Thought Partner

 

It took me some time (a couple of months I think) to finally get on with this review, I've found Thought Partner music very good (I will develop later, "very good" sounds a bit short for a review ahah) since the very first time I stumbled on their bandcamp page, that's not the point, no it's just that these guys play a kind of music that's probably not as easy to describe as the usual hardcore punk I usually focus on on this page. They also explore some genres that I like a lot but that I don't "know" as well as the good old "punk world" so I feel less legit, less "accurate", when I draw comparisons. Anyway I listened to their latest album once again a couple of days ago and I knew I had to do it... So here we go!

 

Thought Partner is a trio from the Boston area, Massachusetts, which has been around since 2017 or 2016 and features members from local hardcore acts including How We Are and Rat Mask. They released a first album in 2018 called Savon (doest it refer to the French word for soap? not clear) that I'm not going to discuss here as I feel that I don't have much to say about it.

 

 

 A little clarification for people like me who don't really understand what a "thought partner" is, if I understood right it's a modern management language term used by companies to describe someone who: "Challenges your thinking. Causes you to modify or change your paradigms, assumptions or actions. Has information or a way of thinking that provokes you to innovate or otherwise leads to value creation in your business, career or life"... yes that does sound like a big pile of corporate bullshit in my opinion. Of course the band takes the piss of that newspeak and of some corporate / office work world habits as their last album clearly elaborates.

The Work Cake title obviously makes fun of work farewell parties and what seems to be the usual kind of cake brought to this kind of event (a disgusting American supermarket kind of cake from what I see), and the cover picture is absolutely perfect. I find the whole concept funny, accurate and smart and the same time, and that doesn't happen that often to be honest (I'm a prick).

Released on Crass Lips Records in May of this year (as a tape only?), Work Cake is not some kind of fast food you ingest, digest and shit in a few minutes like first class processed chicken bones nuggets, it's a long and dense three course meal and it takes time to properly absorb all the nutrients from the ten track, 37 minute album. I "had" to listen to the whole record multiple times to finally feel like I was "in", but it was worth it.

It starts with a very post-hardcore / emo atmosphere, the three first tracks are reminiscent of the 90s Dischord catalogue (Hoover's not too quiet tracks? like TNT ?) even if Trigger Gizmo got these extra synth layers that make me think of Komplikations (that's a totally different universe I know). These tracks of Thought Partner leave space to the ears "to breath" (yes ears breath too, AirPods can kill), building a whole where the hollows and the fulls do more than follow one another, they complete each other... led by an ultra precise rhythmic which carries us between the unloading of (light) buzz-saw guitar riffs, the more or less sad and worried speeches of a vocal very much registered in this noise-rock / post-hardcore style and the more personal parts, always intelligently structured in very diverse ways.

Interstitial, as its name suggests, marks a pause with a very bass-driven, discreet, but catchy in a subtle way, instrumental track, very appropriately followed by Not Interstitial which jumps back into the post-hardcore formula but with (once again) another slightly different cooking technique, and that does work beautifully!

Final Anger 95 and In Defense Of Moderate Luxury finally let the Fugazi influences burst in the open completely (and there's nothing wrong with that!), building themselves slowly and gently with the bass and drums following the vocals in a strong emotional cruise where the guitar comes to bring, when it's necessary, the required additions to the so much awaited soaring.

Bit Rot pushes the concept to the point of falling completely into post-punk, ethereal and distant voices adding the "cold side" to a refined instrumental and that could be quite surprising when you think of the beginning of the album but, on the contrary, it comes quite naturally and marks the beginning of the end of the record. The (almost) instrumental, ethereal and harrowing Warmth and Robustess introducing the final Local Poets that wouldn't have sounded completely alien next to a Gang of Four song in the early 80's. The funky but heavy bass, the guitar notes that flies over everything and this distant, slightly desperate singing, everything's there for a great final post-punk track!

