Hey long time no see, right? Yep I've been busy. You don't care? You're damn right.
Let's go through some of my favorite records of 2023, I call it Best Of because it's easy and was recommended by the RAF marketing department but yes it sounds like this supermarket Christmas compilation you bought for your granny when you were 10. In the end it's just a list of records I enjoyed this year, with my priceless comments as a bonus.
As in 2020 and 2021 I will stick to 10 LPs, 10 EPs and 10 demos. A lot of good stuff came out this year (and a loooot more crap) so it was not easy to limit myself to 10 records of each category (especially for the EP format) but what can I do, gotta follow the rules, right?
This may come as a surprise to some of you, but these records cover a relatively wide range of musical genres, from furious hardcore punk to cold-indus-wave-whatever to noise rock. Yes, indeed. Not sorry.
LPs
In No Particular Order
With two ex-members of Life Trap, G.U.N could only bring back the great No Way Records sound of the mid 2000s when bands like Government Warning and Direct Control were leading the game with their super fast 80s inspired hardcore punk. G.U.N delivers the perfect embodiment of that sound, the perfect balance between speed and tightness at the service of punk chaos.
This LP takes me back to my (one-sided) teenage romance with American hardcore. A must-have, all killer no filler record.
Ok this one is going to be in so many 2023 TOPs that I don't think there is much more to say. I already wrote a lot about these guys in 2019 and again in 2021 when they released their third 7".
The Olympia gang is ruling over the realm of hardcore punk at the moment and seeing them live at K-Town in 2022 just made it obvious, there is no point in arguing man, Electric Chair fuckin' rules.
The masters of Käng in Paris are back! I already wrote a lot of good things about Turquoise in 2021 and I could write a lot more today. It's always a bit embarrassing to say nice things about the music played by people you know (so much easier to shout around that it's all one big pile of stinking shit) but after all you can't really avoid Turquoise when you live here (if you're in Paris any day of the week there is a strong chance Turquoise is playing somewhere) and, honestly, they're the best in town at the moment.
Keeping the same formula as on Hantise, the four-piece's managed to improve the songwriting making each song unique and easily recognizable (you'll agree that's far from easy for a D-beat band). At first I was a bit disturbed (disappointed?) by the way the guitar sounds, very lightly distorted, a far cry from the usual crushing Scandinavian D-beat mayhem most Totalitär-worship acts tend to blast. But in the end, after a few listens, I realized that it smartly gives more room to the bass and vocals without diminishing the energy in the least, good move.
As usual the lyrics are at least one step above your average French punk band (not a single word about "streets" and "rain", thank you) and that's much appreciated. I loved the sarcasm about social media punk marketing.
In a nutshell: Just like Hantise; Sang, Larmes et Râles is a must-have.
Rest in Punk "Papi".
Are we soon going to see an end to that never-ending stream of Aussie rock'n roll bands? I hope so, it's getting a bit tiresome hearing about "the new sensation from Australia" every other day, really.
In the meantime, I see no reason not to enjoy Piss Shivers' debut record:
A few seconds into the first song is enough to make it hard to believe that Piss Shivers are a duo, yes there is Gemma from The Blankettes on drums and Caleb from Church Of Christ (great band name mate) on guitar and mic and that's it. Just those two. Crazy.
Indeed, this album is full of damn noisiness, far more than you'd expect two people to be capable of. Which brings me to one of the main reasons why this album made my list of favorite records of the year (congratulations). It sounds GREAT!
Piss Shivers play some kind of punk, it's hard to say exactly what kind, but let's say something between not-so-fast not-too-distorted hardcore punk and something closer to modern Aussie punky rock'n roll or something like that. But the guitar definitely sounds punk in a Regulations or Amdi Petersens Armé way, the vocals too for that matter but with a grunge touch at times. Oh and the kick is very (very) loud.
So yes a punker version of Aussie modern rock'n rool sounds about right, think of a mix between Punter, Clamm (an extremely disappointing live band by the way) and Stiff Richards.
But are Piss Shivers able to make the same kind of havoc on stage?
We'll see.
I loved the swedish trio's debut album back in 2021 and, unsurprisingly, I love Helping Bats Helping People, their second release.
