix, Arizona with a penchant for ridiculous, satirical lyrics and making stoned college kids laugh. Their earliest work (Candy Cigarettes & Cap Guns, Issue Problems, and Only God Can Judge Me) is very sparse, but People Who Can Eat People Are The Luckiest People In The World saw them fill out their sound with lots of additional instruments, and 2009's Can't Maintain had them "bringing it all back home" (ie electrifying their sound). Fortunately for all their fans, the changes they've made over the years haven't spoiled their core values at all. These guys tend to appeal to people who actually hate folk punk, too. Or at least, they had a big audience on the Mitch Clem forum - a dreadful cauldron of hoodlums and villains that didn't really dig the whole off-key wailing 20 somethings scratching on an acoustic. While I dig all of their stuff in relatively equal measure, I find myself listening to their first EP more than anything else - hence the review.
Issue Problems is basically a continuation of their debut LP, and is even more bare and rehearsal quality. It's only about 10 minutes long, and contains 6 songs, 5 of which were re-recorded for their second LP. The song "Powerplant" is the only one who got the boot, but still ended up snuggly on the split with Ghost Mice. The songs are all pretty simple, and apparently all recorded in one take, which lends it kind of a manic energy especially evident in whatshisname's warbly voice, spewing ridiculous, dark, and earnest lyrics in a way that's still somehow emotionally resonant. Maybe I just have a tendency to get "moved" too easily, though. Actually, there's really no maybe about it... "People" is definitely the highlight for me, which is just as paper airplane-simplistic as the rest of the tracks, but instantly accessible. I guess it's the joyous, realist view on how wonderfully, excitingly shitty everyone is that gets to me - a little more relateable than a first person account of slaughtering a family, for example.

If you're only familiar with the versions of these songs that were re-recorded and "beefed up" with additional instruments/tempos/etc, they might come across as a little barren and underwhelming. I don't really know how to remedy that, I guess, but for the record, I prefer them in this incarnate. The urgency and simplicity of these first takes is perfect, and the revisions seem to soften their impact. I think I'm in the minority, but give it a shot:

http://www.mediafire.com/?zfmngyoyy4y

Dead Kennedys - Plastic Surgery Disasters

2011-04-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the vegetarian thing is working out pretty well so far. I've gone down about 10 pounds unfortunately, but damn do I look good in a skimpy, sheer negligee for my gentlemen callers. Also, I'm a faux-veggie. I forgot to mention that, likely because no one on the entire planet cares so I wasn't feeling much pressure: basically, I'll eat meat on the basis that animals tend to eat meat, but not corpses bloated with antibiotics and force-fed mono-crops conducive to a slew of illnesses. Either way, that's my irrelevant intro this review.

This album is amazing. I know a lot of people tend to lean towards Fresh Fruit... and Frankenchrist when picking favorites, but for me, this is the single best album the Dead Kennedys ever released. I'm not gonna go through the history again, but basically I transitioned from death metal and grindcore to powerviolence and crust punk to anarcho and theeeeeennnn... good buddy Steve (I'm one of 4 Steves) lends me this album and the progression finally hits the roots. Plastic Surgery Disasters was the second LP length release by the band, and a total embrace of the hardcore velocity they hinted at with their debut. As such, the ur, "musicality" is taken down a notch in order to crank up to jet-speed, but the songwriting is just as memorable as ever. Plus, the B-side is all slower songs if that's what drew you in on Fresh Fruit... assuming anyone has ever been drawn to a punk band by the relative slowness. I dunno. I'm not really feeling too focused on honing the literary elements of this review, today.
The production on this album has garnered some complaints over the years for being as tinny and rough on the ears as it is, but I for one think it's the cornerstone of appeal. The raw, messy, but coherent sound is the stuff of legends, and the kind of production style I found loads of affection for through countless grindcore/hardcore/early death metal listening benders. Apparently it was intentional, though, as Jello revealed in some old interview that they wanted the sound to be just as paranoid and ear-trashing as the lyrics and vocal histrionics. Fucking heroic stance. The band's musicianship shines through as great as ever, though, with tons of catchy riffs, melodies, and creative hooks - it's just noisier than most people are used to when approaching a classic hardcore/punk album.
I'm not sure I could really pick highlights from here since this album actually makes my top 10 albums of forever list, but if you've never heard it for some reason, downloading "Well Paid Scientist", "Halloween", the epic "Riot", and the surprisingly pleasant "Moon Over Marin" probably won't make you curse your ears for not being vestigial. Every track is gold, though, so you may as well just grab this linky below:

http://www.mediafire.com/?oy0jemvyjej

I just stole this link from google, so I have no idea whether it's the original master or not, or whether the In God We Trust Inc. EP is tacked on the back, but there 'ya go.

Ghost Mice - Europe

2011-04-04T07:23:00.000-07:00

Alright, time to showcase some more folk punk that really doesn't need any additional attention. I've honestly been wanting to write up some reviews for Hail Seizures, The Taxpayers, Blackbird Raum, and Dandelion Junk Queens (among others), but fuck promoting unfairly ignored bands, let's talk about Ghost Mice.

So yeah, I'll be covering those bands later on.

Ghost Mice is a two piece acoustic unit composed of Chris Johnston (aka Chris Clavin) and Hannah Jones, who play guitar and violin, respectively. They were involved in a bunch of bands I've never really dug, such as Operation: Cliff Clavin, The Devil Is Electric, I Like Japanese Hardcore, and Disarm (who I've never actually heard), but decided to strip down to their folk side in 2002 and form this here 2-piece. Apparently, it was an effort to cast off the stressful bullshit intrinsic with a being tear-ass'ing rawk 'n' rowl demolition unit (ie: the need for a tour van, lugging heavy instruments and amps around, being dependent on gas and cash to spread their wares, etc...). Fortunately, they struck some gold with this decision, because... I like Ghost Mice but not those other bands, I guess. That wasn't very well said. If you have a low tolerance for the cliches floating around this recent influx of folk-punk bands, it'd probably be wise to stop reading now, because these two embody most of, if not all of them. They can definitely get cheesy, and the loud whine of the vocals can get sorta grating if you're not in the mood, but here's the thing: I've found that a lot of the bands I've made a really deep connection with over the years embody an earnesty that overcomes all the technical stuff. If it can seep through the clunky vocals, overstated crescendos, and lyrical obtuseness, I'll probably love it regardless of it's flaws.
Anyway:
Europe is a concept album that details the band's 3 month trip across it's continental namesake without much cash, planning, or solid contacts to choose from. Every song details their experiences in different countries (including two nautical ones) and all the hardships and beauty they witnessed along the way. I know that an album is typically something you focus on musically first, and lyrically second, but this is one of those rare exceptions. The music is catchy and enjoyable enough - the typical sweet acoustic strumming and violin stuff - lacking most of the uptempo punkiness of their earlier work, but acts like more of a backdrop to the story being told than a guide. There's definitely cohesion and prosody at work here, but the focus for me has always been the story - primarily due to the effect it had on me when I first heard it. It just has a mesmerizing way of interjecting it's plot driven structure with this warm imagery and focus on the freedom inherent with non-committal travel. I know how dopey a statement like this can come across, especially if you really can't stand this kind of music, but it really only took one listen to convince me to enact my own backpacking trip through Europe. Moreover, the tag-team with Defiance, Ohio's Share What Ya Got got me restless enough to quit my job and go traveling a year ago. Folk punk ruined my standard American existence.

http://www.mediafire.com/?n2udm5ojyyq

Here's something that made me smile last week: a new friend of mine was telling me about her 4 month stay in Europe, and how great the experience was, and I ended up responding with the same mock-able statement I made above. Oddly enough, she listened to this same album on the way back and apparently drew a ridiculous amount of similarities between her stay and Ghost Mice's. I guess there's not much more to this story, but I thought it was cool that this album helped kick off my wanderlust and found her at the end of the same journey.

Terrible Fucking Songs

2011-03-28T23:10:00.000-07:00

If you're on facebook, you've probably seen some asshole like me participating in the 30 Day Song Challenge thing. It's vaguely amusing, and an excellent chance to post songs no one will listen to, so I hopped on board about a week ago. When I reached the second day, which asks to narrow down the myriad of songs I hate to a single representative, there wasn't a moment's hesitation. This song is like a lightning rod for my storm of hatred:

Natasha Bedingfield sucks. No, more like "suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkssss". Just a particularly putrid example of modern pop music. Of course, after posting that, I couldn't help but unleash the list. Since I started working in Key Food back in 2005, I've been slowly cataloging all the songs I've grown to hate through constant exposure in the work environment. Take a look:
Marc Anthony - You Sang To Me
The Mamas And Papas - California Dreamin'
Donovan - Sunshine Superman
Phil Collins - In The Air Tonight
Enya - Sail Away
...Depeche Mode - Wrong
Gwen Stefani - Hollaback Girl
LFO - Summer Girls
Carrie Underwood - Just A Dream
Ida Maria - I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked
Jamie Foxx - Blame It On The Alcohol
Smashing Pumpkins - Disarm
The Ting Tings - Shut Up And Let Me Go
Stereo Total - I Love You Ono
Sweet - Little Willy
Three Dog Night - One
Hoobastank - The Reason
Lisa Stansfield - Around The World
Ryan Cabrera - True
Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten
Jars Of Clay - Flood
Seether - Careless Whisper (Wham! cover)
The Bee Gees - Tragedy
...Peter Cetera - Glory Of Love
Kelly Clarkson - Since U Been Gone
Kelly Clarkson - Undo It
Stacey Q - Two Of Hearts
Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love
Rob Thomas - This Is How A Heart Breaks
Clay Aiken - Invisible
Human League - (Keep Feeling) Fascination
Leann Rimes - Can't Fight The Moonlight
Frankie Valle & The Four Seasons - Who Loves You
Vanessa Williams - Sometimes The Sun Goes Round The Moon
George Harrison - Got My Mind Set On You
David Cook - Permanent
Katy Perry - California Girlz
Katy Perry - Firework
...Katy Perry - Teenage Dream
Tal Bachman - She's So High
Trace Adkins - Honky Tonk Badonkadonk
Trailer Choir - Rockin' The Beer Gut
Sugarland - Stuck Like Glue
Alanis Morissette - Hand In My Pocket
Eminem - Not Afraid
Soulja Boi - She Got A Donk
Vanessa Williams - Save The Best For Last
Fergie - Fergalicious
Fergie - Big Girls Don't Cry
One Republic - All The Right Moves
Maroon 5 - She Will Be Loved
Justin Timberlake & One Republic - Apologize
No Doubt - Don't Speak
Orianthi - According To You
Paula Cole - I Don't Want To Wait
Glenn Frey - The Heat Is On
Don Henley - Dirty Laundry
Nickelback - This Afternoon

Also: 50th post. Whoooo!

Indian Summer - s/t

2011-03-23T15:38:00.000-07:00

Note: this has only been an emo-heavy month because I've been so lazy, not because I'm wallowing in self-pity and introspection. I'm actually doing purty swell emotionally, fyi. Most of these bands' sounds, however, have been permanently etched into my brain through prolonged exposure in high school, so it doesn't take me much effort to describe them or how they impact me. Fuck yeah, truckin' on through the apathy.

Indian Summer were a super-influential second wave emo band from Oakland, California who somehow made a major impact on the "genre" despite existing for virtually no time at all. The band never really toured, performed for less than a year, and only released 9 scattered tracks in really low quantities (hence the "collector prices" abounding). I guess it could be testament to how self-contained the scene was at the time, or how eager the kids were to seek out this kind of band, but it's really just the hindsight that blows my mind. If a band this low-scale could be so affecting, why have so few bands blown minds recently with the advent of the interbutt? Well... maybe they have, actually. It's probably hard for me to notice since I essentially grew up with it's reinvention of information sharing. Regardless, Indian Summer are now considered a staple band who can be name dropped amongst bands like Rites Of Spring, Moss Icon, and Sunny Day Real Estate, and it's baffling to think little they really did in a physical sense.
While the emo scene was already getting pretty dynamics-centric, and crescendos were a device for emotional payoff at the end of slow build-ups, Indian Summer's careening between twinkly, soft, guitar parts and loud, cathartic bursts was definitely a step up on both fronts. This self-titled EP from '93 is easily the band's most essential document, and contains my (and admittedly, a lot people's) two favorite songs. The opener, "Aren't You Angel", is one, and showcases especially well the exaggerated dynamics the band utilized. The song starts off quietly with whispers and a dark bassline before bursting into a crushingly blunt, driving, angular riff. Mid-song, the band begins to stutter the central riff with pauses of barely audible picking before stopping completely. The song restarts at the same super-delicate sound before finally delivering a big, gripping crescendo with a melody that makes you soil yourself super gross.
That last part was self-sabotage. Isn't it a BLAST to slog through descriptions of song structure? WHEEEEE!!!!

The shorter "Millimeter" is mostly centered on the angular, post-hardcore simplicity that dominates the first half of "Aren't You Angel", and is a great track despite living a "hard knock life" ie being sandwiched between their two most developed songs. The EP closes with "Angry Son", which is easily the band's most revered track, and often gets referred to as the essential emo song. It really is, though. It's still one of the most powerful songs I've ever heard, and often times it gets my eyes watering like a sissy*. It starts off with a quiet, lo-fidelity clip of some vocal jazz song before coming in slowly with an extremely pretty and soothing little riff that sounded incredibly nostalgic even the first time I heard it. When the whispering and twinkling finally break through into the heaviness, it's really moving. From there, the song resumes the first quiet riff as the vocalist softly speaks, this time accompanied by additional twinkly bits before finally exploding into an upgrade of the first instance of loud-dynamic complete with screaming and tears leaking out of your headphones. When I'd walk through the halls with this song playing, I always imagined all the lockers bursting open whenever the crescendo hit, and being surrounded by loose papers floating through the air. I know it's dumb, shut up. The song ends pretty much how it began, with the old record playing quietly. It's just an incredible song, and had/has a real effect on me, before and after discovering the lyrics.
You pretty much require this if you have any interest in emo before it got bastardized.