 

Ok maybe I got carried away a bit at times but what I'm trying to describe is the subtle evolution all along the album, from tracks "perfectly" influenced by the best American post-hardcore bands of the last century to bouncing post-punk reminiscent of the early British scene, Thought Partner cruises slowly and steadily from start to finish, making everything sounds like the right thing at the right place at the right time, which is an outstanding performance!

 That's what I meant by "very good".

 

  The three course meal didn't satisfy your hunger? How about a slice of this cake?

 

N,J'Oi!

 

You can listen to Thought Partner on Rien à Faire #28.

 

 

 

 

  

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM

 

 

 

Yleiset Syyt

 

picture by Christina Carlsen

Yleiset Syyt (Common Causes) is from Helsinki, Finland, has been around since 2016 at least and features members from so many other bands I will only mention a few of them (people don't sleep up north or what?). So the Yleiset Syyt members have played (or still play) in Foreseen, Upright, Iniated, Death Toll 80k, Kohti Tuhoa, Sick Urge, Perikato, Hard Action, Leather Weapons and No Sense Of Humor among others...

Yes they do know how to make some bloody loud noise...

 

Finland has a long tradition of super active punk scene, whether we're talking about all the great early punk bands (a lot of their record have been repressed by Svart Records if you're interested) or the furious Discharge-obsessed, studded-and-leathered, hardcore bands from the second wave... which I've only started to dig quite recently to be honest (yes it took me some time). Anyway I'm not the most qualified for a Finnish punk history lesson and that's not the purpose of this post, just know that Yleiset Syyt is playing something that's definitely closer to the second category than the first one.

 

 

Yleiset Syyt starts straight with a full length on Svart Records in 2017, called Ajatuskoneisto (The machinery of Thought) this record features eleven short and fast songs that dig really clearly into the old school hardcore punk territory. The most observant among you will undoubtedly detect a certain influence of Raymond Pettibon ("official" Black Flag "art director" AND Greg Ginn's brother, just a little history for the few readers who are completely out of their depth and lost around here) in the cover artwork (made by the guitar player Ville Valavuo), and it obviously says a lot.

 

 

  Ajatuskoneisto doesn't sound like a Black Flag fetish record though, yes it's fast and raw but it clearly leans more on the classic 80s Finnish hardcore side, it's sung in Finnish so it's obviously reminiscent of the Finnish scene and some guitar riffs got that slight metal influence that was around in this scene. I can think of some early Terveet Kädet, Tampere SS, H.I.C Systeemi (and what Laukaus did in the early 2000s as a tribute) and probably plenty of others as Finland was not really lacking of hardcore bands in the early 80s. So I would say than more of Black Flag itself the cover is just a way to evoke the 80s in a way that immediately strikes any punk across the world.

 

  Of course the band benefits from a way more powerful sound than the 80s bands and it definitely gives a modern touch to that good old recipe.

The album is full of really enjoyable, and really well-played, raging tracks but at some point I feel that it's difficult to distinguish one from another and I tend to feel a bit drowned in a relatively uniform whole that becomes a bit tedious to listen to in the long run (it's really hard to make a "long" hardcore LP that's catchy all the way through if you don't add a few "surprises", a few breaks here and there), for comparison it's a bit the impression I have with some Career Suicide (even if I love Career Suicide) or Vitamin X records. 

So yes Yleiset Syyt play some great hardcore punk but it would be even better if they would give a few seconds to breath to my old eardrums from time to time, managing the ups and downs of the music energy in a more "hooking" way.

 

 

 

The band comes back two years later with a 6-track self-titled 7", on Open Up and Bleed Recording this time (that I suspect of being one the band members' label).

And it does sound a bit different in my opinion.

 

 

  Well ok not essentially different of course but it does sound closer to the classic hardcore punk sound (as I see it) this time, reminiscent of some more recent Scandinavian hardcore punk bands like Agent Attitude, Brudte Lofter, Fy Fan and others. The guitar riffs are clearly "lighter", even leaning towards some kind of rock'n roll or "slighty melodic Scandinavian punk" at times, and it makes the whole records a lot easier to digest than the LP. I feel like they're also playing a little bit slower (less fast would be more accurate I suppose), which doesn't take away any of the songs' energy though.

