vendredi 31 janvier 2020

Terrorist

picture by Brandon Chalmers

Terrorist is NYC punk band with members playing in bands like La Misma, L.O.T.I.O.N, Twisted Thing and a lot others... these guys are not here to be nice and quiet, oh no!
They play some kind of fast and angry UK82 punk and they do it really well...


Their EP American Today released on Toxic State in 2018 is a fantastic piece of 
angry negativity; heavy and repetitive guitar riffs, martial drums and 
a super pissed off british singer, this is just perfect!
I know I'm a bit late with this one but I really hope to hear more
from these guys in 2020...

  
You can listen to Terrorist and a lot of other pissed-off people on Oktoberfist Vol2.

N,J'Oi! 


Rien à Faire is on FB

mercredi 29 janvier 2020

Putzfrau


Putzfrau is a hardcore punk band from Portland, Oregon. 
With members of Suck Lords, these guys bring us some ripping and super fast female fronted punk.
 

They released their demo in November and with only one song 
breaking the one-minute mark, these guys are clearly not here to fuck around;
straight to the face, it's angry, blazing and mean, just what I love! 


You can listen to Putzfrau on Rien à Faire #6.

N,J'Oi!


dimanche 26 janvier 2020

Blue Youth


Blue Youth is a grungy noise-rock band from Regina, Saskatchewan (Canada).
Of course Metz immediatly comes to mind but Blue Youth is more 
subtle and melodic in many ways than their big brothers from Toronto.
 
  Their first EP, released in 2017, is already a full program:
The Power, The Screw, The Enemy, The Past, The End
5 chapters for 5 songs of high energy and emotions.
To be honest I discovered the EP after the LP and I am not sure
 I would have liked it, the vocals are way too melodic... so much
 that we're almost in a mainstream rock song sometimes (The Past). 
 
 But here we come to their masterpiece, The Dead Forever LP out on a 
bunch of labels (Santapogue Media, Grind Central Records, Suspended Soul Tapes And Records, Zegema Beach Records) in 2018. 
The energy is at its highest here, the bass is killing it while the drums 
never stop hammering your face... and the vocals!! while still being quite melodic, 
are, this time, perfectly balanced and adapted to the songs, 
jumping from a powerful singing to a desperate screaming. 
This record really put me on my ass the first time I listened to it, this is REALLY good!
 

With tracks from 2 to 4 minutes long, the album never gets boring, it goes up, down, 
lets you take a well deserved break from time to time (the perfect grunge ballad Pause For Death), but it's always extremely catchy and even manages to surprise with a sad 
and beautiful piano intro on (The Worst Of It Is) You.


With Blue Youth we're always in the emo-side of noise-rock if I can say that,
and yes this is not something I am so much into or you will see a lot on this blog,
but damn it's good sometimes. But we're never far from the angry modern hardcore
side either, Succubus got a clear Refused vibe for example.


Blue Youth released a new EP last june on Zegema Beach Records 
and Grind Central Records. Two songs of mostly screamed noise rock 
which, to be honest, didn't completely convince me. I don't know, the songs are not bad,
far from that, but it's not as catchy as what I got used to on Dead Forever... 
That I will put on repeat until I see what comes next!


 You can listen to Blue Youth on Rien à Faire #6.

N,J'Oi! 

Rien à Faire is on FB 

vendredi 24 janvier 2020

Brain Conditioner

picture by paty vomit


Brain Conditioner is a female fronted punk hardcore band from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
They've just released their first demo in September so I assume the band is quite young.


9 songs of speed punk with a dark vibe: great melodic bass lines, 
not so screamed vocals, surprising breaks... 
This is definitely very promising and I hope they will keep exploring
this interesting mix in their future recordings (an EP/LP in 2020 ?).

  picture by John Oakes

After Pinocchio it's the second band I see wearing this weird middle-age thing... 
Is it a thing in the US punk scene now ? I hope not!


You can listen to Brain Conditioner on Rien à Faire #6

N,J'Oi!

Rien à Faire is on FB

mardi 21 janvier 2020

Heavy Discipline

Picture by Phil

Heavy Discipline is a punk hardcore band from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with members coming from Loose Nukes, Machine Gun (the drummer), Hounds of Hate, Chronic Abuse etc...
These guys know their classics by heart. 


 The band has released a demo on Painkiller Records early last year and has toured all around since then. 
Classic 80's hardcore punk from the tough side, it makes me think a lot of 86 mentality (less RRRRRoooWWW though). 
Well there is nothing new but it's super fast, angry and...well... good! 
 

You can listen to Heavy Discipline and a lot of other great stuff in Rien à Faire #6.

N,J'Oi!


Rien à Faire is on FB

dimanche 19 janvier 2020

Benzin

picture by Tegoslucham

Well I don't have much information about Benzin except that it's a female fronted punk band from Berlin with members from Gilb, Pretty Hurts, Deltoids, Gesture 
and probably a lot of other bands... which all seem to be part of a scene centered on this place called Allee der Kosmonauten.
 As a Berlin band with members playing in an English band I would say that, probably, everybody is not german in there. 
But who cares ? These guys know how to write a punk song and that's all that matter.


 Benzin released a 8 tracks demo in April last year (yes I'm a bit late I know)
and it's a really good start. Classic but well-played female fronted punk, some parts remind me of The Bags or more recently of Moron, from Berlin also, who released a fantastic demo a couple of years ago (also recorded at Allee der Kosmonauten by T-Rex...).


You can listen to Benzin and a lot of other great stuff on Rien à Faire #6.

N,J'Oi!