Still mastering a perfect balance of noisy chaos, grungy vibes and depressed-teenager-screaming-of-despair-in-a-gloomy-bedroom vocals, Bathouse deliver six killer tracks (yes six only, its' really short and technically doesn't even fit in the LP category) to blast at maximum volume, windows wide open, in your knickers on a nice summer's day lying on the filthy floor of your crappy apartment.
In 2021 I wrote "this mess is so noisy that your
brain takes you straight to the dark closet in the back of your foggy mind
where
Scratch Acid,
Brainbombs,
Pissed Jeans
are getting shitfaced with
Walking Korpses
and
The Hospitals... add some relentless heavy drumming, a few overweight distorted
bass lines in the background and some vocals ranging from anguished and
heartbreaking screams to 90's-style laments and you'll get a closer picture of what kind of racket
Bathouse is able to make..."
That's still where we are today and that's all we need.
I'm just a bit disappointed by the cover artwork, the one from the other LP was without any doubt a lot better (both were made by Klara Viriden though).
Somebody wrote somewhere that this album might be the answer to the simple question: "what is noise rock?".
Once upon a time, there was a very noisy band from Pittsburgh called Truss. One day, this band decided to change its name to Mirakler and to continue being noisy, maybe even noisier.
If you like your noise-rock a bit grungy on the edge you're definitely in for a treat. Drawing inspiration from the best of Metz, early Gloop and Seattle grunge, Mirakler has a single mission: to destroy your inner and outer ears with walls of raucous riffs and feral screams. Despite a couple of life-saving but seriously disturbing interludes, these fifteen tracks fulfill their assignment flawlessly.
Furious.
I hope you're in for some serious ass kicking because because the Chicago band's plans are clearly to cover your butt in bruises. Built from the C.H.E.W line-up minus the singer, Stress Positions follows in the footsteps of super pissed-off, rather fast and technical, woman-led hardcore, with tight, thundering drumming. I wasn't too fond of the vocals in C.H.E.W but Stephanie's are perfect in a super angry, fast and high-pitched way.
After a total killer debut EP in 2022, the band is back with this 9-track LP filled with super-intense, super-tight hardcore assaults of razor-sharp riffs led by a rhythm section that shreds everything in its path. The technicity makes me think of Tørsö, but I would rather categorize Stress Positions along the lines of bands like Punitive Damage or Slant.
The lyrics are full of uncompromising attacks on capitalism, poverty, modern-days American politics and there's not an ounce of sympathy for the police in any of it. I appreciate bands whose lyrics are deeply rooted in the "events" of their time.
Without a doubt, one of the most hard-hitting records of the year.
Go check their videos for Flaming Sword and How To Get Ahead.
Yes Moni Jitchell is a stupid band name, but who am I to judge?
No what really matters is that these two lads from Glasgow (one of them played in Thin Privilege if you're curious about their musical background) manage to produce a very loud and noisy kind of frantic noise rock that literally blew my mind. Yes another duo. Yes it's weird. Yes but why not?
After three tracks of blunt aggressiveness deeply rooted in noise rock territory, the duo doesn't hesitate to take a step sideways with the mid-tempo Sell Sellfish and its tensed atmosphere and screamed vocals that recall the best of At The Drive-In. Old Currency returns to punk territory with straightforward drumming before the sarcastic Moni Jitchell Live at Hellfest finishes the job by slowing the pace down to the slowest of slows that even your neighbour's sludge band wouldn't dare try (fuck the Hellfest by the way?).
Noisy, diverse, exhilarating, energized, pleasant, powerful... in a few words: Very good.
The ADK gang from Berlin is back with another project!
Featuring usual suspects spotted in bands like Liiek, Die Letzten Ecken, Benzin (and maybe Pigeon) who have on multiple occasions proved that they equally master post-punk, "new wave" and fast punk, NOJ tackles a neglected genre in the ADK discography: cold industrial post-punk edging with dark / synth wave.
One Noj track was featured on the Achtung ADK compilation made by Billo a few years ago, the album was recorded by T-Rex and released by Static Age, you get the picture, we're in well-known territory.
These guys depress the hell out of me, every band they form, every record they release is a true masterpiece in its own genre, it's just not fair. Throughout the eight tracks of Waxing Moon, you're swimming in a kind of post-punk "bath", an icy swimming pool soaked in throbbing, repetitive metal rhythms where simple, sparse but biting melodies keep you afloat despite everything. It took me a few listens to really get into the swing of things (especially in the second half of the record, where the electronics become more prominent), but in the end, I love it all.
The kind of record you'll keep coming back to once you're won over.
Perhaps my favourite release of 2023, this is also far from being the easiest record to write about.
When I saw this Nurse 12" emerge from the heaps of new punk stuff brought by the mighty World Wide Web a few months ago, the name rang like a distant bell and I found a few mp3 files in my neatly filed folders. Nurse released a couple of very cool hardcore punk 7" in 2016 and 2017 and a Demo in 2014 that I had completely forgotten existed.
Nurse hails from Atlanta, Georgia, but the four members are now scattered all around the US and, from what I understand, this LP is some kind of testament of sorts and the band will unfortunately not be touring at all. Some of them were / are playing in Uniform, Dasher, Arbor Labor Union, Nö Pöwer (killer D-beat) and plenty of others.
This album thus follows in the footsteps of the band's previous releases, being the absolute pinnacle of the unlikely blend of hardcore punk energy and screaming vocals with a very clean, slightly reverberated guitar sound, that the band already mastered 6 or 7 years ago. Some talked about goth and moody post-punk and yes, obviously, that kind of sound creates an immediate cold and gloomy atmosphere but I don't know about goth or post-punk though, this is still a very hardcore punk record in my opinion.
Melodic AND aggressive AND gloomy AND cold AND fast AND captivating, Nurse's songs are all that and more and yes it's hard to explain how so many adjectives can fit into the description of a single record. The only band I can draw comparisons with is Acrylics, even if they have a more "traditional" hardcore punk sound.
Superbly illustrated by Jeremiah McCleary, this release is just a flawless piece of absolute good taste.
A truely amazing record.
EPs
In No Particular Order
The kings of UK noise-rock are back and, once again, don't disappoint.
There isn't much in Blklstrs' discography I would not recommend to listen to at maximum volume in a crowded public transport at 7AM, but I have to say that since Steven Hodson (from the almighty USA Nails and Kong) joined the Leeds four-piece in 2017 these guys may have released my favourite of their records (the Fantastic Man 2020 LP was in my 2020 top).
Once again Auf Dem Tisch ("on the table" in German) sums up what noise rock is at its best: bass-driven pummelling songs, shrieking vocals recalling Davis Yow's best performances, crushing heavy guitar riffs and most of all a violent, wild, noisy and disorderly atmosphere... it's all there man... on the table.
I wrote about Rifle's debut tape a lifetime ago, it was good, I liked it a lot.
Well get ready for more of the Londoners' 77 punk meets old-school oi! and rock'n roll formula, they're back with a proper 7" this time.
Five tracks, all between 1 minute and 1:50 long, this is short, dense and in-your-face mate. This 7" is the "enhanced" Rifle from the demo, meaning it's the same but better! The writing is better, the energy never wavers, guitar riffs are catchy as fuck and, above all, the whole thing sounds absolutely, utterly, British! And I'm not just talking about the vocals, the whole thing exudes what "everybody" (I guess I mean non English westerners) has in mind when you put the words england and suburbia together. And anyone who's listened to a UK "new wave punk oi! whatever" record from the late 70s or 80s is bound to be a sucker for that British shit.
My band opened for Rifle the last time they played in Paris and they're not just cool lads, they also kill it on stage. Go and see them next time!
Ok something completely different now.
I don't listen so much to KBD / 77 punk anymore, but this EP reminded me in a bang what I loved in that kind of stuff. Coming from Antwerp, Belgium, these guys mention Belgium post-punk legend De Brassers as an influence but I would see them fit better on a Bored Teenager or Bloody Belgium compilation alongside Raxola, Chainsaw and other very rock'n roll-influenced early punk bands from Belgium like (and they have to be mentioned every single time the words punk and Belgium come together somewhere) The Kids. These four tracks are just so full of teenage rock'n roll energy and super catchy riffs you can't really not fall in love at first sight with that shit...
So don't be a grumpy hardcore kid and start shaking that ass before the hype ruins it.
Ok they're friends of mine but that has nothing to do with Tu Veux Du Sale, Tiens En Voilà being on this list. To be honest I didn't really get into their previous releases, the recording didn't help I guess. The band from Caen (Normandy) is back with a new half of their line-up (new singer, an extra guitar but a bass player was lost on the way) and they've never sounded better. It's heavy and slow, mean and nasty with short super fast / blast parts, the kind of dark and (mostly) slow hardcore the new wave of American bands have been playing for a few years (think Gel, Spy, Scowl or Buggin).
Fronted by Elsa who brings a new kind of angry sense of melody with her non-guttural, high pitched but non-banshee vocals (it sounds amazing honestly), the 4-piece delivers six uncompromising politically-charged bangers that take on cops, rape culture and the macho world.
You like it nasty? here it is.
Let's take a detour into straight edge hardcore for once.
After a pretty cool demo in 2022 these young guys and gals come back with what feels like a breath a fresh air in the extremely narrow world of youth crew hardcore (like other punk and hardcore chapels, the "fetishist" side of much of the "movement" for genre dogma is both ridiculous and annoying).
Full of energy, anger, powerful dynamic and catchy rhythms designed to make your little sister mosh like a goblin high on diet coke, these six tracks (and a half) take me back to the days when I was listening to bands like Truth Inside, Outlast and other stuff from Life To Live and Commitment Records. But I don't remember any female fronted band like that back then and it's great to see the scene evolving. Over the last ten years women have (obviously) taken the lead in more and more furious hardcore bands, which has gradually eliminated the macho bullshit from much of this scene (work in progress).
If you're not so much into youth crew but can't resist some well-played, super catchy "danceable" hardcore... you should definitely check out Anklebiter and the video for the song Pearl.
A new project by members of numerous hardcore and oi! bands from NYC (Crucify Me, Intimidation, The Fight, Rose Glass, Stigmatism, Terror Eyes and more), Lethal delivers five track of pure anger and disgust at modern existence in the form of raging hardcore punk. After a killer demo in 2021, the new yorkers keep unleashing raucous, fast and grim tracks that take influence from early Rat Cage Records NY hardcore and classics like Urban Waste and Antidote or, more recently, from all the meaner and nastier stuff Toxic State has been releasing (Warthog, Anti-Machine, Terrorist)... we're talking super angry crushing shit here... and it will destroy absolutely everything in its path.
Hailing from the rather bleak town of Saint Brieuc in the west of France, this new 3-piece features Hugues on drums, who, in addition to having played in numerous bands like 12XU, Dewaere, and Veuve SS among others, has produced a great deal of artwork that you may have seen on flyers, posters or sleeves for various French punk bands. But Hugues is not alone, and his two accomplices look exactly like the kind who would give occasional tinnitus to too many of their unfortunate friends (Actions Fall Short?).
The main problem with Meat Shirt is that I can't really classify them under any of the usual labels... there's something about fast punk that sounds a bit like (nice) hardcore punk but it's not really punk either... garage punk maybe? Don't know what that means really. Even "psychedelic" is mentioned in their description...
Never mind, what really matters is that these six tracks are utterly catchy rock'n'roll anthems with a punk vibe that blow a storm of fresh air over the French punk scene. I don't know of any other band in the country doing anything similar to what these guys are doing.
So please, for once, just shut the fuck up and join the Army of Dolphins.
The UK hardcore punk scene is perhaps one of the most active and creative at the moment, if you're familiar with Crew Cuts' releases you definitely know what I'm talking about.
And to me Consolation was (RIP) without any doubt at the pinnacle of it all. First of all, the way the whole thing sounds gives an immediate very distinctive identity to their songs; strangely there isn't a lot of low frequencies, it's all very high or medium but it fits perfectly with Sean's shrieking / out-of-breath type of vocals. Secondly, the songs are not just an endless streams of ripping guitar riffs played at at the speed of light, the drums are the leading instrument here and open the way by pummelling heavy haunting rhythms (check out the mind-blowing Theft II) over numerous mid-tempo parts made to crush recklessly (but gently) every bone in your body one after the other. But the guitar is far from absent, providing surprisingly dark yet powerful melodies thanks to its flanger/chorus sound. The whole thing is definitely hardcore, but still punk though and that's how I like my hardcore.
Oh and two of these guys used to play in a very fast and very angry band called Jackals you gotta check out.
This shit rips.
I wrote previously about S.O.H and I was very pleasantly surprised to see them team up with one of the West Coast's finest hardcore punk act for this split 7". If you're not familiar with Basuko's short discography you should immediately check out their 2022 7", it rips.
The SOH's side starts with a guitar riff which would not sound totally out of place in a post-punk song before quickly diving right into frantic hardcore punk (but yes post punk riffs are never really far from SOH's songs). Still fronted by Kristine Nevrose from the Tissues and her amazing shrieking banshee-like vocals, it's hard not to be immediately hooked by the energy that bursts from the whole thing. Two killer tracks. Check out their latest video if you haven't already.
Basuko've managed to make their very good, but rather classic, fast hardcore punk sound very distinctive thanks to a very good balance of sound effects on the guitar and vocals, a bit of chorus here and there makes a big difference.
Another beautiful artwork by Sarah Kennedy (who already worked on Basuko's previous 7" artwork and fronts Destros).
You can't go wrong with this one.
Probably my favourite LVEUM release of the year, this EP is a perfect blend of dark, crushing D-beat with a strong Scandinavian influence and today's hardcore punk. AND the sound is exactly as it should be: distorted guitar but not a wall of noise, cool drums that aren't fully "sampled" (and the kick isn't the loudest in the room for once) and vocals that are very angry but not guttural or shrill. Highly enjoyable from the first seconds to the last.
So I was extremely surprised when I learned that Motive was in fact the solo project of a young 17-year-old skateboarder from Leeds who also drums in Blood Feud (check out their 2023 demo if you're into dark and furious hardcore punk).
Oh and Harry also released the crushing Motive's demo that you should definitely check out.
Looks like some of the top D-beat acts of the moment are actually solo projects (Golpe, Rat Cage), which is weird but after all, why not?
Demos
Demos are mostly a punk thing, so there isn't much diversity in terms of musical genre in the below list, if you're not into raw recording and straight forward punk you can beat it now.
There's been a handful of very good demos this year, plenty of good to moderately good tapes and what seemed like an Everest of other dreadful, painful stuff.
What made me choose these ten particular demos to others? hum not sure, here they are anyway.
In no particular order
Popping up just a few days ago on Brain Whasher Records, this new band from Bremen, Germany, consists of some of the usual suspects from the local (and not so local) scene (Ex-Dom, Inferno Personale, Zanjeer and more) so you know exactly what to expect, and what you get. Some ripping hardcore punk leaning heavily on the D-beat side. But the little extra definitely comes from the lyrics in Portuguese, taking us to the shores of early Brazilian punk (or Portuguese but I don't know the Portuguese scene very well), which is really cool.
Highly enjoyable and full of promises.
Camellia Sinensis is a new band with familiar faces from the hyperactive punk bunch of northern France, if you've heard of Gutter (their EP was in my list of favourite records of 2020), Short Days, Utopie etc... you know what I mean. By the way Camellia Sinensis is the scientific name of the tea tree / plant and it's a cool band name.
Fast but heavy hardcore punk with a touch of oi! in the vocals (think Traitre or Don't Need You, Années Zéros etc... I would actually not be surprised that the singer was previously in one of those bands), Camellia Sinensis' five songs are uncompromisingly political, taking on cops and calling for riots (one of the songs was written just after last summer's riots, which shook the whole country for a few weeks).
In a nutshell there is nothing new or surprising here, it's exactly what you'd expect in terms of HxC punk from NP2C, it's simply top notch as always.
But at some point, it would be cool to stop doing the same band over and over again.
Ah at last some proper Finnish hardcore actually out of Finland! Hailing from Helsinki this new band delivers five top-notch tracks of classic Finnish hardcore you'd believe was recorded in a cold basement by another unknown band with an unpronounceable name in the early 80s.
"80s Female-fronted Finnish hardcore" immediately brings Pyhäkoulu to mind but they were never really fast so the comparison doesn't hold (there's Rutto but the only recording I know of is complete crap). No you have to look to more recent bands like Kohti Tuhoa, Kovaa Rasvaa or Kätyrlauma to find something a bit similar even if Plasma sounds more 80s and less "modern days hardcore" than the aforementioned bands.
I'm sure you get the picture by now anyway.
New band from the "world's most isolated big city" (Perth, Australia) featuring members from various past and present WA punk acts (Kero, ALF, Bikini Cops, Paranoias and probably a bunch more), Termite takes us to the US of A with some top notch American hardcore punk with a slight rock'n roll twist in the vein of Innuendo, Beta Boys, Feral, early Lysol and thousands others. And I can't say no to that kind of stuff...
