Reviews

Tennessee Cold Cuts

Bad Hippy Enthroned cassette

Fukkkk, this thing sounds ugly. Disgusting sonic filth from Tennessee, BAD HIPPY sounds like those four high school classmates who started a band because they were the only four mutants in town and they bonded. One liked primitive black metal, another grooved to DOWN or some shit like that, one fucked with CRAZY SPIRIT, and the singer was the little brother of one of the guys in ASSCHAPEL…or maybe his kid. They had a buddy with a Tascam four-track, they traded the session for a twelver of Busch they paid some bum $5 to steal for them, and the result was Enthroned. That’s my fukkn story and please don’t prove me wrong. The sound? Fucking raw-as-shit, demonic, low-end sinister sludge crust stoner punk churns—this is to some kid in 2025 Tennessee what BUZZOV•EN’s Wound was to me in 1992 (at least I hope it is).

Barcode Barcode cassette

Murfreesboro, Tennessee solo garage punk project. This is the debut release from BARCODE, which consists of four tracks of impossibly lo-fi recording quality. This tape is really interesting and the project seems like it could be very cool, but the lack of any sort of production makes it difficult to digest. Certain frequencies come through so harshly, mostly on the canned drums, that it becomes a bit of a chore to focus on and decipher, and I’m someone who loves when recordings are endearingly shitty. According to the label, all the tracks used on the four-track recording for this demo were recorded as voice memos on a phone. Perhaps that begins to explain why I have listened to it four times already and still can’t fully wrap my head around what I’m listening to. That isn’t to say that the songs are bad. Far from it, actually! The songwriting is pretty interesting, garage punk with drum machine dance beats and egg-punk chorus pedal twangy guitars. The vocals are delivered bizarrely lackadaisically, again perhaps due in part to the recording method. All in all it sounds like an egg-punk lo-lo-lo-fi bedroom pop project. I can’t wait for the recording setup to be upgraded in the slightest amount so that I can fully tell what BARCODE sounds like.

Mako Vanish… Into Darkness cassette

Tennessee-based extreme music novelty project themed entirely about sharks, as could potentially be deduced by the name. My initial thought of the project is that it was probably a fun, goofy thing to do with some friends over the course of a weekend, and I highly doubted we would see another release by MAKO. Doing some digging, I have found that, against all odds, this is somehow the band’s fifth release, and they are a self-proclaimed “sharkgrind” band. Well, guess I was way off. Granted, I don’t have a ton of knowledge about modern grindcore or its subgenre of goregrind, and know absolutely nothing about its sub-subgenre of sharkgrind. Onto the music. The band’s shark obsession might sound like a fun gimmick on paper, but MAKO proves that even apex predators can flop. There are plenty of hooks, but unfortunately they’ve all gone dull, resulting in a sea of forgettable riffs. Mostly the recording just kind of sounds like unremarkable grindcore, but there are multiple times where the song will be bopping along at a decent pace, then the tempo drastically slows down when blastbeats are forced in, waiting for the beat to catch up. Peppering the little surf drumbeat into the most tongue-in-cheek song on the tape (“Shark Attack!”) was a fun little touch, tho. When all is said and done, this is a real catch-and-release kind of cassette for me.

The Skrewups Dial 9… cassette

This EP kicks off with a really fantastic instrumental surf track in the same vein as a sinister MAN… OR ASTRO-MAN? but quickly evolves into your run-of-the-mill MISFITS-worship, going as far as to cover “Hollywood Babylon.” The band is obviously quite talented, but do we really need more horror punk in the 21st century? It almost hurts to say this, as the vocalist has great range and sustainability, but I was more excited for the opening song than anything else on this slab.

Vampiric Baptism Vampiric Baptism cassette

One-man black metal action out of Tennessee. Really solid stuff, and very impressive that this is just one dude, sans the operatic vocals on “War Garden.” That’s only just a guess, though. It could potentially be the same guy! This is your standard black metal affair, but there are a couple tracks that reach outside of the genre, such as “Blood Sucker” which sounds like it came straight from the Matrix soundtrack. Great, bloodcurdling vocals; raw and natural without any additional effects, minus reverb. The album closes on a really lovely acoustic rendition of “War Garden.” Highly recommended for all fans of the grim and frostbitten

Weatherwise Demos cassette

The vocals remind me of one of the singers from the band ALL, and a different singer reminds me of one of the singers from the ARRIVALS. Musically, I feel like there is way too much going on in these songs for it to be interesting. Maybe I have to be driving in the wee hours of the morn blasting this for the two-hundredth time, knowing all the changes in the music and the yell parts and such. This is a complicated demo to talk about because it pulls from all the great punk, indie, emo, mosh, and metal things that are loved, but hovers an atom’s width under delivering something memorable. Maybe like a PLANES MISTAKEN FOR STARS kinda thing. I’m not familiar with this style of emo-pop, change-heavy, almost-exciting style. “Sticks & Stones May Break My Bones (But My Actions Will Haunt Me Forever)” is my favorite song on here, with the straightforward structure ringing in an AGAINST ME! and THIS BIKE IS A PIPE BOMB vibe. I’m interested to see how this band evolves.