  Generally speaking, even if the formula remains more or less the same, the tracks are more "ventilated" and therefore much easier to appreciate one after the other in my humble opinion.

Umpikujamekanismi (Deadlock Mechanism) was released a bit earlier this year on Open Up and Bleed Recording (like the band previous EP) and picks up exactly where the previous release left off.

 

 

So yeah no big surprises here, just some good quality Finnish hardcore in the same line as what Yleiset Syyt has been furiously playing for the past five years. There is still that Finnish touch for sure but the "hardcore punk" side I was mentioning earlier is at least as strong as on their self-titled EP. I mean listen to Opportunistin alkuilta (The early evening of the opportunist) and Luovan keskiluokan takapihalla (In the backyard of the creative middle class), without any doubt the two hit songs of the record, and you'll be for sure completely seduced by the way these two hardcore punk tracks are built. The guitars sound like they were just borrowed from an early Black Flag album, the chorus is simple but catchy and "easy" to sing along (if you know a bit more than me about Finnish) and that bassline intro on Opportunistin alkuilta... They're killer songs, period.

 

And that's how I'll conclude I guess: Yleiset Syyt knows how to play hardcore songs but has a tendency to wear out the same formula, which is a bit tedious in the long run and doesn't leave much room for surprise, on the other hand they're also able to produce some (rare but real) hardcore punk gems that strike you in the right front punk lobe when you didn't expect it any more... and for that alone you should definitely give it a try!

 

 

 

  N,J'Oi!

 

You can listen to Yleiset Syyt on Rien à Faire #27.

 

 

 

 

  

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM

 

 

 

 

Unidad Ideológica

 

Damn I love that cover artwork! Made by Jose Darcy Cabrera (a visual artist from Bogòta who's also incidentally the singer of Muro), it perfectly combines the bleak and violent imagery of the good old cut and paste punk art tradition with some modern art influences, the central circles recalling what Pol Bury was doing in the 70s on photographs. One of the best cover artwork of the year for sure.

 

So yes Unidad Ideológica comes from Bogòta, Colombia and more precisely from the same punk gang as many bands I've already mentioned on this page, the hyperactive Rat Trap punk gang (if I may say). Casa Rat Trap is a concert and rehearsal place but also a silk-screen printing and visual art workshop and a recording studio (yes it sounds like your dreamed punk HQ).

The band features members from some of the best and most furious Colombian punk acts you've already heard screaming way too loud in your headphones, bands like Muro, Alambrada, Trampa and Ataque Zero (probably others too). If you've been a bit around my page you may have noticed that Colombian bands have been featured quite a lot over the past two years (just check the Colombia tag) and I think anyone interested in hardcore punk will agree that it's one of the most active and interesting scene at the moment, and it's not Unidad Ideológica that proves me wrong...

After one track released on the La Masacre Continua compilation (Guerra Y Negocio, also on the 12"), the band jumps straight to the "mini LP 12"" on La Vida Es Un Mus (a very frustrating format the London-based label, but not only, uses quite a lot which means not so much music on a 12" at the price of a proper full-length) with eight tracks of blistering hardcore punk.

Hardcore punk? well yes and no, if you're thinking of fast US-type 80s hardcore that's not what we're talking about here, we're talking Colombian "raw punk" so you gotta look more on the side of the 80s Scandinavian/Finnish hardcore bands and all their south American counterparts. Nowadays there's Muro and the others already mentioned for Colombia of course but I can also think of the Italian raw punk scene (especially the Milan scene and bands like Kobra and Sloi evolving around DIY labels like Sentiero Futuro Autoproduzioni) or some of these new British bands whose records got recently out on La Vida (Koma, Maladia, Rat Cage...) or even what S.H.I.T was doing... No I won't mention any Japanese hardcore bands because I'm not a fan of most of them (nah!). Anyway this kind of sound can be found a bit everywhere these days, the main point being to make it fast, noisy and violently savage and yes most of the times these bands stand at the very edge of what I can enjoy.

