Bloodpheasant, “Traum” LP

cover - bloodpheasant traumThe newest Tor Johnson Records release, Bloodpheasant‘s Traum, showed up a while back, and it took me nearly a week to get to listen to it. I’m usually prone to throwing whatever Paul’s sent in the mail straight onto the turntable after I get in the house, but somehow, this languished on my coffee table for the better part of six days.

The reason I say all of this is to emphasize how bummed I felt halfway through opening cut, “A Bird and Its Wings.” I could’ve listened to this all last week, but no — I had to do productive things instead of getting lost in this Rhode Island quartet’s twangy, apocalyptic doom.
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Watery Love, “Decorative Feeding” LP

Watery Love‘s new album on In the Red, Decorative Feeding is blown the fuck out. It appropriately pegs the VU meters in the red for pretty much the entire duration of the LP.

Waterylove_jacketDecorative Feeding isn’t a subtle album. Vocals are hoarsely shouted, and declamed more than sang. The band rocks the same drum beat for most of the album, with Watery Love seeming like it’s about to fall apart at any given moment.

It’s a tenuous connection holding everything together — you wonder if the first few times this happened live, everyone in Watery Love just ended up sitting on the stage as feedback rolled out of amplifiers and somebody screamed into a microphone. It’s a little better on the second side, when the drone gives up to some thrashed-out riffs, but this is an intensely anxious album.
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“Hardcore, Punk, and Other Junk” demonstrates aggressive music has more to offer than the mosh

book cover - hardcore punk and other junkIt’s a shame that Hardcore, Punk, and Other Junk: Aggressive Sounds in Contemporary Music is sort of marketed as an academic book. This collection of essays, edited by Eric James Abbey and Colin Helb, with a little tweaking, could easily fit into any popular punk or metal magazine’s pages with little change in approach.

The essays run the gamut from deeply scientific to historical to a trifle fannish. The editors’ approach and aim is to discuss “the important need of aggressive release in our world.” You’ve got the scientific approach, which breaks down both Sid Vicious’ take on the Sinatra standard “My Way,” dissecting lyrical changes and chord alteration to make the point that the song transcends pure cover and becomes a sort of “cannibalization” of the original.
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Sean Hoen on writing “Songs Only You Know”

sean hoen
Sean Hoen‘s memoir of his youth, Songs Only You Know, came out yesterday from Soho Press. It’s an emotional read, fraught with stories of a family of the brink of collapse and finding personal expression within the arms of the Detroit hardcore scene. Hoen isn’t afraid to tell his story with raw, open, honestly, and the result is a book that instantly drops you into a whirlwind of feelings.

I spoke with Hoen by phone a few weeks back, and we discussed the book in detail, as well as his writing process and influences.
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Ruleta Rusa, “No Aqui Es” LP

cover - ruleta rusaLooking at the cover, I was thinking, “What the fuck? Did Sorry State put out a thrash record?” Just taking a glance at the jacket for Ruleta Rusa‘s No Aqui Es, and you’re thinking Grim Reaper or some other mid-’80s stalwarts.

However, the instant the needle drops on this LP, and it’s a different matter. This is rock ‘n’ roll — punk ‘n’ roll, if you want to be specific. It’s like Motorhead at first, but moves smoothly into ’80s hardcore by the end of the first side.

To clarify, in terms of hardcore, it’s got that East Coast flair, where everything was a little more standard rock ‘n’ roll, whereas West Coast hardcore always seemed a little warmer — it’s a totally random decision I made on my own, to which I attribute the weather differences.
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Police Bastard, “Confined” CD

cover - police bastard confinedThe two-minute intro that starts out “The Curse of the Cross,” the first track on Police Bastard‘s Confined, just about did me in. Intros — especially when they choose to simply cycle around one riff / drumbeat / bassline — can wear out their welcome and kill a song before it really kicks in. Considering “The Curse of the Cross” is a slow, plodding track, it takes a bit to get through.

It’s a good track, don’t get me wrong: it just fucking drags for a bit. It pays off with a song that creeps along, using lines like “the virus has spread” to compare religion to a plague taking over the world. “Sick Sick System,” in addition to a clever fucking title, continues the idea that man and religion have scoured the planet.
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Springtime, “South Hill” 7-inch

cover - springtimeIs it lazy to describe Springtime‘s South Hill 7-inch as post-Cro Mags hardcore, fronted by Henry Rollins? Something about Springtime makes me want to start shorthanding every reference.

The group’s quite good — don’t get me wrong. This is actually one of the heavier releases Tiny Engines has put out. It’s just that the whole thing is very ’90s: specifically, early-to-mid, pre-pop punk / emo explosion. The vocals are still getting spit, but melodicism tempers the anger.
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AFI / Touche Amore / Coming at the Granada

Just discovered that I’d not uploaded pictures from last Thursday’s AFI show at the Granada. It was the East Bay band’s first tour in over three years, and anticipation was high. Goth kids, hardcore kids, rockers … it was a lot of people in very dark clothes, and wearing an awful lot of makeup, lace, and mesh.

Super-great show — Touche Amore and Coming kicked things off really well. Touche Amore is always always always worth checking out live (first time I’ve been used as a stepping stone in the photo pit, too), and Coming was a pleasant surprise — sort of like vintage AmRep stuff mixed with Deathwish-style hardcore.

Go check it out — the tour continues through November 2. Dates can be found at Punknews.

Tyler Daniel Bean, “Everything You Do Scares Me” 7-inch

cover - tyler daniel beanFor a release that never gets into screaming, pummeling drums, or crazy riffage, Tyler Daniel Bean‘s Everything You Do Scares Me 7-inch from Tor Johnson Records is super-intense. Y’know how “emo” was once shorthand for “emotional hardcore”? That’s what this is — it doesn’t get you with volume, or in-your-face musical acrobatics. The intensity comes from the heft that that music carries.

There’s a weight here that conveys loss beyond just words. “Year of the Snake” rises at one point to seem like there’s going to be a breakdown. From there, it gains some propulsive drums, but it fades out to a slow instrumental bridge that sounds the way it feels to shake with anxiety.
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Barge, “No Gain” 7-inch

cover - barge no gainGrave Mistake Records label head Alex DiMattesa recently teamed up with Bobby Egger, owner of Richmond’s Vinyl Conflict record store to relaunch the label of the same name. While formerly a subsidiary to No Way Records, it’ll now be a sub to Grave Mistake, but will keep the original incarnation’s “focus on Richmond Punk and Hardcore bands.”

First on deck for the relaunched label is Barge‘s No Gain 7-inch. It was pitched to me as “fast hardcore, like Infest / No Comment.” Yes, yes it is. Holy fuck, it’s fast. Eight songs in eight minutes. The first side blazes through so quickly and punishingly, you need that time it takes to flip the record over to brace yourself for what you know is about to come in the second half.
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