Reviews

Daniel Z.

Bleak Streak Bleak Streak LP

If any country has the melodic chops to churn out something you can easily describe as “dark power pop” and not have it suck, it would have to be Sweden. This Stockholm three-piece owes a lot to the KINKS and American power pop of the late ’70s like BRAM TCHAIKOVSKY, but filtered through a darker, very Nordic sound. Think what TERRIBLE FEELINGS or BURNING KITCHEN did to punk, but done to something Paul Collins would write or GALAXIE 500 would play. The guitars bounce between jangling and distorting, the vocal delivery is decidedly exerted but somehow emotionally restrained (very Swedish, in my experience with their musical output at least). A very impressive collection of little details that wind up making power pop songs with a punkish edge that ebbs and flows depending on the feel of the song. I’m a sucker for good melodies, so songs on the poppier end of their sound (like album highlight “Dark”) are more my bag, but even when they ride the accelerator or get a little somber, they deliver something their own and worthwhile. No filler here, a proper record of vinyl-worthy tunes.

Scrapped Plans Buddy Buddy Belgium LP

This record is brought to you by a sort of  pop punk supergroup featuring Grath Madden (the STEINWAYS, ROBOT BACHELOR, etc.), Michelle Shirelle (the STEINWAYS, HASTY), Fraser Murderburger (the MURDERBURGERS, WRONG LIFE, the PHASE PROBLEM), Kieron Jordan (DON BLAKE), and, of course, Mikey Erg (every other band on the planet). The TL;DR story here is that this sounds like a deliciously balanced mix of the STEINWAYS and the MURDERBURGERS, but that simplification would betray the quality of  this project. Two pillars hold this up: songcraft of the highest order by people who love the melodic side of punk rock so fucking much, and the fun they probably had making this record. The songs sound like they just came together with clever hooks and catchy melodies out of an epic hangout session, which from what I’ve read is kind of what happened. Standout tracks for me are the ones that spotlight Michelle Shirelle (one full-band and one acoustic), but as a long-time enjoyer of the work of everyone in this band, this was tailor-made for me.

The Remote Controls Too Tough CD

I fucking love this record. Pop punk done beyond right with RAMONES riffs as a foundation, building on top of it with Midwestern melody (think NAKED RAYGUN around Jettison), and topping things off with nods to the golden era of Lookout! Records pop punk (SCREECHING WEASEL/the QUEERS’ best moments). Catchy as hell, great raspy vocals, with melodic and tempo changes to keep things interesting through the beefy runtime the fourteen tracks get up to. This is what guitar-driven melodic punk should be shooting for, killer release.

Derrumbe El Animal Humano LP

Solid twenty-minute-ish slab of D-beat/mid-tempo hardcore punk, with really clean production on the guitars and a bit of reverb on the vocals and drums. What stands out to me the most about this record is that it works so well as an album/release; it has an aural cohesion that tells a story from despair to outrage/hope. The first half feels a little clenched tight and it gives way to more flourishes (maybe even a little melody) and hopeful-feeling moments. The vocals took a couple listens to click for me (I have a weird relationship with reverbed vocals), but when they did, it really worked with the music. Lyrically, there is a poetry to it that you don’t usually see with this kind of punk expression,  which was quite impressive—at least in the Spanish language songs, but I guess the song in Basque is probably along the same lines. Really impressed with the use of song structure here to benefit the feel/effect of the songs, well worth a listen.

Primal Brain Is It All a Game? cassette

Third release for this Oklahoma City unit. The main inspiration here is ’80s American hardcore with pedal-to-the-floor intensity and some noisy elements, especially around the vocals. There’s some moments of wild speed, but what stands out for me is the mix/production for the guitar: the whole mix is centered on it, and the distortion flirts with being clean-ish in a very Midwestern HC way. This is decidedly not hardcore worship or rehash; every song on here goes hard, regardless of tempo, with plenty of interesting twists and turns. Great fucking hardcore punk that stands out among its peers, like OUT COLD put in a blender with weirdo Midwest HC vibes.

TA-80 Open Late cassette

Punk rock that you can circle-pit to with a smile on your face. This is pop punk in the non-pejorative sense, meaning it is loaded with massive hooks and anthemic sing-alongs with enough melody to infiltrate even the most resistant ear. The overall feel of the album is late-night hangouts after a show, possibly in a parking lot, just enjoying being a punk and hanging out with other punks. Lyrically, that feeling is enforced with mostly celebrations of being part of the community, politically and socially. Think of MIXTAPES at their most upbeat or the JETTY BOYS at their most catchy, add a healthy dose of beer and Midwest, and that will take you most of the way to where this record plants its flag. Gotta respect the balls to try yet another cover of TOTO’s “Africa,” but honestly the band does well by themselves on it. A fun summer record if I ever heard one, meant for hangouts with good people.