 

So yes Unidad Ideológica songs are full of rage and anger (definitely) but benefit from a great sound quality that allows the devastating energy of the tracks to fully blossom in something that sounds both very noisy and very clean but above all very aggressive (it's a bit what's missing in the Italian hardcore scene by the way, not the aggressiveness obviously but the sound quality). What often puts me off in this kind of bands are the vocals (cavemen vocals suck) and the metal influences, Unidad Ideológica sounds quite heavy sometimes but never "metal" (thank you guys, metal sucks) and the singer does a great job, managing to vary his voice tone from a tortured and enraged scream to something more spoken without ever falling into the forced caricature of "I want to sound super mean" (good job).

Ok the record is quite short (it could be short and perfectly repetitive) but the band manages to deliver relatively varied tracks (while remaining in the theme eh), there are intros, breaks, changes of tempo which allow the listener to remain hooked and interested throughout (all the contrary of a boring D-beat band finally) and the more I listen to this record the more I discover about the smart songs' construction and the more I appreciate it.

 

These eight songs were recorded during the very strict (and very long) Covid lockdown that happened earlier this year in Colombia and you can really feel all the frustration and anger of this period (on top of all the terrible things that have been happening in the country... check my short post on the situation here) in this record. And that's exactly what Punk is for, letting anger, frustration and political rage burst into noise and even if I don't understand anything about their songs' lyrics I'm pretty sure Unidad Ideológica is full of all that...

 

Ok let's stop it here, you got the idea: if you're not afraid of taking a wall of fast aggressiveness right in your little sensitive nose there is no time to waste, bang your head against Unidad Ideológica right now!

 

N,J'Oi!

You can listen to Unidad Ideológica on Rien à Faire #27.

 

 

 

 

  

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM

 

 

The MONSTERS: You're Class, I'm Trash

 

I know I know everybody knows The Monsters and there isn't much interest in writing anything about these guys. Well yes and no, I mean yes for sure they've been around since 1986, spreading dirty-garage-trash-blues-whatever insanity in all the most filthy and disreputable bars of the known world with a certain amount of success. Everybody also knows the Reverend Beat Man, The Monsters' charismatic leader whose as enigmatic as sparse haircut keeps fascinating me years after years, a man guilty of having released countless obscene records under different deviant names over the years... a man also responsible for one of the most successful European record label in terms of dirty garage punk blues (or whatever you wanna call that trash sound), the almighty Voodoo Rhythm Records from Berne, Switzerland, which has seen countless glorious bands (King Automatic, The Come'n Go, The Dead Brothers etc...) pass through its sticky fingers since the early 90s... But also no because I really enjoy their new album a lot more than what I was expecting (it surprised me to be honest) and I feel like writing a few words about it.

But let's cut the crap, you and I already know all there is to know about the four crazy Swiss men so let's have a look at the well-named You're Class I'm Trash, The Monsters' new album (would that be the 8th one?). 

 

 

 

You're Class I'm Trash is not the type to bother with courtesies, an introductory speech, an introduction track or anything of the sort, fuck that! You're Class I'm Trash hits you in the face with no warning, starting straight with a bang or several machine-gun-fast bangs to be precise... yes Gimme Germs' fastness surprised me, sounding a lot faster (and bloody more punk) than what I remembered of The Monsters' previous releases. Damn that's a lot of energy to take right in the jaw for the first song of a "hardcore rock'n'roll trash" record", and I love it!

And it's only the beginning, the Reverend and his sidekicks keep hammering a super straight forward kind of crazy filthy rock'n roll punk! No time for lame solos, bridges or whatever kind of shit you wanna put in a song, The Monsters aim straight for the throat!