(I'll post this later)

For some reason, there was a text document with this list in it on one of my old zip drives. If you're interested, it's a list of the emo songs I thought would make a perfect introduction to the uninitiated back in the day.
In no particular order:

1.) Rites Of Spring - For Want Of
2.) Indian Summer - Angry Son
3.) Moss Icon - As Afterwards The Words Still Ring
4.) Don Martin Three - Connection
5.) Native Nod - Tangled
6.) Cap'n Jazz - Basil's Kite
7.) Constatine Sankathi - I'm An Android
8.) Republic Of Freedom Fighters - Calypso Syngenor Method
9.) Embrace - Dance Of Days
10.) Reach Out - Wall Street
11.) Honeywell - You And Me
12.) The Hated - Two People Blue
13.) Merel - The Guest
14.) Dag Nasty - Circles
15.) Sunny Day Real Estate - Song About An Angel
16.) Christie Front Drive - Turned On 8

*LOL @ a generalized put down of non-masculine men through self-deprecation

Rudimentary Peni - s/t

2011-03-21T21:48:00.000-07:00

If you're familiar with any of the stereotypes associated with young death metal/grind/extreme music listeners, you have a pretty solid vision of me as a 9th & 10th grader. If not, imagine a paste white, poorly groomed kid with long hair that didn't make much eye contact, wore plaid longsleeves over gross band shirts and pretended not to care what people thought. Around this point, my basic criteria a band had to meet was to a.) tune their guitars to drop D, b.) vocalize in an utterly incoherent manner, c.) percuss like the drummer and his/her respective kit were tumbling down a flight of stairs, and d.) play either really, really fast or really, really slow. Somewhere along the lines, though, I "softened" my stance and learned to love crust punk and powerviolence, too. I noted them worthy for their similarly dumb-as-a-hammer approach to dynamics and rhythm, and unbeknown to me at the time, kicked off my obsession with punk rock.

Rudimentary Peni were one of those bands, and helped me bridge the gap between the "heavy-osity" of the crust punk scene and the anarcho scene they drew their sound from. Finding physical copies of their stuff proved impossible, so I hopped on the internet express to pirate-ville, and acquired The EPs Of RP, as well as their first LP, Death Church, and their over-the-top masterpiece, Cacophony. Their self-titled debut (aka Teenage Time Killer) chillin' in the left corner was my entry point since I have a built-in a mandate regarding chronology, and as such, became one of my favorites through heavy exposure.

The music here really isn't quite different from what the glut of British anarcho units were performing at the time, but even with the distorted, simple chord progressions and boom-chick drums, something rubbed me the wrong way when I first heard this. Coming from a musical background of extremes, with almost every element aurally scrawled in industrial sized sharpie, there was something really foreign about the band's sound. While the riffs are relatively straight forward, there's just something particularly ugly sounding about them, which if I'd have to guess, is attributable to the way they're played. I'm not Mr. KnowsShitAboutPlayingMusic, so I can't really elaborate, but there's definitely a seasick feeling in the delivery, as well as punctuations of feedback, scraping, and whatever else. Moreover, vocalist and cover artist Nick Blinko's vocals are nothing like the steady, shouted slur prominent in anarcho, but vary between two equally unusual modes. His screams sound extremely uneasy, almost as if he performed them while suffering hypothermia or something, with a harrowing, shakey, almost too urgent and high pitched delivery. On the other end, his low-register, slower deliveries sound sickly and drunken.

The great thing about being at an age where you're convinced that the key to the kingdom relies in the development of your musical eccentricities is this: you'll never be more patient with bands than you were when your persona supposedly rested upon it. This isn't to say I only listened to this shit out of image - I really, really enjoyed all of it - but when you finally land yourself an identity, compromise is hard to imagine. As such, through consistent exposure, I found myself giving in to Rudimentary Peni's idiosyncratic sound, and soon became a huge fan, sporting a smelly Farce t-shirt and a load of patches. This EP is short and sweet, delivering 12 short, catchy, and subtly weird tracks in record time. As I stated/implied earlier, it's pretty straightforward, especially in contrast to the ridiculousness of their second LP, Cacophony, but hey, this was released in '81. A band that pushed the envelope at a time where there barely even was a scene to feed off is something to celebrate.
Czech it out:

(I'll post this later since I'm in the library)

Also, the clitoris is the Rudimentary Peni(s).

Assorted Jelly Beans - s/t

2011-03-20T20:04:00.000-07:00

Before I begin, I must make clear that by sharing this album is not an attempt to convert you to an Assorted Jelly Beans fan, but simply a fan of this album. This is because everything else these guys ever recorded is terrible.
Here's a brief interaction with Mitch Clem on his now deceased forum:
Mitch: Assorted Jelly Beans first album is great; hornless ska-punk that sounds like the Beastie Boys playing Operation Ivy.
Me: Is anything else they did any good? I really love that album
Mitch: NO. Everything else they did sounds like an experiment to see how shitty a band could become before imploding
Me: oh.
I later tossed away this sagely advice in favor of forming my own opinion on the band's remaining catalog, and honestly, I'm probably worse for it. Y'know the age old phrase "ska-punk bands shouldn't attempt to hybridize with hip-hop"? Alright.
So anyway, Assorted Jelly Beans were an awesome ska-punk/ska-core/third wave 3-piece from California who did indeed sound similar to "the Beastie Boys play[ing] Operation Ivy". Their self-titled album was the first release from a few members of The Vandals' label - Kung Fu Records - in '96. Apparently, this actually sold 25K copies upon release, which seems fucking bizarre to me considering how little commercial potential these guys had. I guess it was the golden age of ska-punk, though... not that this would've appealed to a lot of Christian teens what with the cussin' and drug references.
That was my hilarious sweeping generalization of all Christian teens.
...but let me elaborate on the fact that I followed up a declaration of disdain for their later, more hip-hop-influenced material with a reiteration that they sound like a hip-hop group playing ska: it's the snotty, dual white kid vocalists that draw the parallel, not the music, exactly. I've never been a big Beastie Boys fan, but Assorted Jelly Beans' approximation of their sarcastic, self-parodying smart-assery elevates this disc way above what it would be with a more standard punk dude on the mic, and I definitely don't mean to belittle the riffage present. It's just that the vocals just sound so secure and confident in their ridiculousness that I can't help but love them. The songs are tight as hell, catchy, non-generic, and completely non-cheesy, making this one of the very few ska-punk albums I can listen to when I'm not in a skankin' mood aka close to accepting Skankin' Pickle as anything less than "dorky bullshit". I'm not sure I could pick stand outs, since every track is excellent, but "Braindead", "In Our Eyes", "Punk Rock Jock", and "Doobage" are likely my favorites of the bunch.
CHECK OUT THE PROFUNDITY:

"MY LIFE REVOLVES A-ROUND
BUYING AN OUNCE OR P-P-P-P-P-P-POUND"

This stuff truly heals the battered soul.

http://www.mediafire.com/?3ggkbmuyxy2

Noothgrush - Erode The Person

2011-03-17T11:31:00.000-07:00

I know I said I wouldn't do this again, but well, here's another post rescued from my old dumpster fire of a blog. Sometimes you post personal account of albums like they're going out of style, and sometimes you dawdle like stigmata's hindering your typing abilities. To be honest, this month is more like middling than that, but whatever, here's a re-post:

"Noothgrush were a Californian sludge-doom band who formed in 1994 and according to research from the finest institutes on the East coast, phuckin' rawked. If you've ever been subject to the filthy, druggy, frowning antics of sludge Machiavellis Eyehategod, you've essentially heard a less contemplative version of Noothgrush with far fewer odysseys into uptempo punk rock riffage. Despite treading through a bunch of rubble (ie 'broken ground' hurrrr...), these guys did a damn good job of taking a relatively limited style, honing it into something fresh and powerful, and then releasing it to the blessed in ridiculously limited quantities.
Erode The Person is 5 tracks of king-tier sludge truckin' it like molasses through the fog of the distinctive New Orleans sound (ie ugly, plodding, drug-influenced punk-ish doom metal with raspy screams and southern tinged riffage) in a way I'd rate above even the primordial soup of Buzzov*en and 13.
But not Grief. Those dudes are a forkin' goldmine to themselves."

Well that was shitty. I think I'd definitely rate it above Buzzov*en, considering people usually have higher opinions of things they like than things they have never really liked. Maybe I was pandering to the Buzzov*en fans? Whatever. This album is really good, though, and the comparisons still stand. It's prime filth-encrusted Black Sabbath-queued sludge that was apparently pretty big in the powerviolence scene during the mid-90's. They're not quite as amelodic and lurching as the sludge breaks you'll find in Man Is The Bastard's work, and definitely have a bit of a southern rock bend to them, but it's thankfully nowhere near as pronounced as it is on garbage like 16. I think you get the idea, though:

http://www.mediafire.com/?iwzzznmn24j

Okay, no more re-posts.

Unless I get desperate. Then it's permissible.

Constatine Sankathi - Who Killed The Killed Kid

2011-03-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

LAST TIME ON "UNINTERESTING INTRODUCTORY RANT": Steve revealed to the world with startling aplomb the nature of his shocking new diet - one that could only be described as ovo-lacto vegetarian. The curtness of his reveal sent readers reeling, relationships into turmoil, and made the world step back and rethink their stance on eating the flesh of the innocent. Now the chronicles of this descent into slightly more livestock friendly dietary restrictions continues on today's gripping episode of "Uninteresting Introductory Rant"...

I made a portabella burger today with guacamole and cooked spinach with a side of sauteed tofu and red bell peppers. It was pretty yummy, especially with the white wine and sage, but I feel like the tofu could've used more time to brown. Not a big deal, though.

Constatine Sankathi - and sometimes Sankati Cunstatine, Constatine (Anima) Sankathi, and Constantine Sankathi - were a short lived second wave emo band from Chicago, IL (I think) who existed from the spring of '94 to the summer of '96. Over the course of their brief existence, they were made up of not only 5 central band members, but apparently about 15 or 16 part timers who contributed vocals, instruments, and whatever else. That's what I was able to gather from the lengthy photocopied booklet contained in their discography CD, Fucked In The Head, anyway. I guess it's not a crucial bit of info since they never exactly really go all Pet Sounds on us with a menagerie of instruments, but I thought it was kinda cool that they were such a community-friendly band. The awkwardly heartfelt retrospectives of each band member and contributor contained in the booklet definitely help to back up that idea, too, but I'm way too lazy to start scanning pages. Also, we're not discussing their discography, anyway, just this widdle 3 song 7" in the lefthand corner.

If you didn't guess, Constatine Sankathi were yet another emo band I "dug" (as the youth say) during my transition from the bleak and brutal side of music to the introspective and mopey. Like the best of the lot, these guys had an idiosyncratic sound few others captured, but still managed to fit snuggly under the emo banner. As you might expect from a band that existed for a little over 2 years, they weren't exactly prolific; Who Killed The Killed Kid is the only other standalone release besides the ridiculously titled Baby Unicorn Tripped Over A Rock And Hurt It's Throat And Then Vomited EP, but accompanied by a split with Bev. Clone and a bunch of compilation tracks (I guess). I know this makes it seem stupid to not just cover their discography CD instead, but really, listening to all 60 minutes in one sitting is pretty fucking exhausting, and come on, what band really intended their music to be digested like that?*

Who Killed The Killed Kid is 3 tracks in a little under 10 minutes, but perfectly sums up what an unusual and interesting sound these guys had. I'm not honestly sure what's supposed to be the A or B side of this EP; one side has a doodle of a bunny on it and the other has a nondescript shape in a black box. I always listened to the side with "I'm An Android" first - side Bunny - so let's assume their lack of punctuality means they didn't really give a shit. This is the track that really got me into these guys: it starts off with feedback murk before someone remembers to start a really, really urgent riff with drums rat-a-tat'ing and what might be one or two different vocalists screeching behind the lead vocal dude. The hook here is really fucking cool, with a trumpet stopping the first riff dead in it's tracks and leading into the chorus. I could keep describing it, I guess, but you may as well just listen to it instead. It's just a really great song, all around. The other two aren't quite as weird or catchy, but they're both just as high quality. "Thanks For The Candy" starts off really aggressive, than goes into this weird lilt with the murmuring trumpet swaying along, concluding in another wave of cathartic aggression. "Husniyah" is structured more like you'd expect a song of this style to be, but with a screaming, punchy, chorus-esque part in the middle that eventually leads back to the clean guitars it opened with. Try it out, then find the rest of their stuff:

http://www.mediafire.com/?ym308atd2cu68jy

*If you were wondering how they fit an hour of music onto two 7"s and one 4 minute split, well, they didn't. There are eleven tracks on the discography CD that I've never been able to trace to any compilation, so your guess is as good as mine.

Hot Water Music - Finding The Rhythms

2011-03-14T18:59:00.000-07:00

Y'see, like an unhealthy amount of emo-oriented stuff I write about, this album was a recommendation straight from Andy Radin's fourfa.com page. I realize how limited that makes my scope of the "genre" seem, but to rebut any potential criticism (or snarkiness), I've spent well over a year slogging through a literal fuckton of emo bands NOT mentioned on his site - everywhere from Turnip, Sweater Weather, Closure, Fingerprint, Agna Moraine's Autobiography, and Owltian Mia to a zillion others - and trust me, the stuff he points out is indeed the cream of the crop. There's definitely a mass of bands that I'd rate just as highly that he doesn't touch upon, but really, you couldn't get a much better introduction than Radin's site.
Speaking of sentences conveying information, there's pretty much no way you're unfamiliar with Hot Water Music if you're reading this blog right now. Hell, even if you've never heard a single HWM song, you've still undoubtedly encountered a band or six who draw heavily upon their sound. If I had to make a list of the most influential post-hardcore units of all time (ie the groups that spawned the most imitators), these guys would sit comfortably amongst groups like the most revered of the SST Records stall, Fugazi, Naked Raygun, Quicksand, Sunny Day Real Estate, and the band with most belated explosion of mimics, Cap'n Jazz. Look up the hilarious new term, "twinkle daddies" for elaboration on that last one, by the way.
For all the uninitiated:
Hot Water Music are a four piece from Gainesville, FL who formed in '93, broke up in '96, reformed the next year, persisted 'til '06, broke up again, and came back again in '08. I think it's safe to say that when they finally break up for good, the impact might take a few years to finally hit us. The band's sound consists of dual gruff vocalists weaving in an out of each others' shouted declarations with juxtaposing tones (even lyrics, occasionally) against a backdrop of busy percussion, really warm and pretty basslines, and crunchy, melodic, and sometimes dissonant guitar interplay. They're probably most revered for their presence amongst the early 90's emocore bands, but have influenced tons and tons of pop-punk and post-hardcore bands, too.
Also, they've been officially knighted by the punknews crew.