Rien à Faire is on FB

jeudi 16 janvier 2020

Akne


Akne is a four piece punk band from Leeds, England.
I don't have much information about them except that they play some kind of 
low-fi noisy freaky punk full of surprises.


Akne's demo tape was released on 2017 on Nervous Energy Records
and is a little gem of energic weird punk. The vocals are always a few light-years away 
of everything else and sound a lot like desperate screams in a low-battery walkie-talkie.
But the drums are here, the guitars are here and they all wander from basic noisy punk riffs to more arty and jumpy areas, taking you to places you are not sure you had any idea they existed (and it's clear why!!).



The band finally released their first EP (still on Nervous Energy Records) in summer 2019.
Faster, angrier, noisier, Akne keeps the same (great) recipe as for the demo but added a lot of spice to it! Less surprising of course, it is nevertheless an excellent EP which needs a few listen to be fully digested.



A LP in 2020 ?



You can listen to Akne on Rien à Faire #3.

N,J'Oi!

Rien à Faire is on FB


lundi 13 janvier 2020

Goon


Goon is a four-piece hardcore punk band from Denver, Colorado.
These guys play some furious and crazy hardcore punk with brillant weird parts
and I love it.

 It all started with a low-fi 6-tracks demo in 2015.
Despite the quality of the recording each song is bursting to 
your face with frustration and anger. The drums are pounding it while the singer 
tries to tear off the wall of noisy guitar riffs with his vocals.



The following year, in 2016, the band released another tape 
featuring 2 songs of the demo and 2 new songs, 
all recorded during rehearsal sessions. 
The recording is still super rough and not so pleasant to listen to.
But Torture is a killer! 





But let's skip 3 years of touring and furious shows to come to 2019 and what
is of interest for me right now.
First the live tape Alive .​.​. In the Cellar of Your Mind, 16 minutes of 
an intense basement show recorded in summer 2019. The quality is not bad 
for a live recording and man this version of Torture (at around 6:00)
is just fucking great!




 But the real deal is the release of Natural Evil on Convulse Records in November 2019. 
Finally a quality recording, Goon can fully express on vinyl 
all the energy and madness of their live performances. 
7 songs of furious hardcore punk, yes everybody was expecting it mean and nasti
 and there is no disappointment here, none at all.
But man listen to the break of Spit and the 8 minutes long Pig II  
(yes 8 minutes on a hardcore punk album!) to really understand the capacity,
the wideness of the mutant hardcore sound of Goon (man there is
some saxophone on this track!)



And that's what makes the difference between a good and a great band...


Damn I would love to see them live...


N,J'Oi!


Rien à Faire is on FB



samedi 11 janvier 2020

VA - Rien à Faire #6


First Rien à Faire compilation of the decade guys!

Almost only tracks from new releases on this one, and many many female fronted bands, probably a sign of the era...

N'J'Oi!

FULL COMPILATION
 
  

01 - ISS - Workshopping
02 - Benzin - Zieh Dir Was Rein
03 - Ditz - Total 90
04 - The World Health Organization - Out for a rip
05 - Heavy Discipline - You're Good
06 - Depression Breakfast -  Lofty Thots
07 - Yambag - Hyena
08 - Brain Conditioner - Crystal Gripper
09 - Macros - Medicate
10 - Debbie Downers - Franklin Street
11 - The Archeas - Rock N Roll
12 - Leather Jacuzzi - Leatherette Spa
13 - Putzfrau - sick sad world
14 - Wimps - Couches
15 - Blue Youth - two faces

Download it here:




N,J'Oi! 
 

 

jeudi 9 janvier 2020

Pinocchio


Pinocchio is a female-fronted punk band from NYC which released their one and only record in April last year. There was quite a fuss when the record got out and I was not so sure about writing about it here as I usually try to stay away from the hype 
(or just that I was too lazy).
As I have seen the record in some Best Of 2019 and as it is actually an OK/nice album, here is a little post about Pinocchio.


Anyway the big thing about this band is that the singer is Mary Jane Dunphe, who has been involved in the music scene around Olympia for some time now before moving to New York (well that's what I understood as Pinocchio is based in NYC).
The 77 arty punk scene with Vexx but also the pop scene with CC Dust, CCFX or The County Liners.


Out on Toxic State Records, Pinocchio's EP proves (once again) in 8 short songs that Mary Jane is a good singer. The music is some kind of late 70s arty punkish rock on which the vocals keep going up and up with many ooohh aaaah, a bit like if Kate Bush was covering for Gaye Advert because she got the flu (yeah it's the flu season guys).


It's fresh, it's quite nice, the recording is great but it's really a looot of singing and I am not sure I am too much into that (yeah yeah I know I am an old prick).
But let's see what Mary Jane and the little wooden boy got for us in 2020...



You can listen to Pinocchio and other puppet shows in Rien à Faire #2.

N,J'Oi!

Rien à Faire is on FB

lundi 6 janvier 2020

Warp


After Neon, here is another band from the Thrilling Living family (even if the Neon album was not released on Thrilling Living Records).
Female fronted punk band from the bay area, not so arty but pretty straight forward punk, you get what you expect.


First 6 songs demo tape got out in 2016.
Nothing new under the california sun but a promising demo full of feminist punk songs.


  Last november the band released Traffic Control on Thrilling Living Records
their first album.  
10 well produced and powerful songs (including 4 which were already on the EP), the band is getting better, but not so much better.
It's a good punk album but in my opinion it doesn't really stick out from all the other
female fronted bands the scene has seen popping out everywhere for the past 5 years. (and there is too much guitar playing around for my taste, especially at the end of Goat...).
 
I really like Makeup though.

You can listen to Warp on Rien à Faire #4

N,J'Oi!

Rien à faire is on FB