You know what you get, so just say yes.
Another great hardcore punk demo coming from Leeds, this scene is definitely one to keep an eye on. Featuring past members of Mob Rules, The Wound and Perspex Flesh, Pleasure takes us to Black Flag's Rollins era when Greg Ginn had no scruples any more (did he ever?) about letting his sonic fantasies explode on guitar. A big part of the early SST catalog comes to mind, Bl'ast! of course but also the early, "faster" songs of the Rollins Band (who have never been on SST for obvious reasons) and even Stains in a lesser extent. Because the cool thing about Pleasure's songs is that they don't fall into the sludgy pit of very slow and heavy songs of late Black Flag, they're still fast and deeply rooted into the "hardcore" aggressivity (don't get me wrong I love all eras of Black Flag but the later ones are certainly not the most "accessible") of modern days bands.
It's a really risky bet to try to "copy" ("copy" is not really the right word but you know what I mean) such a specific and influential type of legendary hardcore punk (plus it's clearly not the most trendy genre in the scene right now), but Pleasure succeeds magnificently to make the best of it.
Pure Pleasure?
I discovered Asinin a little bit before last K-town fest edition, I really liked the demo and I liked even more their show on the stage of Ungdomshuset. Made up of young Norwegian punks, Asinin play fast and straight forward hardcore punk with some reverb / chorus on the guitar which gives the same kind of anarcho punk sound as Subdued have. They even push that button to the max in Like A Bug, the last song, with a proper "spoken" 80s anarcho punk part. The lot is extremely powerful, leaving no room for distraction.
It's a very good demo and I'm sure these guys got all the right network to release a proper vinyl on a well known label in a not so distant future.
It's been a very long time since I've been thrilled by a band coming from the "end of the earth" but Mentalité 81 immediately caught my attention. Obviously an exercice in style for some of the major figures of the French punk scene, this short demo nevertheless manages to perfectly blend "modern days" 80s American hardcore with French punk, something that very few bands have managed to do well in France (Youth Avoiders at their prime perhaps but their lyrics have always been in English). It makes me think of a French version of Krigshoder (but with extra non-essentials gang vocals).
Taking on our beloved president and painting a bleak portrait of French youth and the country in general, the lyrics are actually pretty good in an angry teenager sort of way that fits the music perfectly.
The result is a magnificent demonstration of mastery of super-fast hardcore punk.
Will that side project lead to something more? We'll see.
I've been listening to a lot of 80s Finnish hardcore / D-beat over the past few years and I think Malakili just delivered exactly the kind of furious shit I've been wanting to hear at some point. Ok you're going to argue that these guys from Portland are actually paying more homage to Totalitär than to Mellakka (and you're right) but I can't help it, the name Malakili sounds super Finnish to me.
Featuring Nick from Rust and Machine Records and probably more usual suspects of the local D-beat scene, it's obvious that the quartet know exactly what they want to deliver (a tape that sounds like something out of the '80s), so if this is exactly what you're in the mood to listen to, go for it.
Furious, raging hardcore punk / D-beat hailing from Winnipeg, this demo sounds so raw and angry I wonder if it's not another solo studio project of the type of Delco MF's or Thought Control (before it turned into a real band), but maybe not.
Anyway, all the instruments are in the red, the guitar is super distorted and this guy is screaming at the top of his lungs while the drums concentrate on crushing your body into little pieces... a recipe for success?
Alternating fast parts and slow mosh parts, these six tracks use every means at their disposal to crack open your skull, and do so with ease.
Does the word "enjoy" really make any sense here?
Ah Bordeaux... its wine, its cannelés, its pouring rain and... its D-beat bands.
Phosphore is part of the rich lineage of bands such as Gasmask Terrör and Diktat that lives on with newer bands like Bombardement and Faucheuse (still the same drummer, the go-to guy for D-stuff in the region), and is undeniably my current favorite band from this small scene.
Fast, heavy and straight forward nasty D-beat, Phosphore takes from all the D-classics you can think of, the vocals are a bit raucous and recalls Diktat a bit. Don't look for any subtilty or influences from any other punk chapel, there aren't any.
I saw them live last week in Paris, it was short (very short would be more accurate) but intense (very intense would be more accurate). Don't miss them if they come wreck your neighbourhood in a not so distant (bleak) future.
Happy Christmas!
