Reviews

Raw Sugar

Laughing Torso Dead Homies EP

Humid and dense, like their hometown of New Orleans. Their suffocating sound is hard to map cleanly as it leaves a swampy trail. The whole record just runs on hatred and forward motion with the deadliest of insistence. Repetition becomes erosion with every riff, feeling like it’s sanding another layer off the original idea. They sound like the ’00s hardcore bands that sprinkled a little crustiness in their punk—CATHARSIS comes to mind, especially because of the smothering, screeched vocals. Overall, a great EP for those who like dangerous music. Plus, the cover has a flail that is also a skull. How could you go wrong?

Noxeema Sick EP

Lots of ties to MRR with this band! Cissie Scurlock (bass) was an MRR coordinator for a while, and Erin Yanke (drums) reviewed demos and often contributes to our year-end top tens. Now, is that going to stop me from shitting on this record? No, it is not. What is going to stop me, though, is how much I love it. It’s been seven years since their last release, but that’s not at all apparent from listening to this. Sick picks up exactly where their debut EP left off, like a handful of friends who’ve never not been punks just happened to be together and got the urge to record some songs. The end result is nine one-minute tracks of trebly-as-hell punk (no subgenre necessary). It kinda sounds like Dangerhouse-era stuff mixed with something more melodic. Or maybe it’s like 50% JFA, 50% SIN 34. It doesn’t really matter—whatever it is, it’s great, and never has a group’s love of punk or DIY culture been more audible.

Petty Crime Brighton, UK, 1999 EP

A year after putting out one of the best 7”s of the ’90s (1998’s Forfeit Intent EP) on one of the greatest labels of the ’90s (Slampt Underground Organisation forever), Helen White and Layla Gibbon of PETTY CRIME took their short, sharp girl-gang post-punk missives to the domestic interior space of a literal bedroom, recording three new tracks to cassette that remained unheard until now. Intimate, immediate, and with a joyously shambolic recklessness, Brighton, UK, 1999 is not unlike eavesdropping on conspiratorial plots being devised from the other side of a paper-thin wall—when Helen and Layla sing and shout about truth and detachment and misplaced trust, it’s always with an underlying sense of danger. Taut bass weaves around sparse scratches of guitar, desperate rhythms are pounded out on household objects functioning as makeshift drums, and the ultra-lo-fi presentation of it all truly underscores the feeling of stumbling on a radical secret straight from the organizing committee of the boy/girl revolution. A life-affirming document!