Finding The Rhythms is the first LP length release by the band, and is a mash-up of their Eating The Filler 7", the split with Swivel Stick, a few compilation songs, and what I believe were 6 newly recorded tracks (tracks 1,2,4,5,6,7). I could be wrong about some of that, but whatever. Oh, and for clarity, it's the 12 track CD version I'm talking about, not the 10 track original LP version. It's also the first "album" by the band that I checked out, and for the most part, still contains my favorite songs they ever wrote. Just listen to tracks like "The Passing", the amazing "Counting Numbers" and "Practice In Blue", the more traditional pop-punkiness of "Floor", and the anthemic power of the 6+ minutes "Eating The Filler". As testament to how consistently great of a compilation this is, it actually seems more relevant to point out the few flaws it has than try to pick highlights. For example, while "Incisions" is a really great song, it's unfortunately vocally led by bassist Jason Black. While Black is probably the single band member who completely sells their sound for me with his incredible basslines, his singing voice is pretty goddamn bad. I know it's funny to criticize someone in this band's singing voice when both leads are almost totally incoherent, but his clean, whiny warble really doesn't do it for me. "Present" is the only song on here that could've been completely cut, since when it's not meandering, it sounds way too "tuff" and boring, especially in the wake of "Recliner". Other than that, I've always felt "Arms Can't Stretch" was a little too long for how few parts it contains, but it's by no means a bad song.
Check out this awesome clip of "Floor" from '95:

Way too many people bypass this collection for their later, more revered work, but if you're a fan of this band, or even just curious about all the hype, you absolutely need this. It's not perfect, but the best songs on here more than make up for any flaws. If you're a newcomer, follow this up with Fuel For The Hate Game and No Division, which are both equally great full lengths.

Suppression - Degradation/Elimination Of The Robot Swine-Pig

2011-03-10T11:31:00.000-08:00

I'm fucking exhausted. Managing the entire produce department alone can go eat a dick. If I haven't mentioned this yet, come June, I'm gonna quit my job and head out across the country on a bike, again. I attempted it last year, but amazingly, the poor planning didn't quite coalesce with the overall hardship as well as I'd hoped. I bring this up primarily because it'll signify a lengthy break for this blog; one that'll likely last 2 or 3 months. Just thought I'd mention it to whoever reads this.

Anyway, Suppression.

Back in high school when I first discovered powerviolence, instead of doing research on the genre's progenitors or asking around for suggestions, I pretty much just grabbed a bunch of band names I remembered reading on the Underground Obituary forum and let the downloads roll in. Fortunately, this approach paid off in spades, as I not only happened upon most of the classics (Man Is The Bastard, Capitalist Casualties, Crossed Out, Dropdead) but also got closely acquainted with a bunch of considerably more obscure bands (Gasp, Quattro Stagioni, Stapled Shut, MK-Ultra) as well as some complete shit (Sylvester Staline, Rainbow Of Death, Apathetic Ronald McDonald, Graf Orlock... who aren't PV, but I checked them out thinking they were. Kinda like finding owl droppings as your Cracker Jack prize). Suppression fall into the middle category, apparently, even though they played right at PV's high point. Just check out their last.fm as an example - only a little over 15 hundred listeners. I realize that's far from an accurate core sample of their fanbase, but it's still really dinky for a band that's been around for 2 decades. Maybe all their true fans just spin their vinyl still.
So alright, now that we have that bunch of uninteresting bullshit assembled, let's move on. For the first half of their career, Suppression played powerviolence the old fashion way - really raw, roughly produced, and dissonant hardcore punk-esque music that alternated between completely caustic, hyperspeed bursts of energy and filthy sounding sludge, all augmented in general unpleasantness by Man Is The Bastard-esque noise interludes. If you're unfamiliar with what might be termed "new fashion" PV (as opposed to what Suppression play), then think of bands like Charles Bronson, Combatwoundveteran, or the later Spazz albums - still intense as hell but lacking that scummy rawness that made the bands seem like a bunch of lowlifes or druggies or something. Well, I guess Infest might resent that, but I mean it in an endearing way, of course.
Degradation/Elimination Of The Robot Swine-Pig is actually a split 12" with Italy's crust-grinders, Cripple Bastards, and is the longest thing these guys would release before abandoning PV altogether. Regardless, this puppy clocks in at only 17 minutes, but it's an insane 17 minutes - ultra noisy, uncompromising, feedback-laden, and recorded in that special way that makes everything sound like it's barely under control and about to burst. Awesome stuff.

http://www.mediafire.com/?2dps698sk3gsuki

I know I didn't really do them justice here, but this is the full release, containing all 23 Cripple Bastards tracks. I think they're all rough versions of songs from their first album, Your Lies In Check, but it's been a while since I've heard either release. Frankly, grindcore doesn't move me quite the way it used to, but fortunately powerviolence still kicks my ass. If you dig 'em both, this is an essential download.

ADDENDUM: I forgot to add this before - Suppression is still active today, but they're nothing like the band you'll hear on this split. They're just kind of a jokey noisecore band now without any of the aggression that made them so great. If you're interested in more primo cuts, pick up the 9296 CD here. It's got this as well as all their EPs, splits, and some bonus tracks.

Paint It Black/Punch/Iron Chic/Vaccine/Zombie Dogs Show

2011-03-06T17:17:00.000-08:00

I think I mentioned this show a few posts back, but if I didn't, here goes.
A few weeks ago, fellow staff dudes Sean and Jack noted on facebook that they were attending a show in Brooklyn headlined by Paint It Black. Seeing as NYC is about as far as I'm typically capable of traveling on a loaded school & work schedule, I made an exaggerated "ooo!" face and made my way to the show's page to check it out. I'm a fan of Paint It Black, and I really like Iron Chic, but the fact that Punch was finally playing another show in the area was what sold me, especially since I fucked up 2 opportunities to see them in just the past year. Ever since the heroic and totally missed Bammy Rabbit (or Tabitha) of the "Kamikaze Tailspin" blog introduced me to Punch through a conversation on last.fm, I've given them a pretty regular spin. They're probably my favorite current hardcore band, and Bammy's description of their live show (as well as the ridiculous distance she traveled to see them on their s/t LP's launch gig) had me convinced there was necessity in hearing them in person.
Unfortunately, I slacked a bit and didn't watch for the tickets to go on sale EVERY GODDAMN SECOND and they sold out almost instantly. I guess it had to do with Paint It Black barely ever playing or something. I dunno. I responded to one girl's offer, but then she started a bidding war and the price bloated up from 12 bucks to 60. In a last ditch effort, I-
You know what? Who cares?

1.) Zombie Dogs
Alright, so the show opened with Zombie Dogs, a local all-girl hardcore band I'd never heard before. They put on a decent show despite how few people in the audience seemed to be familiar with them, but all I kept thinking was "This band sounds like a 45 played on 33". Well, maybe their condition isn't that extreme, but the correlation certainly wasn't irrelevant, especially when I listened to the recorded versions afterward. The four are pretty obviously influenced by classic 80's hardcore - and who could hold it against them? - but I feel like I'd really dig them if they'd approximate the reckless abandon of their influences.
Check 'em out:

http://www.myspace.com/zombiedogsnyc

2.) Vaccine
Didn't show up. Frownie emoticon. They're really good, though, so that implied frownie emoticon is legit as they come. They're made up of members of Think I Care, Ampere, and a couple others and play that ripping brand of straight edge powerviolence only someone with a heart of stone couldn't love. Also: almost every living being. It's easy to forget how extreme music dances on the fringe. They've got a great demo out, as well as an EP I haven't heard, and apparently a 5" in the works. 5" records are hilarious.

http://www.vaccinexxx.blogspot.com/

3.) Iron Chic
Sean just reviewed these guys a few weeks back, which you can check out here.
Iron Chic is one of the jillion post-Latterman bands, and probably my second favorite following the incredible RVIVR. Also, they apparently boot many an ass in a live setting, and within seconds threw half the audience into a screaming, flailing, trance. It's bands like this that really require the listener to get the lyrics down, because there's really nothing more cathartic and energizing than screaming every word with the vocalists and audience melding into one gigantic chorus. Even though it got lost under the screaming sometimes, they were extremely tight, and the instrument-less vocalist (pictured above) had an hilarious stage presence, looking like he was rolling on E or something, with his fingers curling through his hair as he swayed back and fourth. Awesome.

http://www.myspace.com/ironchicsmyspace

4.) Punch
Punch were easily the highlight for me, completely justifying the past year's struggles. The singer, Meghan, humbly introduced the band, feedback rose, and the band's brand of ass-tearing edge-violence exploded without another word. Admittedly, I probably thrashed around a bit too much for the current, Winter-induced patheticness of my physical being to handle, but hey, sometimes sacrifices must be made for punk rawk. I guess it goes without saying that the band completely floored me, but, well, there it is. Being a pretty proficient not-musician, I've always been amazed to witness a band perfectly replicate the inhuman speed, aggression, and tightness they display on record, and Punch did just that. If you're a fan of these guys and haven't seen them in the flesh yet, I highly recommend paying way too much for a secondhand ticket at the last second. Probably the most fun I had since the Capitalist Casualties performance at last year's Maryland Deathfest where this monster truck of a man picked me up and threw me into a bunch of crusty girls. Good times.

http://www.myspace.com/punchcrew

5.) Paint It Black
To be honest, before this show, I probably hadn't listened to Paint It Black in over a year. At the tail end of high school, I went into a super heavy Lifetime/Kid Dynamite/Paint It Black/New Mexican Disaster Squad melodic hardcore phase, reveling primarily in the fact that they all sounded like somewhat different incarnations of the same band (topically, not dissimilar to the post-Latterman family I mentioned earlier). Due to the time spent apart, I can't say they were quite the release Punch and Iron Chic were, but they put on a great show nonetheless, with the highlights of course, being the small handful of songs I could actually recall the lyrics to. Bonus points go to the vocalist for his introductory rant about "bro shit" like feet first stage diving and whirling dervish moshing being exclusionary and "no longer part of this scene." A few points get knocked off because he made me feel bad about losing my shit to Punch and I'm a vindictive jerk.

http://www.myspace.com/paintitblack

All in all, an incredible show I'm glad I shelled out for. Unfortunately, me, Jack, and his friend Mike came home (back to Jack's dorm) to a drunken pit of screaming, glass-breaking, cacophony that wouldn't let up til 4 AM - arguably not the best conditions to fall asleep to.
Apparently Hoboken celebrates St. Patrick's Day 12 days early?

Black Flag - The Process Of Weeding Out

2011-02-21T12:33:00.001-08:00

(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

2011-02-19T13:03:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-17T16:14:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-16T11:16:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-13T15:30:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-06T21:39:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-06T19:33:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-05T10:28:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-03T13:07:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-01T16:36:00.000-08:00

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:

The Gaslight Anthem - Sink Or Swim

2011-01-29T04:51:00.000-08:00

I have a weird relation to this band.
Back in my second semester of college, my iPod met a chilly, moist fate in a local stream as I was gallivanting about the rocks and crevices. In retrospect, keeping your mp3 device in your unbuttoned chest pocket whilst performing a careening leap across a body of water is typically not the best method of conducting yourself. With one last note from Crimpshrine's "Can You Feel That", I found myself out 300 USDs, and far worse, unable to escape the blaring bullshit echoing around the interior of the commuter's bus to campus. Fortunately, my parents had forced a cell phone into my hands after many years of refusal, and it happened to be a trendy (at the time) Juke or whatever it's called, replete with mp3 features and a pair of headphones with earbuds unsuitable to the human ear. I got so many fucking headaches from those little malformed lumps of plastic. But anyway, that was around the point I discovered this album.
I uploaded it to the low capacity phone alongside a handful of other albums I had downloaded long ago but never gotten around to listening to, sat down on the gross faux-leather seat, hit play, and instantly fell in love. It was one of those albums much like Nirvana's Bleach and Sebadoh's Bakesale that instantly captured my attention and led me to flog them brutally for several weeks straight. Unfortunately, just like those two albums, this one would meet a similar fate.
I've found that whenever this sort of infatuation occurs, there are two possible outcomes:

1.) a life-long affair with the disc in question, where the listening rate diminishes, but never your affection or admiration, and you find yourself revisiting said album forever more
2.) you love the shit out it for a few weeks/months, then take a long break, revisit it and wonder what the fuck you ever saw in it in the first place

Unfortunately, only a few months after adding The Gaslight Anthem's Sink Or Swim to my top 20 list, I put it on one day and found that my every potential gripe had distilled and floated to the surface in my absence. All I could think of from that point on was "holy fuck are these guys a bunch of cheesedicks". The fact that I overlooked the sheer corniness of this band provided a true shock to the system, and I abandoned them for close to a year. Eventually, though, I gave them another chance with far lower expectations and found myself enjoying them again, in spite of the inherent overstated-ness. Lemme give you a bit of background before I go any further, though: The Gaslight Anthem are four piece from New Jersey who formed in '05 and play what could be described as either a pop punk approximation of Bruce Springsteen or something like "folk rock-punk". Being a fan of a handful of Springsteen albums (mostly Darkness On The Edge Of Town and Nebraska) and The Replacements (the other band these guys draw the most comparisons from), I was genuinely intrigued by this band's marrying of styles, and for a while, I wasn't let down in the slightest. Their sound is certainly likeable enough - basically "orgcore" styled pop punk developed into a more rock-orientation with elements of folk and Midwestern bar band antics. Sound good? It is... sort of.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of good songs on here, especially "1930", "I Coulda Been A Contender", and "I'da Called You Woody, Joe", it's just that once the initial sheen wears off, it's the corniness you have to contend with. Primarily, it's the prosody and lyrics here; Brian Fallon CANNOT POSSIBLY BE WRITING LYRICS LIKE THIS FROM THE HEART. I mean, look at this shit:

"And I spent time 'neath the trestles,
With the punks and the dimestore saints.
I kept faith and a switchblade tucked beneath my coat.
And I ran with dirty angels,
Slept out in the rain.
We were scared and tired and barely seventeen."

"I'm broke and I'm hungry.
I'm hard up and lonely,
I've been dancing on this killing floor for years.
And of the few things that I am certain,
I'm the captain of my burden.
I'm sorry doll, I could never stop the rain."

"Honey we came to dance with the girls with the stars in their eyes.
Do the jump back Jack stop and slide to the right.
Never break their hearts,
Never make them cry, so come on.
Strike up the band with a song that everybody knows.
If I'm not your kind then don't tell a soul.
I'm not the one who hates being alone,
So come on."

I've heard that some of these songs are written from different perspectives, but how would you know that right off the bat? They're all sung in first person. Y'know how when Bruce sings about personal pain and Americana hoo-ha, it sounds somewhat believable and spoken from a wisened, believable, almost cynical standpoint? Well that mold isn't exactly open to anyone's muse. You can't just get some fresh faced 20-something kid with sailor tattoos and a chimney sweep's cap to sing stuff like this without sounding completely ridiculous. If you can somehow move past that, though, there are certainly goods to be had here, though. This album doesn't have a chance of ever landing in my "favorite albums list" again ("We're Getting A Divorce, You Keep The Diner", "Red In The Morning", and "Red At Night" are pretty disposable), but it's still worth a listen if you haven't had one already.

http://www.mediafire.com/?bssm9mx0yxx

My only other complaint is pretty unfair to throw out on this album, but wore these guys out for me nonetheless: after hearing the band's second album, The '59 Sound, it kinda dawned on me that these guys weren't really going to progress any further, and by stripping down their sound, they revealed how few ideas they really had. That album definitely has some songs worth hearing ("Meet Me By The River's Edge", "Miles Davis & The Cool", "Old White Lincoln", and "Great Expectations"), but half the songs almost sound identical, especially by the time each crescendo/bridge hits. Oh, and wait until you hear "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues". It's like being barraged by a meteor shower of hot, sloppy, shit.

Defiance, Ohio - Share What Ya Got

2011-01-26T22:39:00.000-08:00

My high school experience started off as a veritable maelstrom of inanity and social dis-grace, aided by the help of my trusty sidekick, "2 Preceding Years Of Enormous And Deforming Emotional Discomfort At The Mercy Of A Catholic School". It's pretty amazing how cloistered you become when trying unsuccessfully to gel with a classroom of tightly knit aggressors who've shared the same company (aside the odd yearly addition) since Kindergarten, and even worse, how long it takes to stand back up once the burden falls off your shoulders. Fortunately, by the time senior year rolled around, I was seemingly well-off and recovered, confident enough to pick up an internship for my art teacher, to befriend most of the people who piqued my interest, and even enough to be rejected by a small handful of lasses - in person, no less. I felt a false sense of security and knowing, like I went through the ropes early and somehow attained enough wisdom through it to carry a sense of superiority. It was a completely unconscious brand of smug douchebaggery.

The summer before that year, my friends and I went on a semi-sprawling road trip, finding our way from New York to Boston, to the Adirondacks and back home to NY, then to Virginia, North Carolina, and all the way up to Chicago before ending the pilgrimage in Pennsylvania for a 15 lb burger challenge. Along the way, my friend Ryan (who we picked up in NC after a 3 year separation) introduced me to folk-punk and the riot-folk movements happening as we spoke. He was pretty passionate about the bunch, and having gained a desire for musical expansion the following year, I was eager to give this stuff a try, and promptly scoured the web for all the free tuneage I could find. Admittedly, I wasn't completely blown away on first rotation. Mischief Brew wouldn't make a whole lot of sense until I'd made my way through a Tom Waits phase a year later, This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb struck me as inoffensive dullardry (and still do), and Ghost Mice grated on my nerves; Defiance, Ohio and Evan Greer on the other hand, settled nicely with the rest of my aural diet, which at the time was primarily noise rock, pop- and post-punk.

Not so long after, the shroud of familiarity got pulled away, graduation happened, and the bottom fell out. The aforementioned armchair nihilism and cynical brand of security began to give way to the disillusionment inherent in no longer having the immediate future mapped out and realizing how little I actually knew. Y'know, the typical ascent into "adulthood" paired with all the confusion reserved for kids who don't have the desire to get pinned down by a colossal fortress of college-related debt and fear the confines of the standard American life. I was slogging my way through community college and accruing more and more sludge for the sticky pile of isolationism in the back of my skull, and pretty soon after, I ended up randomly pulling out Defiance, Ohio's debut again to see whether it held up from the previous year. Upon listening, the lyrics pretty much hit me like a train. It was funny, because I remembered most of them from listening to Share What Ya Got in high school, but it was as if all their meaning was totally lost on me until that moment. It was the first time I really, truly related to what I was hearing since picking up Rites Of Spring's eponymous in 10th grade.

Defiance, Ohio are a DIY, 6-piece from Columbus, Ohio, and play acoustic primarily, employing not only the instruments standard to any punk release, but also a stand-up bass, cello, and violin. They started off by releasing their records for free online and other tiny labels, but have since moved to No Idea in order to accumulate enough l00tz tokeep their back catalog in print for dorks like me to fawn over while staring lovingly at the turntable. If I didn't make it obvious enough through the extremely long-winded intro, Share What Ya Got (their first full-length release) is a huge favorite of mine for reasons sentimental, musical, and lyrical (ie "the gamut"). It's by far their rawest, least self-conscious album, sounding like it was recorded strictly for free basement shows and rallies, but that's probably why I like it so much more than anything else they'd go on to do. It's pretty clear that no one in the band is exactly the virtuoso, but it's really their vibes that sell it for me. That's not to say the songs on here aren't catchy as hell and sing-a-long-able - in fact, that's probably what they're best for - it's just that the hopefulness and positivity seething through the somewhat frustrated lyrics manifests in much more than just what they're saying.
The sparse, simple opener, "Hey Kathleen, Are You Hungry?" sets the tone of the entire album:

"Are you angry?
Are you searching for a better life to lead?
Are you waiting?
Have you been waiting too long?
What holds us back and how to burn the bridges to a culture that taught us to hate and fear and live like cogs in a machine and not like lovers, friends, and kin?
How can you help but feel depressed?
Get up in the morning and get dressed
Look out the window through rush hour smog
Smoke and drink the world away 'cause what the politicians say won't answer any of my questions like...
Why am I angry?
What am I searching for?
Is there a better way to live?
Why am I hopeless?
Have I been waiting too long to strike back against this state of affairs?

Actually, writing them out, they seem kinda clunky. Sorry, it's a little difficult for me to imagine them without the melody and vocal strain's guidance. They're definitely more affective in action. Like something you'd sing around a campfire, almost. Lyrical concerns are probably the most inward leaning here, with lots of songs detailing feelings of entrapment in routine, desire to leave the ugly confinements we willingly affix ourselves to, and the alienation purported by a capitalist environment - stuff roiling in the pit of my stomach I couldn't quite articulate or put a name to. Unlike pretty much every release proceeding this one, there are none of those fantastic, anthemic songs that sound like they could be the highlight of the album before ending abruptly for no apparent reason. I don't know why this became a staple as their sound matured, but it's always a disappointing little present to unwrap whenever a new album comes out - like waiting with baited breath to rock out until the track's duration proves suitable.

If I had to list highlights, "Bikes And Bridges", "Response To Griot", "I'm Just Going To Leave" are probably my favorites, but there's not one bad song on here, or even any I skip over from time to time; it's an album I've taken in from first to last every time, uninterrupted, by some strange stroke of fate. This is of course, despite the fact that every track on here is permanently etched into my eardrums due to almost constant exposure; from that moment on the bus ride home from campus through the scream-a-longs in my friend's car and the late night/early morning bike rides around town with my headphones till now this has been one of my absolute favorite albums ever. It's just such an honest, simple kind of music, with everything sounding like a single take but somehow coalescing into something catchy, poppy, heartfelt, and without any ambitions beyond conveying a message. Give it a go?

http://www.mediafire.com/?0yftoh4mivg

If you suffered through this whole exhausting piece, you're a brave soul, since this might be the cheesiest mess I've penned since... actually never mind. I've written a shit-ton of godawful slop, so it's probably nowhere near a benchmark. Hopefully you'll never find most of it. If this actually made you wanna check this album out though, that's pretty much all I wanted to convey. These guys probably get a stronger reccomendation from me than almost anything I've posted here before if that means anything to you. Enjoy, and try to catch them live. I've only gotten to see them live twice, but the first time involved giving Theo a hug on stage, so needless to say, they're a good time.

Assfactor 4 - s/t

2011-01-23T19:14:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure why I'm so adamant about meeting the ten post quota every month. It's certainly not a mandate established to improve my writing skills to prepare for a journalism career (especially since all grammatical non-errors I make are purely incidental). I guess SOME THINGS WE JUST GOTTA ACCEPT HURRR.

I fucking hate venting to people who just accept the injustices you present instead of getting angry about them with you or even TRYING to grasp it. I realize they might be equally futile approaches to conversation, but goddamn is it depressing to hear someone just aurally shrug at you when you're inviting them up on your soapbox.

Anyway, Assfactor 4 were a band and they released music and shit. I like them. Which is obvious because I'm posting them here.
Right here in fact:

http://www.mediafire.com/?x0twwqllzw2

I kinda wanna let it alone right there.
I'm really tired.
But the train of lucrative endeavorin' must keep on chooglin' into uninformative oblivion. So. I've already done the boring spiel about moving from the completely inaccessible (grind, PV, crust, death metal, etc...) to the comparatively friendly (old school emo, indie rock, pop punk, ska, etc...) to boomeranging back to utterly uncompromising (free jazz, electro acoustic, power electronics, japanoise, etc...) like, a zillion times already, so let's move past that. Assfactor 4 are probably one of my favorite hardcore bands ever, and acted kind of like a bridge from the emo island I inhabited to the fruitful lands of hardcore punk and melodic hardcore. They formed somewhere in 1992, after the dissolution of both Tonka and Unherd (both pretty great bands in their own right), released two EPs and this full length before getting voted the "Coolest Band To Hang Out With" by Heartattackzine in '95 and calling it quits in '97. They also came out with a slightly less good, but still enjoyable, posthumous LP in 2000 called Sports, parodying Huey Lewis And The News' similarly titled album in more ways than the title.

Due to their place in history, vocal style, and melodious riffing, these guys were lumped in tightly with the fourfa.com denoted "hardcore emo" crew, including Angel Hair, Antioch Arrow, John Henry West, Mohinder, the vastly underrated and totally amazing Second Story Window, and of course, Heroin. While all of those bands were cut from a similar cloth and used a lot of discordance and chaos in their music, Assfactor 4 was more obviously from a hardcore punk background than a second-wave emo one, and were a whole lot less dissonant. Instead, they focused on delivering short, really memorable, songs built around super catchy melodic riffage, and righteous dual (triple?) vocal assaults. Best of all, the band never ends up repeating itself or getting too "samey" throughout the 18 tracks in 23 minutes, perfectly mixing the poppy with the darker.
Also, I just realized that pretty much every non-hardcore initiated person on the planet would find it hilarious that I'm impressed a band could write 23 minutes of music without repeating themselves.
Phat phuckin' jams to form an imaginary circle pit in your bedroom include: "Dorothy", "I Reckon", "This Shit Is For The Birds", "Can't Fight The Feeling", and of course, "Burger-Rock".

this would be where the link would be if I hadn't already posted it

Enjoy. Also, since this took two days to write, I was not actually tired throughout most of it like I originally claimed. Awright.

Against Me! - The Disco Before The Breakdown

2011-01-22T13:46:00.000-08:00

I've talked about a lot of really obvious, popular, bands on here recently (Descendents, Lemuria, Minutemen, etc...), but what's one more?
In the year 2011, the fans of Against Me! have become totally stratified by the band's musical progression - there's the assholes who bitch that Against Me! sold out, abandoned their values, and should be pariahs; then there are the assholes who gripe whenever an old Against Me! fan claims their new shit sucks, retorting that they're just afraid of progression, that Gabel would have never written another "Walking Is Still Honest" anyway, and that they're closed-minded for not boogieing to "Thrash Unreal". I kinda straddle the divider. Against Me! didn't take a crash course into commercialism (their slow progression over 3 albums as testimony), they just eased in and turned their back on their anarchist values in exchange for a more plush lifestyle. I can't say I don't understand the pressure to do so, but it's not exactly relateable. Of course, now they're just lame arena rock on Warner Bros, so it's hard to feel anything other than indifference at this point.

Anyway, this EP is the bridge between their raw, folky, first incarnation (Reinventing Axl Rose, the self-titled, Acoustic EP, and the brilliant Crime As Forgiven By) and their more rock/post-punk centric second phase (As The Eternal Cowboy, Searching For A Former Clarity), and is their first release not to contain any reworked tracks Tom wrote beforehand. The result is an unfortunately brief 3-track mash-up between the two aforementioned phases, and is easily one of the best items in their catalog. As The Eternal Cowboy is an album I like well enough, but it contains none of the scream-your-throat-raw, intensely emotional, anthemic heights that everything preceding it did. Disco Before The Breakdown sounds like what Against Me! could've been like if they kept these elements in their sound while progressing into a more rock-oriented unit... or at least, the first two songs do. The third is your typical, poorly recorded, acoustic solo track with Gabel doing his thing (which is great in it's own right), and each song's lyrics are really top notch.

We drank bottled water together and talked business.
I think I played the right moves.
You were lookin' over my shoulder,
as I went through the motions of another night,
And it was alright,
'cause I thought I knew who everybody was just by lookin' at them.
My heart is anywhere but here,
and how tired I was from the past couple of weeks,
From the past couple of years.
Well, it hit me all at once,
On a balcony overlooking nothing,
With snow falling all around,
Well I, I called just to say "Goodnight".
And you hadn't done anything wrong,
And know, really, really, it's me not you.
I can't believe how naive I was to think things could ever be so simple,
And can you live with what you know about yourself,
When you're all alone, behind closed doors?
The things we never said, but we always knew were right there.
It's got me on my knees in a bathroom,
Praying to a God that I don't even believe in,
"Well, dear Jesus, are you listening?
If this is the one chance that really matters,
Well, don't let me fuck this up.
If you'd told me about all this when I was fifteen,
I never would have believed it."

I can't stress enough though how un-fulfilling this EP can be. Not because it's full of dud notes or wasted space, but simply due to the lack of an accompanying 10 or 11 tracks. This is the kind of band Against Me! really should have "sold out" into - a super solid rock band with folk leanings and blistering vocals and anthemic, soaring, choruses. I'm always glad when I listen to this that I wasn't aware of these guys when this EP first surfaced, or I'd have been pretty damn let down by it's follow up (which is again, a decent album anyway).

try it
then
fuck it, Against Me! have enough money

Also, the first song has a horn! Wheee! I can't remember if it was a guest or not, but it doesn't really sound out of place (or ska-esque).

A brief glimpse into the exciting world of alternative rock

2011-01-22T13:42:00.000-08:00

So hey, does anyone remember this Oasis song?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOQByQtqRqA

I do for some reason, even though I only braved one of their albums once or twice back in 10th grade (don't ask; it was learning period). I guess I should give them credit, as this song stuck with me vaguely - or at least, well enough that when I heard this song here by Lifehouse many years later, I could've sworn I'd heard it before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6u5ZneaW2c

For best results, wait until the chorus hits. It's pretty amazing how similar the two are. When I made the connection, I figured Lifehouse either shamelessly pillaged an old hit since their music is directed towards an audience that probably doesn't even remember "Don't Go Away", or the choruses were both so faceless they just happened to sound the same.

But then, just recently I heard this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFhRowkNrTM

On this, there's really no debate over what happened. This is clearly a shameless rewrite of "Whatever It Takes", and better yet, probably written without any knowledge of the original derision. I mean, come on you assholes, that stupid Lifehouse song came out 2 years before and got a shitload of radio play (I know, 'cause I worked in a wholesale club that happened to play it every goddamn day for a year) - there's no way they weren't aware of it. I mean, even the LYRICS are similar and share some key phrasing. Any naivete I had regarding bands riding other bands' coat tails kinda died with this combo though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7oGGud2Jk4

then Trivium comes along and...

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=trivium+pull+harder+on+the+strings+of+your+martyr&aq=0

No one who listens and performs metal could possibly rewrite Carcass' most well-loved song by mistake, then use it as a single with a big, doofy, pop chorus. It's beyond improbable.

So in conclusion, I think we should make a petition entitled "Alternative Rock Should Give It A Rest For A While" and get a million signatures.

The Sidekicks - Weight Of Air

2011-01-19T18:30:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to write up a piece about this album for a long time now, but sometimes its hard to form a coherent thought, let alone pen an entry for this dumbass blog.

About 7 months ago, my friend Lindsay invited me to a Tigers Jaw concert in Pennsylvania with three staff members of this blog in tow, oddly enough (Sean, Jack, Blizzard Of '93). I dug the first Tigers Jaw album well enough, and I figured it might be the last time I see any of this crew for a long time, so I decided to hop on board. It was right before I left on a bike trip with no planned conclusion (one that ended far too soon), and I felt obligated to pack in as much party as possible into what little time I had left. The show was opened by a handful of bands I was only quasi-aware of but hadn't heard - Captain We're Sinking, Kite Fight, of course, the band in the header. For whatever reason, while the band was tight as hell and the vocal harmonies were pulled off to great effect, I remember saying something to the effect of "I wish they'd have laid off the college rock stuff and play more of the fast shit -perhaps to cement my presence as a generic punk rock asshole. I didn't bother giving their latest album a spin until a few months after, but if there's any testament to this band's songwriting talent, I was able to recognize 4 songs on Weight Of Air right off the bat as songs they played live.

The Sidekicks are a 4-piece, dual vocal pop-punk/"orgcore" band from California (I think) and have released 2 full lengths and a transitional EP between them. While their debut, So Long, Soggy Dog sounds a lot like what you'd expect from a band doing rounds on punknews with it's quasi-gruff, vaguely alt-rock indebted, and crunchy guitar'd pop-punk sound, Weight Of Air is a more mature, midwestern indie rock kind of album, with that 70's pop jangle and most of the aggression of the first album and preceding EP vanquished. That's not to say this is a trudger, though; almost every song is mid-to-uptempo, but the punk aspects have been toned down considerably and replaced with wonderfully hooky, Replacements-y, collegiate rock with appropriate touch of folk and the aforementioned 70's pop vibe. I apologize if that description could be clearer, but I really can't think of any current bands that encapsulate the same sound as these guys do. They're not reinventing the wheel exactly, but they're a great pastiche with no real contemporaries.
Here's an acoustic rendition of one of my favorite of their songs, "A Healthy Time" done for the Pink Couch Sessions; I feel like the easy transition from electric illustrates the point about their lack of "punkiness" pretty well:

While the songs aren't technical or complex by any means, there are lots of little intricacies that begin to show themselves upon repeat listens, like tinkering with the guitar leads from verse to verse or the cadence of the vocal harmonies; nothing ridiculously innovative, but the real charm here is how naturally the songs fall together and progress, especially with the incredibly hooky vocals and sing-a-long-able choruses. Just top notch songwriting throughout, and a sound that the band seems much more comfortable with than the aggressive pop-punk of their first two releases.

try it here
then
buy it here

I really wish I had gotten into these guys before I saw them live, 'cause it definitely seems like a wasted opportunity now.

Discount - Crash Diagnostic

2011-01-16T19:39:00.000-08:00

I originally wrote about this album in my old blog and presented it in a really squirrel-y, uncertain manner in which I was forgoing any attempt to convince the few readers I had to download it because it was such a radically different kind of music than I commonly waxed on. It seemed kind of pointless at the time, but in retrospect, I just should've tried harder. I mean, why not? What's there possibly to lose? Just for value of a persuasive writing exercise, maybe. This blog is probably a better home for it, but really, I'd recommend almost everyone I know to stockpile the majority of albums I reviewed and uploaded on my old blog, too. I mean, sure, the chances of anyone reading a blog like this liking half of ye olde blogg's contents are nil, but dammit if I don't wanna try to convince you to give them a chance. I mean, Fela Kuti was pretty punk rock, right? He stood up for his limited rights, and paid a few horrible prices for them too. If you're gonna harvest anything from the old blog, I strongly oh wait I never published that Fela Kuti review. Nevermind.

And that concludes the worst intro ever.

Discount was an amazing Florida pop-punk unit that released 3 full lengths and a slew of splits and EPs and is renown for being the only non-shitty musical entity Alison Mosshart has ever partook in. I really, really, don't like The Kills or the Dead Weather at all. I also don't use heroin, though, which may be a contributing factor. And by "renown", I kinda mean "in my opinion". After all, The Kills have approximately 50 times the amount of listeners on last.fm than Discount do. Oof. But anyway, Crash Diagnostic is the band's third full length, swan song, and an album I saturated so completely with nostalgia/sentiment late in high school I can barely listen to it anymore without getting foggy eyed.
If you've heard any of the band's preceding work, this album sounds like a mash-up between the exceedingly pretty, vocal driven pop-punk of Half Fiction and the more churning, dynamic sounds of early post-hardcore a la Fugazi. Prior to this album, Discount's sound could be traced to the family tree inhabited by East Bay pop-punk, J-Church, and Jawbreaker, but never sounding like an extension of any of those bands. Just pure, exhuberant, melodic punk music for young guys and gals to lose their shit to. On Crash Diagnostic, it sounds like they went out of their way to challenge convention and make their sound more conceptual. It kinda seems like a weird thing for a pop-punk band to do, but it's pulled off really well - not perfectly, as some of the songs embody one genre over the other, but even without perfect cohesion, every song on here is excellent. I know I'm making this album sound like a comparatively pretentious, self-conscious work compared to its predecessors, but there's a reason I chose this album for coverage over the others. Listen to "Broken To Blue", "Black And White Can't Capture Blue And Red", "Math Won't Miss You" (one of my favorite songs ever), "Harder To Tell", "Hit", and "Age Of Spitting". They might be less perfunctory than their older stuff, but all the energy's there. It sounds like a lot of care went into each of these songs.

I should reiterate, though - The Kills aren't bad just because of their lame retread on later Royal Trux's sound, but coming from a Discount-fanhood, it pains me to hear Mosshart's once vibrant, hooky, emotional vocals reduced to a dull, obnoxious slur. It's actually hard to believe they're the same person. Seriously, go on amazon.com and listen to some samples from any of their albums. I realize she was only like, 19 or 20 when this album was released and still finding a vocal niche that suited her, but man did things take a turn for the drawl.

http://www.mediafire.com/?dm2mon4t4yt

I'll be able to die happy if I get to see these guys reunite for a few shows, as unlikely as that seems. One more thought: the amount of assholes who comment derisively on how Alison looked circa Discount compared to how she looks now makes me want to punch a hole in the wall. I guess it's just a symptom of mainstream exposure, though.

Off With Their Heads - Hospitals

2011-01-13T08:23:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately for this blog, I'm slipping back out of my strictly punk-ass phase and into another bout with avant-garde, purely noise, improvisational, and otherwise fucked-up tuneage. I think I detailed this bizarre transformation in an old entry on my other blog, but the gist is basically as follows: I spend roughly half my time in phase A, then without warning, morph to phase B. Phase A is populated strictly with pop-punk, hardcore, powerviolence, folk-punk, and indie rock. Phase B is packed with free jazz, krautrock, noise, ambient, proto-metal, power electronics, psychedelic, and other matters of experimental music. While I'm in either phase, I want nothing to do with the music in it's opposing phase. I don't know how to explain it, but that's pretty much what happens every 4 months or so.

So hey, if any staff guys wanna help me fill the 10 entry per month quota, I'd really appreciate the help. I'm still gonna post, but it's probably not going to be as "spirited" as usual (or whatever word you'd use to describe my shitty writing style).

Say, you like nearly cringe-worthy quantities of pain and self-loathing in your pop-punk, right?
Off With Their Heads feature some of the darkest, most angst-laden, almost laughably negative themes I've ever had the fortune of encountering in such an upbeat brand of music, and they're all the better for it. Formed in Minnesota in '02, these guys started off playing somewhat light-weight, keyboard-laden power pop/pop punk before trimming off the cheesiness, speeding up, and cranking the distortion. If you've ever been confounded enough by the stupidity of the term "orgcore" to look up the bands that define it, you've probably seen this band's moniker in there somewhere; in other words, these guys play gruff, aggressive, poppy punk with raw, pack-a-day vocals and an angsty edge. Oh... I guess the "orgcore" term also includes folk-punk, but don't expect Plan-It-X or junk band-esque stuff if you try out The Riot Before or Gaslight Anthem.

Hospitals is an mini-LP (I think it was a 10 inch... do they still make 10 inches? Also: obligatory penis joke) from 2006, and probably my favorite material of theirs. Stylistically, it's really not far from really anything else they've recorded (aside from the aforementioned keyboard bullshit), but it's probably their strongest, catchiest songs paired with the most appropriate production style they've ever used. There's only 8 songs on here, but each one is filler-free and memorable, including the itty-bitty "Idiot", which clocks in at around 25 seconds. Jovial anthems like "Die Today", "Heroin In NYC", and "Your Child Is Dead" all feature some really catchy, poppy melodies unfitting of such gutwrenching themes, but it's never overdone or reeks too strongly of irony. Even though it's obvious these guys have a sense of humor regarding their craft, their songs still contain huge doses of catharsis and emotional resonance, which makes me wonder if any of their lyrics reflect on the writers' personal experience. Maybe I'm just falling for their schtick, but my favorite track almost always gets my eyes to well up; the closing track, "Jackie Lee" slows things down, and is based around one really strong melody that permeates the entire song. I can't exactly relate to the song's lyrics, but they stand out for some reason:

Drunk in a waiting room, I can't fall asleep
Without knowing how you're gonna to be.
Think about what you have,
It isn't that bad.
Sometimes it's so hard to see.

High in a waiting room, I can't fall asleep.
It's not funny how things came to me.
Thought about what you had, it wasn't half bad.
Sometimes it's so hard to see.

My time spent in hospitals makes it seem impossible
To ever walk back through that door.
You've got so much more to do.
I'd trade it all with you.
I'm just a drug addict and nothing more.

The rest of their material is strong, too, especially the EPs featured on their All Things Move Towards Their End compilation, but this is definitely my most listened. I think it's been re-pressed recently, so you know the drill:
Download it here
then
Buy it here

Descendents - Milo Goes To College

2011-01-08T17:38:00.000-08:00

Time for another block on text on the internet! Yeah! So this is an incredibly obvious choice for a punk-centric blog revolving around my favorites or now and then, but hey, let me once again remind you (myself) that this blog's "followers" include two staff members out of three. Also one of them is me so I'm alerted when another staff member writes something. The first Descendents LP, Milo Goes To College, is considered a classic by pretty much everyone, cemented in the annals of musical history for furthering the developing of both pop punk and the melodic hardcore non-scene a few bounds, leaps, etc. Basically, the band took the speed of hardcore and melded it with some left-field pop sensibilities, packed it full of wonderfully melodic basslines, and developed the whole nerd-chic bands would pillage and forcibly conform to for years on end. Oh, and then the band members formed ALL at some point, who were super-saccharine, girl-crazy, nerd-pandering, garbage that took all the thematic elements of the Descendents and applied them to dull, generic, pop-punk.

I guess I could technically stop there without any repercussions. Those are usually all the things I cover in these reviews reduced to a single paragraph. BUT ANYWAY, this album is the 1982 followup to the ridiculously brief and comical Fat EP, and features 15 crucial tracks in something like 23 or 24 minutes. I don't remember. Either way, it was here that the band began to buckle down and write more focused, less nonsensical material - basically this is to Fat what Dirty Rotten LP is to Dealing With It! - all presented in a super energetic, not-quite-polished aggression with tons of memorable hooks, especially in the vocals and bass. Milo's lyrics are mostly a continuum of the angst/youth/girls triad found on the preceding EP, but now injected with lots of non-satirical misogyny and really naive-sounding sexism. Fortunately I discovered (and loved) this album a few years before any semblance of social awareness set in, because currently it's difficult to ignore such gross quips as "take a girl out, she won't fuck you, after you just bought her a gram of coke" and "the only fish I smell are on the deck of my boat". I guess they both might require some elaboration. Eh, just listen to the album and you'll get it. Pretty much every song is along the whimsical lines of "women are whores and cockteases", though.

http://www.mediafire.com/?flsgh0snt2z

I don't know if I made this sound like a worthwhile album, but it is. It's really incredibly good. The thing about the Descendents, though, is that they have a lot of really, really, really fucking awful songs, too. In fact, I made a list:

10.) Hurtin' Crue
9.) Parents
8.) No FB
7.) All-O-Gistics
6.) Van
5.) Enjoy
4.) Blast Off
3.) Sour Grapes
2.) Orgofart
1.) The Days Are Blood

They're in order of least-worst to worst-worst, by the way. And "Parents" is really catchy and has a great bass line, it's just incredibly stupid. Maybe I shouldn't have included it. After this album, though, the band got less and less good until they ended up with their good and bad songs completely distilled and polarized into either trait on the ALL album. Basically, if it's played in a pop-punk vein, it's good; if it's played in horrendous, sub-Black Flag style, it's... yeah, bad.

Lemuria - The First Collection

2011-01-06T09:54:00.000-08:00

I have a friend who's probably a dozen times more qualified to review this collection and talk about this band. I'm probably gonna ask her to do an article on them in the future, but right now the spirit has actually hit me and I need to write something before I return to indifference.

Lemuria is a pop-punk/indie pop 3-piece from upstate New Yawk with dual male and female vocals I discovered right before their full length Get Better dropped in 2008. My mp3 player was in the shitter at the time (since I dropped it in a stream mid-song due to an apparent lack of foresight), and I was forced to download a couple albums onto my trendy phone to keep me company on the obnoxiously loud bus rides to and from campus. Due to the wonder of the internet, I've had a semi-difficult time giving each album I've DOWNLOADED ILLEGALLY the proper amount of time to sink in. Considering how little space was available on my phone, I figured this would be a good opportunity to pile in some stuff I wasn't entirely familiar with to see if sparks would fly upon repeat listens. While it turns out that Tuesday's Freewheelin' is nauseatingly corny, Latterman's Turn Up The Punk We'll Be Singing is almost like injecting distilled boredom into your eardrums, and the pre-Wilhelm Scream band Smackin' Isaiah realized the full extent of their shittiness early on, Lemuria's First Collection somehow didn't wear itself out over the course of two months and actually became a favorite of mine.

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this documents everything the band did from their formation in 2004 up to the last release before their 2008 LP. Usually, I would break this into individual releases to cover here, but therein lies the appeal of this compilation: every EP this is comprised of is relatively short, so I get the feeling that a lot of love and care went into perfecting every song on here; fortunately, though, the production on each effort is similar enough that it doesn't feel like you're listening to a mash of different records in a row, but one cohesive piece with a lot of variation and multiple recording sessions' worth of energy. As I said before, Lemuria's vocal front is XX/XY, with guitarist Sheena typically taking the lead and sounding like a less erratic version of Alison Mosshart circa-Discount; drummer Alex is more along the lines of Calvin Johnson of Beat Happening, pulling a monotone slur that complements the more crisp leads. I've heard the non-term "progressive punk" bandied around this band's camp recently, and it took me a while to even guess what the fuck it's supposed to be in reference to. People know that "progressive rock" was an approximation of classical music using rock instruments, right? "Progressive" isn't a catchall term for bands that happen to use weird time signatures sometimes. That said, Lemuria do have very few songs with the traditional pop structuring (and do utilize some odd timings in most of their riffs) but isn't it easier to call them a pop-punk/indie band that isn't generic? Either way, almost every track on here is great (except "The Origamists". I really don't like that song.), and as I said before, the fact that this is pieced together from a bunch of different studio sessions gives it a lot of diversity, both in mood and sound without ever straying too far away from what makes them sound so appealing (except "The Origamists", again).

I was going to post a video for "Bristles And Whiskers", which is my favorite song of theirs, but unfortunately the only semi-passable video youtube had featured Ben Barnett of Kind Of Like Spitting sharing the vocals for some reason. "In A World Of Ghosts" is probably one of their most accessible songs, so it seems like a good alternative:

Download here
then
Buy here

Their two LPs that preceded this are good, too (one of which *technically* hasn't been released yet), but something about them just doesn't appeal to me as much as this does. I don't even think it's sentiment, for once. Oh, and go see them live if you get the chance. My friend Tess and I got to see them play a gross little acoustically-horrific, capacity-breached basement a month ago, and they still ended up being a lot of fun.

Minutemen - The Punchline

2010-12-30T13:45:00.001-08:00

If you've stumbled upon this blog somehow, you probably enjoy the Minutemen to some extent. In fact, I can't recall meeting anyone (online or off) who didn't really like their sound, let alone hate them. This is the first piece of their discography I picked up after catching wind of them back in mid-high school, and it's probably my second favorite album of theirs. I don't know why I keep picking albums that were really pivotal to my musical growth - they're hard to review objectively and I typically end up talking about myself more than the actual album. Whatever, though, this blog has 3 followers. Anyhoo, when the Minutemen first started out, they played super short, speedy, angular, scratchy, jazz/funk-informed punk songs right when hardcore punk was first taking off. I know that descriptor could describe pretty much their entire discography, but the songs on What Makes A Man Start Fires are slightly longer, slower, and more post-punk-y, Double Nickels On The Dime is more rock and pop-based while retaining all their classic elements, and 3-Way Tie For Last is not very good. Oh, also, the songs are long and they're formatted more like regular rock songs with choruses and D. Boon sings everything instead of rhythmically rambling and yelling. It's alright.

But here, almost every song clocks in at under a minute, there's 18 tracks, and the entire album is over in 15 minutes. Namesake-y. Despite the brevity, almost every track on here is memorable and catchy, give or take one or two go-nowheres. I know bringing up the quality of Mike Watt's bass riffs is really obvious (and there's certainly more to the band's sound) but his riffs are easily the most standout feature, and what got me into these guys in the first place. As I mentioned earlier, they're funky as hell, and give the songs a herky-jerky feeling since they're crammed into such short, fast songs. D's guitar playing is really scratchy and sharp sounding, but it's nothing like what he'd go on to do in subsequent releases, and Hurley's drumming is tight and precise. I suck at reviewing tonight.

http://www.mediafire.com/?2yodml2mzi2

I know I haven't exactly made this sound like a dazzling release, but it really is. It's catchy, tight, noisy, fun you can listen to over and over again due to it's teeny running time. I'd probably recommend this to anyone who's never heard the Minutemen - sure it's nowhere near as incredible as Double Nickels, but it's also not as overwhelmingly long for newcomers. Oh, and happy new year and shit. I don't care.

Roskopp - s/t

2010-12-29T16:30:00.000-08:00

I decided before I made this blog that every month would produce at least 10 posts, whether they be provided solely by me or with help from whoever else wants to contribute. I guess you could consider it an attempt at self-discipline or establishment of a "creative schedule". Either way, there's only like 2 days left before the month ends and only 8 posts to show for it. On with the forced review, then:

I've mentioned it a jillion times already, but I used to be a huge grind buff. Like, it was pretty close to the only thing I listened to for 2 straight years. Thinking back, I find it curious that I didn't suffer a serious head trauma beforehand, because I can hardly imagine sitting through that stuff everyday, constantly, for over 700 days without switching it up with something less corrosive. Well, I guess I had some Tegan & Sara in there somewhere... of all possible non-corrosive musical units. Regardless, almost everything I liked back then still sounds great when I'm in the mood for it, especially the bands plucked from the Aussie and Czech scenes. Roskopp is a member of the former collective, and were one of the bands I was most excited about amidst my aforementioned obsessive period. Unfortunately, like most grind bands from down under, they take a long fucking time between releases. Examples: Captain Cleanoff releases their s/t EP in 2001 - follow it up with a full length 7 1/2 years later. Fuck...I'm Dead releases Bring On The Dead in 2001, then a split with Engorged in 2002; plan to release new full length in 2007; never release anything again but are still touring. Vaginal Carnage release demo in 2001 and EP in 2002; vocalist dies; still waiting on new album.

Okay that last one doesn't count.

Anyway, Roskopp are a three piece who formed in 2004 as Bonehead before swapping monikers and recording a demo a couple years later. The dude who runs Crucificado Pelo Sistema Records apparently liked the material too much to allow them to drop it as a poorly circulated cassette, so it was released as a 7" EP in 2006 (that you can still pick up here on nifty "splatter" vinyl: http://www.vinyljunkiedistro.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=21_39&products_id=8542). Roskopp aren't exactly reinventing the wheel with their brand of high-paced grind, but just like their regional brethren, they've somehow found a way to take a well-worn formula and make it not only fresh and exciting, but catchy as shit without sacrificing aggression. These guys sort of sit on the fence between grindcore and goregrind, with the high speed takes appropriating the former and the moments of groove and the pitch-shifted gurgles finding more in common with the latter. These songs actually have hooks and hold their own as songs instead of mere bursts of unmemorable aggression. Here's a pretty high quality live video of an as-of-yet unreleased song:

Here's the EP with a handful of bonus tracks I harvested from by the goodness of my heart.

gimme a few hours to find my external hard drive!

If you dig these guys, definitely check out Captain Cleanoff, Fuck...I'm Dead, Agents Of Abhorrence, Die Pigeon Die, Super Fun Happy Slide (of whom I once designed a t-shirt), Doubled Over, and The Day Everything Became Nothing. All of them are pretty top notch.

Jawbreaker - Unfun

2010-12-23T11:30:00.000-08:00

If I was someone else, I'd comment on how integrated I am with this album, and as such, a purely objective review might be difficult to accomplish. Unfortunately, my reviews are intelligible at best, so let's not pretend my relation to this album will make this post any worse. I know I've mentioned it before, but mid-high school, I transitioned out of a 2-year strong, pure grind/death/crust/powerviolence "phase" using early emo as my aeroplane. Man I hate that song. "Music Is My Aeroplane", I mean. Was that the Red Hot Chili Peppers? Bleeeeaaahhhh. But yeah, somehow I stumbled upon emo as a non-putrid cultural force and became completely enamored with it. Being a soggy sack of angst at the time, the emotional chord changes, introspective lyrical matter, and raw vocals were just the outlet I was looking for, and shortly thereafter, I found Andy Radin's "fourfa" website.
As such:

"Jawbreaker - Unfun and Bivouac LP/CDs. Beautiful, angsty pop-punk with a huge minor-key edge, deep, incisive lyrics that cut right to your soul, and a keen sense of when to relax, when to build up, and when to just blast it out at full power and scream."

Pairing that descriptor from the "emocore" page with my friend Tess' name-drops of the band, I figured tracking down Jawbreaker's discography was in my best interests. Oddly enough, I found a copy of Unfun just a week after in the used bin at ye olde corporate music megastore, "and the rest is history". I don't know why, but that cliche has always annoyed me. The "history" includes me listening to the album in question constantly for several months on the bus, at work, during lunch, and whenever else. While the music here is definitely indebted to the emocore sound from DC hardcore's wake, it's real significance for me lies in making pop-punk finally seem like an appealing concept. Unfun is simultaneously the most gruff and the most bouncy thing in the band's catalog, and sounds sorta like the template for every non-folk punk band you hear labeled as "orgcore" nowadays. If you're partial to that gritty, soulful, melodic punk style and don't have this, make it a priority to procure a reissue while you can. Remember a few years ago when Hot Topic was going to be the sole purveyors of this album's reissue? It's hard to believe, but that was actually on the table for a while. Oof.

Unfun is an incredible batch of songs, though; every track is fantastic, with the opener ("Want") being the first love song I ever really related to. Songs about heartbreak or infatuation are one thing, but a song about shyness and a desperate need to articulate your feelings about someone really hit me hard at the time. I feel like I should also mention that Jawbreaker has a knack for throwing in long, built-up, instrumental endings to some of their songs ("Fine Day" and my favorite, "Busy", for example) that really enhance the songs more than closing with a chorus ever could. Also, Samiam totally burgled that concept from this album. Unfortunately for them, they couldn't steal the songwriting capabilities with it. AW SHIT. IN THE RAW. But its all really accessible up until the B-side opens with the darker "Softcore" and "Driven", but they grow on you with a few listens.

http://www.mediafire.com/?zyzy5cdy00w

I'm not sure if I'd call this my favorite Jawbreaker album (it's admittedly difficult to decide considering Bivouac and 24 Hour Revenge Therapy exist), but it's definitely up there, with or without the buckets of nostalgia I hung off it. I don't know why exactly, but this always felt like the band at their most honest and straight-forward. I can't exactly supply examples to support this claim, as it's sort of a vibe, but maybe you'll notice it too if you're familiar with the rest of their albums. Plus, whenever I've talked about how much I like this album, people tend to use the word "underrated" to describe it. If you're desperately seeking indie cred because only superficial bullshit can validate you, this is your Jawbreaker of choice. Or the Busy EP, I guess. ONLY the Busy EP.

Oh. Did I mention the lyrics? They're good. Read 'em I guess.

Iron Lung - Sexless/No Sex

2010-12-21T19:32:00.000-08:00

This could end up being an unusually short review for me. I'm just starting it a few minutes shy of 10:30 and need to be up and peppy tomorrow morning for work in the ol' produce mines. I'm not sure why I'm doing this, but sometimes you just have to risk being groggy at the crack 'o dawn for Iron Lung's sake. Consisting solely of a drummer/vocalist and guitarist/vocalist, I'm tempted to label them as a "dynamic duo"; I have self-respect though, so let's just settle on "awesome 2-piece powerviolence band" instead. They're also from Washington and formed in '99. These aren't particularly interesting facts, but I usually like to squeeze in a little background info in these reviews. Use it wisely.

Iron Lung are a really obvious choice when picking a musical unit that's truly more than the sum of it's parts, as it's literally mindblowing that just two guys could create an album that sounds as heavy, pummeling, and enveloping as the one to your left. Sexless/No Sex is the band's third full length (unless Cold Storage is a compilation), and as far as I'm concerned, the best thing they've ever done. In the past, the band focused primarily on the ultra-high speed aspects of powerviolence, but like Weekend Nachos, the past few years have shown the band heaping on more and more elements of sludge. Being a huge fan of Dystopia and especially Man Is The Bastard, it was really exciting to hear one of my favorite bands taking up this particular torch, especially with a guitar tone this great. It almost sounds like it was tuned for one of those annoying "mathcore" bands with a quadrillion different confusing time signatures packed into every song (but in a non-incriminating or annoying way. I'm a shitty writer) :

Sexless/No Sex features 20 tracks in only 21 minutes, but there's not a note out of place or any reason not to flip this back to the A-side once "Cancer" ends. I'm not Mr.Knows-Shit-About-Competent-Musicianship, but I've probably listened to this album a gazillion times since it came out and have yet to locate a sour moment. The vocal trade offs are great, and the way the band careens back and fourth from crushing sludge to blasts of manic hardcore is like a party in my ears that I'm inviting you to through illegal downloading:

http://www.mediafire.com/?wyjg0tdt0nv

I still hate my worthless husk for missing these guys' performance at Maryland Deathfest.

Also: whuddyaknow, that wasn't very short at all. Of course, now it's almost midnight and I should've been in bed a while ago. Dicks.

Dinosaur Jr - Dinosaur

2010-12-20T18:24:00.000-08:00

I guess this is technically the self-titled, since Dinosaur Jr. didn't add the suffix until late '87 or early '88 after a legal dispute with some other band called Dinosaurs with ex-members of Jefferson Airplane and some band called Country Joe And The Fish. It should also be noted that the last.fm page for the insecure Dinosaurs has under 3,000 listeners. Roughly 402,000 fewer than the band they tried to disband. OH HOW TIME MAKES FOOLS OF US ALL.

Uninteresting factoid aside, this was the first Dinosaur Jr. album I picked up, and one I used to put in my figurative top 10 albums list in high school. I think their third album, Bug, probably reigns as my most listened Dino album at this point, but this one is still great for sentimental and listening values.
If you're familiar with the two following albums, this is pretty dissimilar to the super-loud, pop-inflected, guitar rock featured on those. It also isn't boring, which separates it vastly from the entire remainder of the band's catalog. What we have here is a completely scattershot approach to songwriting, with elements of jangly pop, Neil Young-esque rock, hardcore, metal, and folk (which is almost completely absent in the rest of their albums), all mixed in a really idiosyncratic, absorbingly weird fashion. As such, it's a pretty difficult album to describe considering the only real cohesion here stems from the prevailing sense of disarmament. "Forget The Swan" and "Repulsion" are great guitar driven pop-rock songs, "Quest" and "Severed Lips" are mopey folk-rock, "Mountain Man" is noisy punk-esque rock, and "Pointless" is a weird, indescribable mess of mumbling, strung-out guitar, and dissonance. My favorite track on here is probably "Does It Float", which starts off as a bouncy, catchy folk-punk number that turns into a screaming, stinging, sea of guitar noise for no apparent reason. Good stuff.

I guess if I was being objective, I'd call this album "a ramshackle snapshot merely hinting at the greatness the band would later embody" or something Pitchfork-y and annoying like that, but I just love the songs way too much. It's true, they did get leagues more cohesive and "rockin" on the next two albums (and as such, you may actually wanna check out You're Living All Over Me or Bug before this one) but this is definitely the band at their most esoteric and interesting. Unfortunately, everything after Bug is pretty dull (not terrible), mostly due to J kicking everyone out and turning it into an ego-stroking pop-grunge act with a lot of wanky solos. Whatever though, he gets a free ride for life on those first 3 as far as I'm concerned.

http://www.mediafire.com/?t191m0sm2b5

Oh, actually, their two reunion albums with the original lineup are pretty decent. Check those out, too.

Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky

2010-12-20T16:06:00.000-08:00

Swans is a monster of a band, producing some of the most raw, eviscerating music since the band's inception in 1982. Frontman Michael Gira disbanded the group in 1997 after releasing a vast amount of music and tweaking the band's sound on several of their releases. The band's early releases were slow, heavy and raw, song's often dragged on while Gira grotesquely moaned and shouted best seen on either Public Castration Is A Good Idea or Filth. Eventually Jarboe would join Swans alongside Gira and proceed to evolve the group's sound further.

Alright, I'm going to stop giving you guys and gals the history of Swan's as if going to google isn't as easy as just twitching your fingers. The band has a fairly interesting history as they continue to evolve, reform and assault the eardrums of many innocent boys and girls who's worlds are no longer delightfully sugar-coated. Before I continue though, check out this Swans song.

In my experience a lot of people actually laugh at this song. But I think that's because let's face it, it does sound a little ridiculous. But after a listen or two I started to really appreciate it and beauty of the lyrics.

Michael Gira really writes fantastic lyrics. I remember an instance in which I listened to this song a few times in a row to hear what Gira had to say. Anyway, I dare you (double-dog) to listen to this song several times in a row and try not to feel at least a little manic-depressive. There is not much music out there with the ability to do that.

Well now I think you get the idea that I really like Swans. But you're probably asking, "why would anyone want to feel MaNiC-DePrEsSiVe listening to music?!" Well here's my theory - that's because it's art, it's supposed to make you feel something in return for giving it your attention. So I ask the reader (if there are any of you reading this catastrophe of a post) to take some of your time to appreciate the beauty of Swans.

The record I uploaded is a great start for a Swans newcomer. It's much more accessible than their older material but still holds on to that gold-old fashioned Swans charm of turning your frown well...back into a frown. As you work backwards into their catalog, one of the first thoughts that may cross your mind is "Holy shit." because as I've mentioned earlier, it is raw and it's almost intimidating to listen to. However some of Swans' 90s releases aren't as heavy and will not convince your grandmother you're summoning Satan. I highly recommend downloading White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity. I'll give you a link for that record as well.

http://www.mediafire.com/?5zl41n16yy9bn6g - My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky.

http://www.mediafire.com/?i1b7epgy2bixbwz - White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity

Coke Bust - Lines In The Sand

2010-12-13T16:04:00.001-08:00

Coke Bust have an appealing name. I'm not sure if that's considered a universal truth, but I thought it was amusing enough to check them out back a couple years ago, and I'm pretty glad I did. If you've never heard of these guys before, they embody a few of the essential traits of an early DC hardcore band - playing at breakneck speed, embodying straight edge philosophies, and sounding truly pissed off. These are stereotypes exacted in a positive light, mind you.
Lines In The Sand is the group's third release and first full-length since their formation in 2006, and it's probably my favorite item in their catalog so far. Of course, I have yet to hear the new Degradation EP, but I figure if these dudes can make an LP in this style consistently great, they should have no problem tackling another EP. That was sort of a joke, by the way. This album's only 17 minutes long. Works for me. I'm a big XBrainiaX fan, for the record.
To clarify, when I said these guys were a straightedge hardcore band, I didn't mean in the dumb-as-shit mosh warrior sense, but more in the mid 80's sense, when playing fast as shit was still essential, but not played with quite as much reckless abandon as it was at conception. Well-practiced hyperspeed, if you will. Coke Bust are stylistically somewhere between the aforementioned strain of hardcore, early youth crew, and blasting powerviolence. Try to imagine a mix of Scholastic Deth and a cleaner-sounding Infest as interpreted by a contemporary like Ceremony or Punch (minus the melodic tendencies). They're kinda like that, and they're really fucking good at it. These guys pack every essential trait of the genre in tight without ever sounding generic or repetitive, but instead, passionate and leaner than the pack with a great head for variation. There are no predictable mosh riffs here, or lame, wiry-sounding leads played over dopey breakdowns, but there is enough groove here to get you flailing around and stomping between high speed assaults.

http://www.mediafire.com/?h1ynzxwu3ye

CoOl StOrY: I was a straight edge kid for almost 6 years before deciding I was being hypocritical. To rectify this, I dabbled in just about anything I'd previously rejected (aside one-night stands) to figure out whether or not I was truly on board with the SxE demeanor. Substances were imbibed, and fans were hit with shit, and as it turns out, I still have no particular interest in drugs or getting wasted. I don't plan on calling "a pledge to the edge" again, but the lyrics these dudes employ definitely strike a chord for me. It's not often I come across a band who promotes the clean lifestyle while advocating legalization of those same substances. Can't we all be this reasonable (ie agree with me)?

Cult Ritual - LP 1

2010-12-05T18:33:00.000-08:00

Cop-out reviews are finally outsourced. This is the third and final installment of "Steve Re-Posting Old Shit" - from now on the reviews will either be fresh from the noodle or... stolen from other blogs. So probably only the first part. This is a pretty lazy one, though, and definitely doesn't do this incredible album justice, but whatever. Just try to multiply all praise by 2 or 3 to understand how awesome it is. Or listen to it, I guess. I don't know.

"Approaching this album was a little intimidating, as up until this point, Cult Ritual have kept their trifecta of top notch releases below the 10 minute mark. The release of a full length - especially regarding hardcore - typically reveals whether or not the band in question is capable of bearing close to their roots without turning into an interminable bore. For a recent example, see Bone Awl's Meaningless Leaning Mess - an album full of quality songs, but bogged down by a running time too great for the number of ideas presented. Fortunately, Cult Ritual can handle an LP's length and then some, as their 4th self titled disc is easily their greatest and most infatuating work so far. Armed with a crusty, warm, production sound and a slew of great riffs, these guys offer up a platter of U.S. style noise melded with scathing hardcore punk, fragments of melody, sound samples, a 3 minute exercise in minimalist drumming, intelligent lyrics, crushing sludge, and enough variation from track to track to lead me to believe these guys could tackle a double LP with little fatigue. Yes, these guys are hyped to shit, but they really are as great as you've heard."
Get it here.
And I'd tell you to buy it here, but apparently it went OOP already. Woops.

I should've also said: "these guys offer up a platter of scathing hardcore punk melded with U.S. style noise". Also, despite existing for such a short period of time, this album is so OOP it's reached absurd prices on ebay... like in the 150 range. God dammit, Youth Attack Records, repress this shit already so the little elitist circles who own this epic can dissipate in the waves of time.

I guess they're not really "elitist" for owning this. They just got there in time.

Still, fuck those guys.

Common Rider - Last Wave Rockers

2010-12-04T18:36:00.001-08:00

If you managed to slog your way through that botched mess of an Operation Ivy review, you may have uncovered that I not only enjoy Operation Ivy, but moreover, the heroics of one Jesse Michaels. That is, unless I didn't even mention my fandom for Jesse Michaels in said review. I really don't feel like going back to re-read it, so let's assume I did mention it for the sake of the present review's continuation. So yeah, while I love Energy and have listened to it countless times, I'm gonna have to be cOnTrOvErSiAl and state that the ditty to our left blows anything Op. Ivy ever did completely outta the water.
Common Rider was Jesse Michael's third musical unit following the dissolution of the short lived Big Rig, who released one 9 minute EP in '94 and split up two years later. Last Wave Rockers debuted in '99, and sounds like the logical next step into maturity as far as ska-punk songwriting is concerned. The tempo is slowed, the melodies are far more developed and poppy, and the ska has been upgraded into rocksteady. This is one of the few albums I can think of that has a lot of variation from track to track without ever losing an ounce of cohesion. All the songs have such a relaxed, confident, feeling, and sound like they've been practiced and trimmed down hundreds of times, performed with nothing to prove to the audience but all the energy and vivacity that comes with that disposition. I don't know if that'll translate to anyone reading this, but that's about as perfect of a description I can muster. The production is clean-as-a-sterilized-object (catchy!), and every instrument sounds perfectly crisp and balanced, with Jesse's lyrics spat out with incredible rhythm and cadence. The hammond organ and sax bits definitely add to the disc's overall warmth, especially on tracks like "Carry On" and "Walk Down The River", as well as Heather from the "eh, alright" Teen Idols' back up vocals on a handful of tracks.
I've probably listened to this album well over a hundred times since I picked it up, so I can say with no doubt that if there's any flaws here, I haven't been capable of spotting them. Every track is extremely accessible and well-written, but here's one I've heard a lot of positive feedback on:

If I had to choose my three favorite songs on here, I'd probably have to go with pop punk-y "True Rulers", the closer "Dixie Roadrash", and the adorable "Deep Spring", which sounds almost nothing like the rest of the album, but still fits in perfectly. I've easily played the latter a zillion times, but I have to stress how difficult it is to just pick 3. Or even 6 would be harsh. The whole thing is really that good. Without further ado:

http://www.mediafire.com/?k5zgynjwzdt

These guys would go on to record one more full length, an EP with Billie Joe from Green Day on guitar, and a split EP with Against All Authority before calling it quits in 2003. All of them have their merits and are worth checking out (especially This Is Unity Music), but from my perspective, none of them could've possibly topped this. Jesse Michaels finally has another band together named for the opening track on this album, "Classics Of Love", but play in a more rock-oriented vein than the preceding stuff. I'll probably cover that and the aforementioned Big Rig EP in a future post...

Punch - s/t

2010-12-01T21:51:00.000-08:00

Here's another review pillaged from my shite olde blog since it caters to 0% of it's rinky-dink audience. The writing is kinda doofy, but hey, I'll say the same exact thing about this intro after a few months pass. I'm thinking it's a good time now to stop aspiring to look back upon my words and find them to be indispensable parts of a complex and spine-tingling body of work.

"Punch is a fantastically fresh and tear-ass'ing youth crew damaged powerviolence (or "fastcore" if you want to spat about it) unit with a collective straight-edge and vegan mandate ~~that doesn't really fucking matter because as is the case with most hardcore, the lyrics are smothered to intelligibility by the~~ Nah, I kid, we're all good enough sports to have the lyric sheets tattooed on the inside of our eyelids. Ooh, but there is a song about bikes:

RIGHT OF WAY

Always thought that one is one, but I guess that’s not the case, because now I know two does not equal four wheels. Better step aside- where you’re going is not as important as where they’re headed.
Unless it's metaphorical. The music ist fucking krieg, though. Quite a few bands in this niche sacrifice technicality and songcraft for adrenaline-OD'ing frenzies, but Punch is way leaner than the pack, with bursts of melody amongst the frenetic blasts and intelligently structured vocal delivery, replete with tasteful "crew" shout-outs. Lastly, vocalist Meghan's impassioned, top-of-the-lungs, screaming is god-tier quality and makes me yearn to hear more "goils" (as Peter "The Corpse" Steele may have said) pick up the mic for this brand of intense hardcore. I was planning on seeing them in New Yawk Shitty, but my friends ended up bailing or something and adding to the canon of grim memories on getting lost at the subway was too much to bear."
Get it here.
Then get it here.
Also, I was kidding before. The lyrics are quite good.

EDIT: oops, looks like you can't actually "get it here" anymore. You CAN pick up a neat t-shirt or their excellent sophomore LP there, though.

Operation Ivy - Energy

2010-11-30T18:18:00.000-08:00

Just in case you didn't know: Energy is the name of the original 19 song LP from '89. The self-titled is the '91 reissue combining Energy with 1988's Hectic EP and the tracks from Maximumrocknroll's Turn It Around! compilation. Now that that's off the table, let's talk about the left hand corner's resident .jpeg image:

It might seem a little redundant to cover such a well known, ridiculously influential classic like Operation Ivy's sole LP, but whatever, I really, really, love this album and felt like talking about it. In fact, along with Slapstick's Lookit!, Gangster Fun's Time Flies When You're Gangster Fun, and Blue Meanies' Kiss Your Ass Goodbye, this album finally got me to pull the thorn of prejudice against ska-punk out of my side and embrace the complete whitewashing of a black originated genre. But hey, those are the absolute essentials of growing up, so we don't need to go into any more detail. Also: obligatory joke about ska's role in Christian youth in the 90's.

A lot of people refer to songs like "Knowledge", "Unity", "The Crowd", and "Caution" as Operation Ivy's classics, and while I'd agree that those are incredible tracks, the amount of praise heaped upon them sorta downplays the greatness of the rest of the album. There really isn't a single bad or even mediocre song here, and "Missionary" is probably one of the all time best closers - in league with "The Nautical Mile" and "Postures (Leave Your Body Behind)" as far as personal favorites go. I figure I don't really need to painstakingly describe these guys' sound if you stumbled upon this blog, but it's basically a mix of roughly produced East Bay pop punk and speedy ska guitar, the occasional horn, and vocal interplay provided by all four members (with Jesse Michaels at the helm, of course).
Man, do I not sound excited to be reviewing this. Try to ignore that please, I'm tired. I always take way too fuckin' long writing these entries and end up completely wiped out by the end and my writing gets slack as hell. Maybe blow up some balloons and throw confetti while you read it to synthesize my enthusiasm for this album.
Here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?nsxulenn0ue

I know ska is about as fashionable as pastel track pants nowadays, but if you somehow haven't heard this yet, give it a shot or two before you write it off. As far as the genre goes, this is it's masterpiece, and one of the most compulsively listenable albums I can think of. I'll probably cover this in a future post, but check out Jesse Michael's second full fledged band while you're at it - Common Rider. Their debut, Last Wave Rockers, is something I've probably spun more times than what could be considered healthy.

Weekend Nachos - Unforgivable

2010-11-29T20:33:00.000-08:00

Here's a sub-review I did for Weekend Nachos' incredible 2009 album, Unforgivable. I actually already posted this as part of three-piece hardcore showcase in my other blog, but I feel there was a good chance it was lost on what little audience I had. Of course, this blog is brand new and so far, has only 3 followers, so being lost on a small audience might trump being lost on no one. Also, two of those followers write for this very blog. One of those two is me. Hrm.
Anyway:

"With a name bespeaking such incredible frivolity, your irony detector's should short-circuit when this bubbling cauldron of dark, humorless, and brutal, hardcore-and-sludge inflected powerviolence punches you square in the eardrums with it's teeny little balled up fists perfectly evolved to frictionlessly navigate the human auditory canal. Weekend Nachos have been kicking the veritable ass since 2004 (presumably) and have a few EPs and a full length preceding Unforgivable, and recently, an EP of pure sludge proceeding it. It's always nice to bear witness to a band unveiling their best work to date, and Unforgivable is totally on my nonexistent "Top 10 Of 2009" list somewhere. Y'know, floating in the intangible ether. Just like fellow face grinders Iron Lung's Sexless/No Sex "opus" (ie an album I like a lot), Weekend Nachos take this opportunity to further baste themselves in the sumptuous tar prepped by sludge cuistôts Eyehategod and low-end Man Is The Bastard, giving this album a biting dynamic betwixt the powerhouse blast-a-thons of yore, comparatively rockin' hardcore punk, and crushing doom riffery. It's nice to see Relapse Records can still throw a fastball here and there."

Get it here.
Buy it here.

Union Of Uranus - To This Bearer Of Truth

2010-11-27T17:44:00.001-08:00

Third "emo" post from me in a row... if you don't count the extenuating circumstances (ie in-between posts) that make it decidedly "not in a row". As I described in the Reach Out post, this "genre" was the first thing to break me out of an existence dominated by grindcore, death metal, and crust punk exclusively, so excuse me if I harp on it's greatness for a while. Union Of Uranus, however, are really only "emo" by vague stylistic inheritance, though, so if you're down on the whole style but dig bludgeoning, dense, hardcore, this might the band to check out.

If you're a fan of Orchid, June Paik, or Usurp Synapse, you've probably heard these guys name-dropped as a point of reference. If this is the case, you probably don't need to read any further, as Union Of Uranus' sound very clearly influenced this gaggle and a whole bunch more. If not, imagine taking the "hardcore emo" foundation and fusing it with the wall-of-riffs approach of early crust punk, the hectic, battering, percussion of grindcore, and the suffocating darkness of early Neurosis. Or at least, that's what the first half of this CD sounds like. To This Bearer Of Truth is a discography piece consisting of two split EPs, a double 7", and one demo cassette. The latter of which is less atmospherically dense and more cornered on crushing hardcore. Still evil sounding shit throughout and fitting the aforestated descriptor, but with some definite stylistic advances from the earliest days that made these guys sound totally unique.

http://www.mediafire.com/?3tf2znijmdn

You might wanna listen to this in two parts, though. 9 long tracks of music this crushing and heavy-handed can be a little to much to get into at first. If you need any more reason to download this, members went off to form Chokehold, Tragedy, and His Hero Is Gone.

Reach Out - s/t 1994

2010-11-24T07:54:00.000-08:00

Back in my mid teens, I found myself in my first and last incarnation as a musical purist. From the second half of 8th grade all the way through to the Winter of 10th, the BPMs had to exceed a jillion, the vocals needed to sound excreted, and distortion on the guitars had to be reminiscent of that deafening crunch you that rattles your eardrums whenever you begin chewing a mouthful of corn flakes. It wasn't until I was halfway through my 17th year that I finally began to break from the strict agenda of crust-powerviolence-grind and explore "emo" and its subsets. For whatever reason, I was fascinated by the fact that this recently popularized term was not birthed through ex-mall goths and scenesters, but by the limited creativity punks elicited in dubbing genres over 2 decades ago.
I guess it was probably because I had been feeding the directionless anger of my youthful soul while utterly emaciating my angst, but I took to this stuff with obsessive vigor, and hoarded everything I could find from the first, second, and third waves of the genre. Reach Out's s/t EP was one of the first pieces I picked up, and still one of my absolute favorites.
As Andy Radin put it, these guys play "hardcore emo", which is basically hardcore punk filtered through second wave emo with a lot of pained shrieking, chaos, and melody. It might be easier to hop over to fourfa.com though if you're looking for a more in-depth explanation.
Anyway, Reach Out were a Californian 5-piece that existed between 92' and 93' who ended their career on an incredibly high note with this self-titled posthumous EP. Unlike other bands in the gene pool like Heroin, Coleman, Three Studies For A Crucifixion, and Angel Hair, the discordant, chaotic, essences of the genre (as well the hardcore song structures) were more like mere aspects of Reach Out's style rather than the foundation. There's enough sensory overload here to keep you happy (especially in the vocal department), but disarmament never seems to be the intent of the songs. If anything, the four tracks on here, regardless of length, sound epic and grandiose without ever getting too cheesy and overstated. The vocals are primarily delivered in a desperate rasp, and are accompanied by those super-high pitch squeals (think Venus And Bacchus-era Saetia) we all love, and some clean narrative stuff just to saturate the EPIC aspects.
It's occurring to me now that I definitely don't possess the literary prowess to claim these guys as a hardcore band, then refute the sovereignty of the term to describe these guys properly. Also, that last sentence sounded really pretentious for some reason. Perhaps because it was. Or maybe it just didn't make much sense. Here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?6r46nh4thoqz7c2

This is the rip from the emoisdead mediafire page, but I split up the songs into their intended 4 tracks instead of two. It's definitely the best sounding version I've found, with most of the others completely nullifying the squeaky vocals and burying the narrative portions.

EDIT: Uploaded at last.

A Brief Repose...

2010-11-22T12:29:00.000-08:00

Call me conservative, but I pine for the 90's punk sound. You know, fairly cheap recordings, raspy vocals, and shitty instrumentation.

I'm a pretty generic dude. I still listen to albums I grew up with religiously and as far as new music goes, I more or less look for bands that sound like stuff I already listen to. Usually these are albums that I overlooked during my youth, but on the rare occasion you will find a great new album. Although it's nice to see people exploring the sonic, aural possibilities of punk rock like Fucked Up or No Age, it's even nicer to see that some things haven't changed. Ben Weasel is still a doucher, making fun of Jawbreaker fans is still really easy, and the Lawrence Arms still crank out good tunes somehow. So it's only natural that there are some bands out there who aren't trying to reinvent the wheel. Unfortunately, the new Social Distortion dosen't look too promising, Bad Religion is still using the same drum pattern from 1995, and American Steel shat the bed on their last album. So what do? Well until a punk committee is formed that legislates and swiftly distributes wholesale assbeatings to lackluster bands, I'd like to use my tenure and soapbox on this blog to wade through all the crap for you, my friend, and spotlight some new up and coming punk bands, hailing from all over the US of A and the rest of the world. Stay tuned.

Asian Man Records 15th Anniversary Show

2010-11-19T23:41:00.000-08:00

AHEM.

"Next year, Asian Man Records will celebrate their 15th anniversary. In honour of this, label founder Mike Park is aiming to reunite every band that ever released on the label for a festival set to take place June 16th, 17th and 18th at the Parside and the Bottom of the Hill clubs in San Francisco, CA. While this is an ambitious goal and has not yet been confirmed, some of the possible bands would include: The Broadways, MU330, Chris Murray, Alkaline Trio, Slapstick, Tuesday, The Honor System, The Chinkees, Less Than Jake, Nicotine, Slow Gherkin, The Lawrence Arms, Ee, Dan Potthast, Colossal, Polysics, Just A Fire, Mike Park, Duvall, Toys That Kill, Bagheera, Link 80, Good For Cows, Short Round, Big D And The Kids Table, Screeching Weasel, Coquettish, Satori, Pama International, The Bruce Lee Band, Shinobu, Akiakane, The Queers, No Torso, Buck-O-Nine, Bomb the Music Industry!, Lemuria, Andrew Jackson Jihad, Kepi Ghoulie, Wardogs, O Pioneers!!!, For.the.Win., Classics of Love, Smoking Popes, Knowledge, Let's Go Bowling, Five Iron Frenzy and Sundowner.
Maybe we should start a pool?"

You couldn't take 10 bands out of this lineup and have it notably depreciate in awesomeness. It could probably appreciate with some exclusions (Let's Go Bowling, how about), but it'd be way hard to make it suck. Of course, this shit is happening way out in California - the opposite coast of which I reside. Like viewing "The Fest" roster every single year, I always drool over the lineup but ultimately dismiss it as being too damn far away to travel to alone (I'm in NY, the Fest is in FL if you weren't aware). This festival might meet the same fate (ie not be so utterly blessed by my attendance), but only if The Broadways aren't confirmed to play.
In the future, I will go on at great length how amazing Broken Star is, how much better they were than The Lawrence Arms have ever been, and how unfair it is that they didn't record another LP, but for right now I'll just say this: I've been listening regularly to these guys since a friend of mine introduced them to me mid-high school. I've also been wishing they'd reform for a show pretty much from that same point.

Basically, if these guys get confirmed for Asian Man Records' 15th Anniversary Show, my driving across the whole stupid country will also be confirmed.

http://www.punknews.org/article/40664

Lifetime - Tinnitus

2010-11-19T04:15:00.000-08:00

I'm glad there are so many bands that sound like Lifetime/Kid Dynamite. I guess I should lambaste Shook Ones and New Mexican Disaster Squad for their lack of originality, but dammit, sometimes it feels like neither Lifetime nor Kid Dynamite recorded enough to satisfy.

I don't know why I wrote that. I'm not going to talk about either clone band. That intro basically segued into irrelevance.

Anyway, Lifetime. This album here (there, to the left) is the band's last 7" record before 1995's classic Hello Bastards, and acts as kind of a stylistic intermediary between the aforementioned record's melodic hardcore niche and the emocore sound of Background. Basically, a combination of the best aspects of both phases of the band - the high energy and enthusiastic vocals of later albums mixed with the hardcore (the moshy kind) aspects and slow, heartfelt, segments of the early stuff. This guy is only about 11 minutes long, but in my opinion, it's the absolute best thing the band ever recorded. The semi-monotone vocals of Background and Dwell are gone, and the speedy hardcore punk mold has yet to set on the songwriting."Ferret" can stay stuck in my head for as long as my immortal, cosmos-swirling being continues to rock the free world. Seriously, though, all four songs are brilliant. Angry, hopeful, beautiful, angsty, and fun stuff here.

This EP is of course, totally out of print, but you can find it on similarly totally out of print compilation, Seveninches - a roundabout way of saying 'here's Tinnitus' and 'no I don't have a link to where you can purchase it':

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

The Shitty Limits - Beware The Limits

2010-11-18T16:44:00.000-08:00

Alright, so for my first post I'd like to introduce you to a band called The Shitty Limits. Their sound takes elements of garage rock and 80s Dischord Bands and 70s punk rawk. In my ignorance I've never heard of a band who blends these things together so deliciously well. The Mr. Smoothie of punk rock.

Download - http://www.mediafire.com/?myoejmohdon

This is more of a test....except lengthier reviews in da future

American Steel - s/t 1998

2010-11-17T20:41:00.000-08:00

Alright, first real entry time.
Firstly, there isn't a single good picture of this album on the entire internet, and my camera's MIA at the moment, so it looks like we'll have to deal with this muddy, resized, P.O.S until further notice. Secondly, seeing as this ranks amongst my top 10 albums of all time, punk or otherwise, I felt it'd be a great way to kick off this high-crime blogging operation (ie a blog that offers downloadables sometimes).

American Steel started up back in '95 in West Oakland, playing shows all around the East Bay before swapping a bandmate or two, touring the shit out of this shit, and ending up in the studio in '98 with the heroic Kevin Army, producer of a metric fuckton of awesome Cali punk bands and uh, guitarist (?) for the Bomb Bassets. The result was this 17 song condensed epic of gritty melody, aggression, dual guttermouths, and even some ska punk. If you're familiar with any of the other American Steel records, you have to understand that this album sounds nothing like any of them, barring perhaps 1999's Rogue's March, which is dynamically similar, but quite a bit slower and way less gritty. The songwriting here is fantastic, balancing raw aggression and purty melodies in a way which one never detracts from the counterpart and typically results in a chest-thumping anthem.
If I had to make a comparison, I guess it sounds kind of indebted to Crimpshrine and Operation Ivy, but if the two collaborated on the recording and screwed around with the tape speeds. The amount of hooks and riffs in some of these songs makes it sound like half of them used to be 5 minute long compositions that got boiled down into 2 minute ones, keeping all the parts intact but careening between fast and slow parts like they were being charged by the minute. I know it sounds kind of awful in theory, but it's the complete opposite in practice.
Listen to "Cheer Up" for a good example of this.
Also: it kinda sounds like the band has been buried in sand, but it's still an awesome song:

For years I was under the impression that this album was super-duper difficult to come by, but as it turns out, it's just massively, depressingly, unloved at this junction in history. In fact, when you consider how much attention these guys get on punknews.org for their later records (particularly Jagged Thoughts and Destroy Their Future), it's kinda difficult to believe it hasn't been reissued by one of the bigger labels like Fat Wreck or No Idea yet. You can actually buy this sucker from New Disorder still:

try it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?znah1erheli6c2r
fulfill the capitalist agenda here: http://www.newdisorder.com/oneband.eml?band=American+Steel

I picked up this album in 2006 and I've been listening to consistently ever since. It's really an amazingly good album. Maybe not perfect, but so completely exuberant and raw. All of American Steel's stuff is worth checking out, but if you haven't heard them yet, start here and go in order. A few people I know have had a hard time getting into this one after starting with their more polished stuff, but STAY STRONG, it's worth getting into.
Just don't expect too much from Dear Friends And Gentle Hearts, though...

IntroDICKtory

2010-11-17T17:31:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I spiked the title with profanity.
But let's move on... this is the companion/irrelevant secondary blog to The Rest Is Just Music, which focuses primarily on art school disaster, avant-garde, noise, free jazz, and other music that no one actually likes but pretends to in order to appear cutting edge or unique (including me).

I'm a really big fan of pop-punk, hardcore, early emo, ska-punk, powerviolence, crust, and the like, but posting about stuff like the Beatnik Termites between reviews of Archie Shepp and the Incapacitants is a little pointless. I think it's safe to say most people stroking their beard and furrowing their brow to some Dave Burrell aren't going to be skanking to Choking Victim later. Actually, a Choking Victim fan probably isn't going to be listening the Beatnik Termites, either... Call it pandering if you like, but whatever, I'm really not a good enough writer to convince a world music enthusiast to try out a Promise Ring album (or vice-versa), so hey, here's a brand new blog.

Hopefully this'll be a collaborative thing, too, with lots of other (or probably "a few other") guys/gals contributing articles/reviews/uploads/concert feedback/naked photos. Hell, if virtually anyone asks, I'll let them give it a shot. Because I am a good Samaritan.

NEXT TIME: CONTENT