Gagu Gagu demo cassette

If this was a little noisier, I could see this being a regular release on Iron Lung Records. It’s the kind of intentionally ugly hardcore you’d see on the label, but maybe a little too clean-sounding for them. This is fucking outstanding, stompy at times, with vocals reverbed just right to elevate the bile and urgency of their delivery. The more I listened to this, the more that different bands came to mind…a more raw punk BOSTON STRANGLER, a more hardcore WHITE GUILT, an intensely focused HOAX…but the fact that every turn had me thinking of other great bands just highlighted that this band is doing their own thing. Even caught some powerviolence vibes here and there, which is a feature not a bug in my book. Ten out of ten, no fucking notes—if you like hardcore punk, go find this.

Smith Grind Curb Appeal LP

This band has members of FALL SILENT, who did the capital-H/’90s hardcore thing pretty hard, mixed with crossover/thrash elements. Here, thrash is the main ingredient (definitely of the thrash revival variety), with some intermittent forays into capital-H hardcore. A pretty solid effort, but some of the songs are a bit long for my taste (four of the ten tracks go beyond two-and-a-half minutes, with one track going over four), and they kinda lose me when they add breakdowns after what feels like a perfectly fine end for the songs. Not great, not terrible, might be worth your time if modern hardcore mixed with revival thrash sounds like your bag.

Bunnygrunt Action Pants! Thirtieth Anniversary Director’s Cut LP

Reissue of St Louis’s underrated indie pop/rock stalwarts’ debut LP. This record is fucking fantastic. While mostly it stays in the lane of upbeat twee pop endemic of the indie pop scene of the era (yet another record I’m reviewing for MRR with a big ole whiff of GO SAILOR/TIGER TRAP coming off it, and I ain’t mad), they do bring in some fuzzier guitar moments and even shoegaze-y ambience to mix things up and grab from indie rock sounds that were the style at the time. This reissue sounds great and features four tracks not on the original release: “Inanimate Objects,” which came out on a single shortly after the original release, and three songs fronted by their original bass player Renee, which had been dropped from the original release after her not-so-amicable split from the band. If you’re in the market for twee pop with a little bit of a rougher edge, or if you are into indie pop at all, this is a must-own record.

G*U*N*N G*U*N*N LP

The main influence I hear is the FU’S. Even a little bit of STRAW DOGS in a couple tunes, but generally speaking, the approach is incredibly satisfying meat-and-potatoes hardcore. What you can also hear, though, is California. Think stuff like the FACTION, with that focus on skating and partying and just being a Cali punk. I am not familiar with their earlier releases, but this sounds incredibly purposeful—love to hear a band knowing who they are and exactly what they want to do on a record. The record absolutely benefits from repeated listens, it gets more fun the more familiar you are with what’s happening, and I appreciate the SPAZZ-ish devotion to throwing in samples to make the whole thing feel even more cohesive. This would be a great second or third release for most bands, but as a debut LP, it’s even more remarkable.

Les Lullies Une Nuit à Leipzig LP

LES LULLIES play a brand of punkish rock’n’roll that proudly wears its French roots on its sleeves. Yes, you’re gonna hear influences from the EXPLODING HEARTS, and you can compare their approach to bands like ROUGH KIDS, but there is an underlying tinge of that French garage sound that will not be denied. That dancey/joyful vibe certainly underlies this live LP that resolved the question of “what do they actually sound like live?” for me in quite a satisfying way. I found the first LP to lean a little too hard on production to make it feel like garage rock, while the second saw them commit to a cleaner and much more powerful punk rock sound which made it my favorite of the two. The live setting lets the band come through way more than the production choices of the first LP could, lending energy and a little fun looseness that feels like actual personality, while the amazing recording job (direct soundboard, if I had to guess) gives you a pretty broad sense of their power as a band. The night’s proceedings feature a very well-curated selection of originals from throughout their career, plus a DEAD MOON cover that earns its spot but feels the lesser surrounded by so many great original tunes. Like most live records, this is a no-brainer purchase for already established fans, but it also upends the “preaching to the choir” nature of other such efforts working really well as an introduction to the band at its best for the uninitiated. This kicks ass.

Agathocles / Yacöpsae Very Old Shit split LP

No false advertising here, this is indeed very old shit from both bands. The YACÖPSAE side is remarkably consistent in recording quality for a collection of 30-plus-year-old tracks, though you are going to get way more of a “mid-’80s German hardcore punk band in the practice room” feeling than you will their insane, speed-obsessed final form. There’s a couple songs that set foot into the blastbeat zone and scream of things yet to come, but overall, you get a lot more punky tupa-tupa than you see from the lads these days. Being firmly in the YACÖPSAE camp in terms of preference, I enjoyed their side way more. I found it interesting hearing them sound like they could have become an altogether different band from these recordings, an alternate universe version where YACÖPSAE went more straight-up hardcore punk. The AGATHOCLES side varies wildly in quality almost from track to track; you can tell these are from a lot of different recordings and they definitely dip below the “listenable enough” line a few times. You get very primitive-sounding mincecore, from probably one of the best documented bands in the history of the planet. The vibe on this side is more along the lines of a band working out their shit to become what we all know them to be, and that I just found less compelling. Overall, this is for the diehards, kind of inessential truth be told, but maybe something people interested in the history of the bands or with a love of that “we brought a boombox to record our band practice” sound will find value in.

