Indonesia’s BOTTLED VIOLENT has a name that pretty much tells you all you need to know about their style. With a heavy ’80s USHC influence (namely MINOR THREAT), BOTTLED VIOLENT rips through six tracks on their No Rules EP. Each song is short and sweet with plenty of aggro vocals and clean but frantic guitarwork to go around. Check out “Watch Yourself From the Cops” and “No More.”
Does it get cold in Nova Scotia? Are they playing this fast to try and stay warm?? In any case, twenty songs in twenty-one minutes is gonna generate some heat, and there’s no denying it—EXCITED TO DIE’s debut full-length is a scorcher. The songs aren’t just short, they’re also blisteringly fast, harkening back to the classic era of USHC. Think JERRY’S KIDS minus the showboating behind the drum kit. EXCITED TO DIE clearly don’t have time for nuance, and that is working to their advantage. The vocals sound unhinged and scathing, projecting razor-sharp cynicism through a lens of appropriately negative thinking. The rhythm section is steering the ship with an enviable bass tone and tasteful tempo shifts. There’s just enough dirt on the guitar to give it a tube-driven warmth. It’s obvious that this band is building on a foundation of experience, so it comes as no surprise that their pedigree includes names like MUTATED VOID and BOOJI BOYS. I’d be psyched to see EXCITED TO DIE on a bill with the HELL or LAFFING GAS. Clearly they’re not here for a long time, just for a bad time…in the best possible way.
This EP has a slight transporting effect and breams with teenage eagerness. INGRATES hail from the cosmic, otherworldly desert of Joshua Tree and don’t want to work, to the extent of singing a song about the matter. Who the hell can blame them? The title track is the drunken, power pop-tinged record I want to hear in the damp, dark corner of a bar. The slightly longer B-side moves into more lo-fi pop harmonizing in the name of leather endearment. The EP summons a time when the BOYS screamed “Brickfield Nights” and does a good job doing so. It’s the record I could see my thirteen-year-old self buying with saved lunch money.
Heavy powerviolence/hardcore from Portland, Maine’s MISERY WHIP, not to be confused with the death metal band of the same name from Portland, Oregon (wait, what’s going on here?). This eight-song cassette has both previously released singles “Misery Whip” and “Dissent,” the latter having a really brutal breakdown that screams “You are a piece of shit!” Check out the absolutely ferocious “Empty Words” for a good sample of the band. This reminds me of G.L.O.S.S. but darker in its lyrics and imagery. Accept the whip, take a listen.
Boston hardcore punk pogo exciters. Angry vocals, simple yet classically effective punk, blasting with a messy craziness of stabbing guitars and never-ending ranting drums. Favorite track: “Manmade Hell,” for some very well-executed stomping hardcore. Nice frantic cadences filled with the violence of classic USHC punk and strident guitars. Give ‘em a go. I will check out No Norms Records after this one. Fresh-feeling for pure raw punk with slightly faster tempos, full of traces of classical times yet enforced by newer turns.
Coming from Los Angeles, S.O.H. gives us some raging hardcore crust. This band can write a hardcore crust song while having some melody in their musical structure, and that’s not a bad thing. Their music has a lot of different textures to it, and they can take you up a mountain and then drop you off a cliff. I like it. It reminds me just a bit of some of the crust and hardcore that came out in the 1990s. This band makes their own music their own way and it sounds how they want it to. Now that’s punk!
Excellent release from Albany’s WET SPECIMENS, whose brand of deathrock-tinged hardcore punk never disappoints. Dying in a Dream features four tracks that see the band sounding cohesive and powerful, leaning into goth territory without ever sounding like a novelty act. In particular, the buzzsaw guitars on the opening title track and the doom-and-gloom of “Curtain Call” sound great, but this one’s a banger from start to finish. Highly recommended for fans of other evil punks ZORN and NURSE.