 

 

  Of course the pace comes back to the band's usual tempo at some point, the perfect excuse for the four alpines lunatics to make their instruments roar and get lost in a maze of dissonant and noisy noises from which they (miraculously) always fall back on their muddy boots (even after venturing into a parody of high-pitched, childish lullaby at the end of Carpool Lane). But, as we get into the vocals topic, the reverend spends most of his time actually yelling, screaming way too loud in all directions, barking in your eardrums and bellowing insanities at the top of his lungs at a world too clean and serious for the religion he preaches with such devotion (amen).

 

The Monsters are used to fill up their albums with different kind of trash (no selective sorting here gentlemen), and there's always a couple of dirty ballads here and there to take a nice and enjoyable breaks between two shots loaded to death with dirty rock'n roll. Dead, the deranged post-mortem ballad and its angry follow-up, Stranger to me, are a great example of this admittedly worn-out but still devilishly effective trick. Same same for Yellow Snow Drink (sounds yummy) which is followed by the furious Electro Bike Asshole, reminding yuppies to go cycle for real or die (bastards).

 

His name is Beat, Beat-Man

  

  The Monsters are not only the perfect guests for your young nephew Bar Mitzvah, they're not cheap fuckers either, with 13 tracks in total (+2 bonus songs with the digital album) of durations varying between a minute or so and more than four and a half minutes, you get what you pay for little lady (not like all the grindcore scammers!), and in these times of scarcity where the average patron has to tighten his belt to be able to pay his monthly dose of black ethinyl, it's highly appreciated. 

After a couple of more great (but insane) touching love declarations (including the weird Devil Baby which quickly turns into some kind of wicked church choir), it's finally time to conclude (until next time) and what's best to end such a beautiful moment of worship than a proper Requiem hum? Yes yes yes and that's exactly what we get thanks to the help of Mario Batkovic (who usually plays nicely the accordion rather than the harpsichord with crazy bands in red suits)... a good excuse for the band to let loose its delirious imagination in the pleasant clip below.

 

 

  So yes You're Class I'm Trash is a good album (another one you'll say) and there is no point in sulking about it. Finally an album that will satisfy all the spiritual needs of your damned souls yes...

 

Fun fact the album is also available in Swiss-German (I mean all the vocals were also recorded in that language, one of the four official languages of the mighty country of Switzerland) and will be out on Slovenly Recordings in February 2022.

The album is then named Du Hesch Cläss, Ig Bi Träsch, which makes sense I guess. 

 

 Anyway, you've got it now I hope, monsters do exist and they're not done terrorizing your nights.

  Consider yourself warned.

 

 

 

picture by Patrick Principe

 

  You can listen to The Monsters on Rien à Faire #28.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM

 

 

 

 

Fumes

 

The punk scene in Hattiesburg is definitely living up to its reputation, and now the small Mississippi town is once again delivering a very high quality tape on the label of one of the pillars of this hyperactive scene, Mr Hampton Martin. If you've read my (very) enthusiastic post about one of the latest Judy And The Jerk's live tape and the Earth Girl Tapes label, you already know what I'm talking about.

 

Anyway Hampton is back with this new project called Fumes, back behind the drums but also back behind the mixing table as he recorded and mixed these tracks. I don't want to seem like I'm ignoring the other three band members (Ash, David and Blaine) but unfortunately I don't have any information to share about them (that's always the problem guys when you have a band member with a longer resume than the others). But enough blabla, let's jump into the kitchen show circle pit!

 

 

  Fumes play fast, even super fast most of the time, delivering super catchy hardcore punk songs you immediately shake your head to. But who says fast says short and, out of the seven tracks from the tape, three are less than 40 seconds long, three make it past the one minute mark and I will talk about the seventh later...

From the first seconds of the intro track (very smartly called Fumes) the band sounds like a fucking classic, following in the footsteps of some of the best 80s US hardcore bands names like Ill Repute, Koro or The Fix immediately jumped to my ears. And don't think I'm mentioning these classics because I'm reluctant to reference newer bands or for any other kind of "old jerk reason", no there's really something in Fumes which makes their songs sound like they come straight out of this (some would say golden) era. And that's exactly where I'm getting at with Inherited Consequences, the seventh and longest track (2:56, an eternity in the hardcore punk dimension)... and also my favourite!

