If you look at the front cover of this album, it’s a bunch of arty-looking Dreamsicles or something, the kind of thing you’d see painted on a downtown mural to remind us all that life is beautiful and we should be nice to each other. If you look at the back cover photo, it’s just […]
Like a caged animal never having known love, affection, or the sound of melody Gaoled from Perth break loose from captivity and are dead set on punishing their prey with six songs of unbridled hardcore. No mosh parts. No hooks. Just pure hate and violence-inducing sounds for souls that don’t need saving. –Juan Espinosa (Iron […]
Good Grief make declarative, sincere melodic pop punk that’s most effective when they go off-script to some degree, either with a more jangly indie pop approach to guitars, or with Beach Boys-esque backing vocals, or with a kind of noise wreckage (“Hatches”). A tad conventional overall, but strong. –Matt Werts (HHBTM, hhbtm.com / Everything Sucks, […]
This repress of the classic Up Your Ass LP presents all that was well in punk in 1993. I graduated high school that year. Grimple made a lifelong impression. Originally from New Mexico, Grimple moved to the East Bay, adapting to the amazingly diverse scene of that era. Fusing classic hardcore with the melodic forms […]
The third record in Tor Johnson Records’ 20th anniversary subscription series features Ian O’Neil of Deer Tick doing a solo song supported by his band on side A, and a new track from Nova One on side B. O’Neil’s “Life Insurance” is the kind of roots rock I’d expect from him and his collaborators in […]
Interesting collection of acoustic bits and pieces, written and recorded during the pandemic. A significant portion of the lyrics are in Spanish but not all of them. The word “folk” gets tossed around a lot, but I would say this is more “acoustic music” than actual folk. Good voice and some real feel in the […]
These guys are a three piece out of Milwaukee who share a member of Chinese Telephones, though this is a far cry from those pop punk stalwarts. First off, this whole album is a collection of live recordings from WMSE Milwaukee and it sounds killer. Indonesian Junk taps into that mid-’70s punk sound, analogous to […]
If you’re going to name your band after a Geza X song then you better bring it; and Isotope Soap certainly bring it. They exist in real time but in the realm of past bands like Throbbing Gristle, Factrix, early Devo, DAF, early Cabaret Voltaire, and the like. Futuristic, yet primitive. Synths mixed with analog, […]
If it wasn’t for a single released earlier this year, I would have been totally surprised by this album. James Domestic is in a number of bands and is mostly renowned for creating a rip-roaring racket. Carrion Repeating finds Domestic hitting a number of different musical bases including post-punk, soul, funk, and punk to bring […]
Justin Maurer (Clorox Girls, Suspect Parts, Maniac, and ASL interpreter boy wonder), Jacobo Fernandez, and Gabriel Lopez recorded “Tranjinero,” a straightforward power pop tune with a swinging melody. Laden with farfisa over a surf beat, sung in Spanish, “Tranjiero” was recorded in Mexico City, which perhaps adds to the mood of colorful optimism to its […]
Jenny is a project of Justin Maurer from the bands Clorox Girls, Maniac, and L.A. Drugz, conceived during a visit to Mexico. The result is this catchy single—with the A side sung in Spanish and the B side in English, containing two sugary sweet power pop-ish songs that do not disappoint. Anyone familiar with Justin’s […]
You know when you show up to an art-school-kid warehouse gig two hours after start time and the first band is still dicking around duct-taping their keyboards together, then they disappear to put on costumes, and by the time they emerge you’re drunk and restless, thinking, “This had better be fucking good.”? Well, John Paul […]