Just a quick one today about Insane Urge demo tape, the latest
release on Stucco Label, an Olympia-based punk label
which released the first Electric Chair 7" and the first Suck Lords 7" (just to name a few extremely good records in my opinion) and that I've already mentioned a few times here in my last year's posts
about
Fugitive Bubble
and
Youth Regiment. Stucco has a tendency to breed like rabbits on cocaine and to
give birth to lots of sub-labels, after Impotent Foetus (which is in fact Stucco's low-fi tape division and is responsible for the two previously reviewed bands) here is Down South Tapes (Insane Urge tape is DOWNTHERE001), a sub-label dedicated to the south punk scene? Probably!
As usual with Stucco there isn't much information about the band,
the only thing I know is that they're from Austin, Texas, which would be in line with my theory about Down There.
But let's focus on the music if you don't mind.
The very first track, yes that's the one bearing the band's name, opens up the tape with a mid-tempo instrumental that wanders between 77-infused punk rock and modern indie post-punk, a good start before There's A World kicks into high gear with a very nice and fast rock'n roll infused punk track. You know what I'm talking about, the kind of punk rock that feels like kicking Chuck Berry in the nuts for a whole minute. Yeah that kind!
And once these guys are started they're not easy to stop, just listen to Job and Sick Disease! So much nut kicking that I can already picture Chuck singing like Whitney Houston between two Duck Walks! Yeah so much low-fi rock'n roll in this punk rock that's incredible!
At some point these good ol' worn-out rock'n roll riffs made me think for a sec of the absolute master of rock'n roll infused punk/oi! songs, the infamous band-which-can't-be-named of course. But Insane Urge's actually too fast to make the comparison really relevant. I could also think of the French skinhead rockers of The Janitors but Insane Urge's way too low-fi to play in the same league.
Anyway Insane Urge delivers a very enjoyable, and way too short, cool tape of punk rock under fast rock'n roll influence, keeping it super low-fi as Impotent Foetus got us used to.
So treat your self man! Put on your blue suede shoes and studded belts and aim for that crotch!
A few weeks only after my
"extensive" post about the Singapore band discography
and a couple of months after the "teasing" release of
Nuevo Orden Mundial on their bandcamp page, here is
Futuro Oscuro, Xyresic's second full length. And let me tell
you that I was looking forward to it and that my expectations have been
fulfilled!
But first, let's take a few seconds to look at this magnificent cover
artwork. Far from the black and white, dark and aggressive punk aesthetic
of the first two releases, this takes us to the dry and "contemplative"
atmosphere of the far reaches of the Sahel region and, except for
the typography of the band's name whose aesthetics clearly refers to the type of
raw music played by the band, one could almost think of having to deal with an album of
Tinariwen
or a
Mdou Moctar
album, the two Touareg music scene leading bands.
Mdou Moctar was actually mentioned as an inspiration in the
writing of this album, which surprised me so much coming from a raw punk
band from Singapore that I spent some time listening to the Nigerien
guitarist songs (that I've always found enjoyable but I'm more into Tinariwen to be honest, too much "guitarist vibe" with Mdou for my taste) to try to understand how this inspiration materialized and
how his name ended up next to more obvious influences like
Sial
and
Una Bestia Incontrolableand that takes us to the main part of this post: my highly valued and long awaited opinion on the band's music!!
Xyresic start building up the record atmosphere since
the very first second thanks to a both bewitching and disturbing intro whose
"tribal" drum pattern, and distressing and psychedelic guitar riffs, are
the perfect transition to what will not take long to fall on us like a
jack-hammer on a baby's fingers... Fast drumming, angry screamed vocals,
noisy guitar sound mixed with these still very evocative guitar riffs
arising from the desert (yes it's subtle, it's deep, it's somewhere in there but
the Touareg music influences are real)... Xyresic's songs are raw, crude
and angry but they're so much more than that, these songs are journey
through a dry land of despair and madness where the mind can hardly
survive, a silent land crushed by a harsh, dry heat where there is only
one final thing left to do: destroy the remains of one's vocal cords with hoarse screams that parched throats will not be able to endure for long.
It could be the mix of fast and straight forward parts with mid-tempo
psychedelic parts
on Fuego Del Infernio and
Calor Húmedo, it could be that bewitching drum pattern (the album's common thread) on
Mirar Adelante, Serpentie Salvaje or
Nuevo Orden Mundial that drags us, in spite of our rational mind, in the whirlwind of the unhealthy pleasures of primitive and bestial dances, it
could be the overwhelming sense of noise, heat and heaviness that invades
your senses when you listen to these 10 tracks... it could be all of this that makes this album a beautiful success, without any doubt the best
release of the band so far.
With Futuro Oscuro, Xyresic has reached the point
Sial's reached before them with their Zaman Edan EP, a point
where punk music manages to create a visual, but also sensitive,
atmosphere which unfolds like a harsh and hostile landscape before our
ears, a kind of vegetal and mineral jail in which our mind would be locked
up for the time a few caravans of saturated guitar riffs pass by...