The Slugs A Song for Every Feeling LP

I came into this record not familiar with the SLUGS, but from the first track it took me back to a time when I would listen to the MOLDY PEACHES and a bunch of lo-fi indie pop. Mind you, where the PEACHES were a little unhinged and wild, these two British girls are more cheeky and adorable in a very bedroom pop kind of way. One member plays drums, the other guitar/bass, and they both sing line for line with each other on basically every moment of the record. This approach, youthful songwriting mixed with clean, clear production, creates quite a bit of charm (and takes the whole thing out from under the lo-fi banner). The band didn’t pull the album title out of their ass either: each song goes for a different feeling, even if sometimes they can be too precious to pinpoint what that feeling is aside from “cute.” Still, there are some very catchy moments, interspersed with some clever bits that betray a band with more depth than one would initially assume them to have. The whole endeavor gave me an “I don’t wanna grow up” feeling that I can certainly identify with, and though not the most memorable record I’ve heard, it’s not forgettable either. I hate to use the term, and I use it as much as a compliment as it can be, but this record is nice. Just nice as hell. It’s not gonna kick your ass/change your life and it may be a little too breezy, but goddamn, it’s nice.

Nuclear Fear Pantomime of Power EP

If you want to be transported to the era of nuclear paranoia and unhinged Scandinavian hardcore punk, then throw this on and spend just a hair under six minutes with this UK outfit. Featuring members of NWOBHC standouts ARMS RACE and the FLEX, this record bludgeons you with what it wants to do. Buzzsaw guitars push to the forefront while acid leads wail at you from behind pounding drums that owe more than a bit to that MOB 47 manic pace so many of us know and love. It’s not just ’80s worship though, the spirit NWOBHC can definitely be heard, and more importantly felt here. The production/mixing go a long way to place the band, their sound, and their very righteous anger in the modern era. The gruff vocals feel desperate and hopeless, which fits with the lyrics that swing from deeply personal despair to very pointed political rage (standout track “DTZWM (Destroy the Zionist War Machine)” leaves no doubt where the band stands ideologically). NUCCLEAR FEAR sounds like a band with a very clear objective on this, doing everything a hardcore punk EP should do in exactly the time needed to do it. Very solid work that wets the appetite for what the band may be able to put together in a whole LP worth of tunes.

Sub/Shop Democatessen cassette

Off the bat, the quality and quantity of music on this release makes me think this can’t possibly qualify as a demo, even though it has an excellent name for one. Hailing from Richmond, VA, the band is composed of veterans of a slew of bands in and around Richmond, and  the level of experience certainly shows. What we have here is post-hardcore, but not in the ethereal, spacy, heavy realm that the label has been pulled towards in the last decade or so. The band harkens back to where the genre was in the ’90s, specifically where bands like STATE OF THE NATION and SENSE FIELD were crafting rock-centered, punk-feeling intelligent music. There is a clear foundation here with DINOSAUR JR.-type angularity, but just like post-hardcore itself, it’s more complex to nail down a direct comparison among the many places their inspiration and influences probably came from. A record like this will certainly yield different things with each listen, and personally, I’m most of the way to being 100% on board with this band’s brand of extremely well-thought-out rock music. The songwriting is mature and avoids falling into musical tropes, getting surprisingly clever to put hooks into your brain with the more melodic moments (album closer “Negative Discourse” could easily be a lost TEXAS IS THE REASON track), but also letting you down in just the right way when going into some really off-the-beaten-path passages. Post-hardcore/punk for when you want to engage and not just listen to something.

Hasty Hasty cassette

I’ve been a huge fan of Michelle Shirelle since her days in the STEINWAYS, and on her latest output, fronting a three-piece band out of NYC, she delivers the goods yet again. Michelle did excellent work on the debut LP from SCRAPPED PLANS last year, a sort of pop punk supergroup with members of the MURDERBURGERS and the ERGS!, but where that leaned into guitar-driven modern punk, here she takes it down a notch and injects a very indie pop vibe into the proceedings (think CUB or GO SAILOR). Four tracks of bouncy pop punk with very catchy melodies tossed between sardonic and sweet-sounding vocals, the whole tape flies by and leaves you wanting more. There’s a note from Michelle in the insert accompanying the tape talking about how when this was recorded, she was dealing with her cat having a pretty stressful health emergency, but you wouldn’t be able to tell from listening to this—it just puts you in a good mood and makes you tap your foot. This kind of stuff can come across as disposable or forgettable, but the band does a great job of making this stand out and be worth your time. Get it if you’re out there fiending for melody.