In the purest tradition of "the long and slow song of our hardcore record", Inherited Consequences is a little gem of American punk that evokes Fuck-Ups' 7", F.U.'s Die For God or Code Of Honor's What Price Would You Play (which are all killer songs by killer bands by the way).

Of course I can't end this review without mentioning one of the other great Hattiesburg hardcore band, Baghead (another Hampton Martin joint), whose discography has recently been released by the very good British label Richter Scale. Not so far from Fumes after all.

Anyway if you didn't get it by now you can go hang yourself: 

Hattiesburg punk AND Fumes fucking rule!

 

  You can listen to Fumes on Rien à Faire #28.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM

 

 

 

 

 

Enola Gay

 

picture by Ruthless Imagery

Fate can be a real joker sometimes, how could have the good American wife and mother born in the Iowa in the late 19th century imagined that so many punk and metal bands would be named after her? Mrs Enola Gay Tibbets never listened to any kind of punk and metal anyway, she passed away peacefully in Florida in 1966 and I guess that she would not have been very fond of studs and leather anyway (but who knows after all?). The poor lady didn't really make anything to deserve this posthumous fame to be honest. No the one who should be warmly thanked is his son, Paul, a good mother-loving man who served in the US Air Force during WWII and, never missing an opportunity to express all his love for his dear mom, gave her name to the beautiful Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber he was in charge of.

And then life went on, you know how it is, you fly here and there, bomb a little bit here and there and then, one day of August 1945, you find yourself dropping a "little boy" on top of a city called Hiroshima and killing 129 000 people.

Consequence: Paul's mother becomes some kind of rock'n roll star 30 years later among gangs of young glue sniffers all over the world. Yes life's a real joker sometimes...

 

Anyway, today I'm not going to write about the Danish hardcore punk band, the terrible 90s metal band, the 90s French grindcore band, the 80s German anarcho-punk band, the early swedish punk band or any of the others bearing the poor lady's name... no today I'm going to write a few words about the Enola Gay from Belfast, UK.

 

 

 

 This young band plays an interesting mix of noise-rock and modern post-punk with "venomous hip-hop-inspired vocals" as they describe it so well themselves. You read noise-rock and hip-hop-inspired vocals you could immediatly think of some 90s bands like Rage Against The Machine or Cypress Hill during the golden age of "fusion rock" as we used to say in France, or rap rock for the others, a genre that will later lead to the embarrassing Neo-metal era and so on... but you could also think of more recent acts, the crazy hardcore-punk-infused rap bands Ho99o9, Death Grips, B L A C K I E or, and of course, Run The Jewels... but no... you would not be there.

  

 

This Enola Gay is loud and noisy (the buzzsaw guitar sound?) but with clear and heady basslines on top of which comes this (slightly) hip-hop-inspired vocals that also got something cold and sad in the back of throat which takes us to post-punk territory. Add a few discreet electronic sounds and you're not far from the fours tracks of their Gransha EP. Catchy, cold and heady at the same time? Bloody brilliant for sure!

 

Enola Gay is the kind of British/Irish band which seems to be sailing on the edge of the DIY world, somewhere between Heavy Lungs, Girls in Synthesis, Ditz and, of course, the Irish sensation Girl Band... somewhere where the influences (from noise-rock to post-punk through hip hop and a shitload of British punk and indie bands) mix in something that already doesn't fit any more in the very tight "music genre boxes" that the DIY world is generally made of. And that's a good thing.

 

 

  That's what makes Enola Gay really interesting in my opinion. It's a mix of many things I love, a very-well-made mix indeed which gives birth to something quite new, something quite innovative, something firmly modern.

I don't get all the lyrics but they also seem to want to be anchored in a current reality, keeping it simple though, "so that it is challenging but with an impact". And that's always a very good point.

 

You and I are going to hear more from Enola Gay very soon, I'm pretty sure of that... and I'm looking forward to it! 

 

 

 

 

 

  You can listen to Enola Gay on Rien à Faire #28.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM