Oakland darlings Street Eaters have put this comp together to showcase some of their favorite current bands, and it’s a winner. The track list is studded with well-known DIY stalwarts like Dogjaw, Arctic Flowers, and Martha, with plenty of new-to-me bands to round things out (damn, Babe Quest is good). These nineteen songs span across a few styles of punk and its sister genres, with a tendency toward dark, melodic, post-punky stuff. Lots of American bands, especially from the curators’ native Bay Area, but a good helping of German and other European bands make an appearance as well. Most or all of these bands are fronted by women, and it is awesome to be able to check out so much of what’s going on in DIY punk right now on one cassette. This is one of those rare compilations that can boast both variety and cohesion. It never gets repetitive, but if you dig one track, you’re likely to dig most of them. The cool silvery color scheme makes this feel like a retro-futuristic artifact, maybe some sort of capsule that includes coded instructions for a secret punk mission.
–Indiana Laub (Nervous Intent, nervousintent.com)