Brilliant!
I haven't seen any news about a physical release yet but I'm sure it will
happen any time soon. Be assured that this record is going to take a few hundreds spins on my turntable at some point!
La Milagrosa (The Miraculous) is a quartet from NYC featuring four
guys from Puerto Rico who moved to the big apple a few years ago. A little
reminder for those who are not familiar with North America geography:
Puerto Rico is a Caribbean island and an "unincorporated territory
of the United States", which means the residents are US citizens but they
can't vote to elect the US presidents or senators and representatives to
the U.S. Congress. Yes it's a weird and quite complex status and you
should check the
Wikipedia page dedicated to this matter
if you want to learn more about it.
Anyway the island was a Spanish colony for centuries before falling under
US domination so, as you hopefully know, people speak Spanish there and
naturally also sing in Spanish (even in Punk bands based in NYC). And just
to make it clear I don't understand shit of (almost) anything said or sung
in Spanish so I won't be able to write much about the lyrics but, as the
band explained in some interviews, some addressed themes are racism, "difficulties" in
Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico history linked to slavery and personal issues among others.
La Milagrosa released their first EP at the end of 2019 (it was
then remastered and re-released in 2020) on
Medio Pocillo Records, which happens to be run by Eduardo, the drummer. The cool art is
by
Amanda Belàez and is inspired by El genio del ingenio, a 1910 painting byJulio Tomás Martínez,
which loosely translates to The Will of the Sugar Mill and is
about slavery and the abuses perpetrated by plantation owners in Puerto
Rico.
To be honest I had first only listened to the first version of the EP and
I really enjoyed the remastered version as I could feel that the sound
lacked the energy to really express the rage of the songs. Because yes
it's quite angry, the four guys play a kind of punk which doesn't fall
into a specific kind of subgenre but could be described as hardcore punk I
suppose. It's not USHC or Swedish hardcore or UK82 or whatever else, it's
straightforward, it's fast but not super fast, yes it's somewhere in
between a lot of things, it's very punk though and that's what matters in
the end I guess.
It's all in Spanish and the vocals sometimes reach a tone and frequencies
reminiscent of Martin Sorrondeguy's screams (you know the kind,
very shrill and piercing), even if Los Crudos and his other bands
play a lot faster than La Milagrosa so the comparison has therefore very obvious limits. I'm sure people more knowledgeable than myself in
hardcore in Spanish will draw more accurate comparisons though.
So this EP is quite cool but doesn't really stick out to be honest. I
mean there's nothing wrong with it but I can't help but feel that it
misses a more pronounced musical identity, something a little more catchy
and original in the construction of the songs to fall into the category of
bands I talk about to my imaginary friends.
La Milagrosa is back on this beginning of 2022 with a 13-track
full length
on
Iron Lung Records.
There won't be any need for a remastering with Panico, the tracks
are powerful and it sounds (almost) as in-your-face as it gets in hardcore
punk. The four Puerto Ricans keep writing the same kind of straight
forward and unsurprising punk tracks like they did on their debut release
but I nevertheless have the feeling that the band has gained in
songwriting quality, the structures are a bit more varied, the tempo
changes are more assertive, in short that the band has improved with
age.
With only two tracks out of thirteen longer than two minutes (but all over one minute), Panico doesn't fall into the category of
ridiculously short and fast hardcore albums but on the contrary
got the "time and depth" of "more developed" punk songs (um I'm not
sure I'm being very clear, let's just say that for me, it leans more towards the "fast" punk side than the hardcore side). La Milagrosa don't give up on enjoyable mid-tempo parts either (like on Camaleon), which allow the brain to take a break from the pummelling drumming.
And the comparison to Los Crudos sounds even more accurate on Panico. Let me explain, to me the Crudos have always been the kind of band I like to listen to from time to time (especially when I'm with friends and we're doing something else) but I never remember which songs I listened to and after the third one I switch to something else because they all sound the same (there is a cruel lack of "variation of intensity" and "catchy musical identity" in Los Crudos). And that's not completely what I mean about Panico but there is this feeling that, despite the improvement in songwriting, it's all a bit similar in the average punk category in the end you know.
Don't get me wrong, this is a powerful hardcore punk album but I've been listening to punk music long enough to be a bit picky and it wouldn't be honest to not include all my thoughts in my reviews (which is by definition a highly subjective exercise).
In short, whether you love Crudos (or not) and whether you've already been convinced (or not) for a paragraph that I'm an idiot with no taste, do yourself a favor and listen to La Milagrosa!
Yes I'm a few months late with this one but it doesn't matter:
Assistert Sjølmord (Assisted Suicide) is a new band from Oslo, Norway, which started
(according to the legend) when Erling (bass), who lives in
Copenhagen, went to his home-town to celebrate his birthday with some old friends
he had not seen for a while because of the lockdowns and ended up
recording two tracks with Martin (drums) and Siggen (vocals). The three of them have played in a lot of punk bands
before that and were actually together in Jenkem Warriors. Siggen also played in
Negativ
and Erling plays in
Indre Krig
(go check their killer demo from last year) and played in
Terror Stat. It also looks like Siggen and Martin are involved in a
new project called Draumar (coming soon).
Two tracks only that's not much, but that's more than enough to convince me that Assistert Sjølmord is exactly the kind of band I can easily fall in love with. It's very fast, it's straight to the point, it's well-played and it's lead by kick-ass female vocals (I'm a sucker for hardcore punk bands with female vocals). Described by Erling like "UK82 songs with a '77 sound and USHC energy or something", these two songs definitely got a lot of energy and I would draw comparisons with bands like S.O.H, Krimewatch, Judy And The Jerks, Indre Krig (a bit obvious but yes), Exit Order and any killer fast punk band with female vocals from the last years indeed. The idea behind the band is "to "revisit"the punk we grew up on" from a musical point of view and "we felt a typical naive early 80s punk band name would be the right fit for it", well it seems that the mission is accomplished for now!
The great news is that another demo has been recorded, discussions with a label for a physical release have started and a few gigs are already booked... so keep your eyes and ears open for Assistert Sjølmord because you're gonna get a lot more from them this year, and I'm really looking forward to it!
If you missed their 2020 EP (Desesperación) you can quickly catch up by reading
the enthusiastic post
about it I wrote one year ago.
So these guys from Barcelona (Spaniards and Colombians) are back with a
7-track mini-album (including a cover in Spanish of Ultra Violent's
Crime For Revenge), available on bandcamp only for now but which
should find its way to vinyl in the coming months I presume.
The cover artwork is, once again, made by
Mateo Correal
(active member of Lumpen) who keeps making artworks for bands from
all over the planet and offers this time something a bit more classic in
terms of punk aesthetic I would say. A skeleton, some piles of skulls, a
cemetery, some war-zone images... all that apocalypse imagery recalls a
lot of american street-punk bands' artworks and all the D-beat stuff too
of course and I find it less "attractive" than the
Desesperación's one (less original at least).
The record opens with an audio extract of a movie I'm not sure to identify well (I don't speak Spanish) but sounds like Javier Bardemas Pablo Escobar talking to someone in the 2017 movie about the famous Kingpin with the coloured shirts (correct me if I'm wrong). It would fit perfectly with a record named Corrupción from a band featuring Colombian members after all.
So Lumpen is still playing that great mix of UK82 and Colombian hardcore punk which could probably fit into the Spanish street-punk category I suppose (in comparison with what I call "raw" American street-punk bands like Holehog, Monster Squad etc...). So yes we got what we expect but there is something quite different though, and it mostly comes from the way it sounds more than from the way it's played. Indeed Desesperación had upfront buzz-saw sounding guitars and raw vocals which gave a very in-your-face vibe to the whole thing (like you could actually shower with the vocalist's spittles), Corrupción sounds "milder", the guitars are quite "discreet" and the vocals are somewhere with all the rest, and it gives a less "powerful" and aggressive result. But don't get me wrong Lumpen still sounds mean as fuck, but a bit less than before.
Corrupción's tracks also tend to be a bit more "linear" in their structures, it's less "blasting", and it gives a more resigned feeling, a "sad vibe" (relatively speaking) to the album which is accentuated by the reverb on the "less hoarse" vocals. So in the end I feel much less "attacked" by what I listen to than before (and a big part of the success of this kind of music is the feeling of aggressiveness it's able to express).
So yes I like this album, Lumpen still writes and plays good punk songs but I can't help but feel slightly unsatisfied, I was expecting something more aggressive and I feel like I was moved from the front row in the pogo pit to the back of the room if you see what I mean (I don't pogo any more anyway).
Jailer's demo reviews have popped up a bit everywhere online over
the past weeks and it's quite funny to see that while everybody agrees
that this tape rips, it seems that Jailer's sound recalls very
different things to each reviewers depending on their musical tastes and
backgrounds. So now I guess it's my turn to add a little more confusion to the
upbeat cacophony of the online punk world intelligentsia.
But first things first, according to various sources Jailer
is one of the newest project of NYC and Philly punks who have a long
record of obnoxious noise-making behind them, it even seems that one
(the drummer maybe?), or some, of them, was/were involved in Sirkka, a great
Finnish-hardcore-infused raw punk band from NYC which released a killer tape
in 2020. Despite being obviously very talented, these guys also seem to
love secrecy and I've not been able to dig up any first-hand information
(congratulations, I usually manage to stalk almost everybody
online).
So first these guys like it loud and noisy, the guitars got that crushing buzz-saw sound and the deafening crunchy cymbals add the extra ingredient to something that could really fall into the "noise-worship" category. Thankfully the bass sticks out in that mess with a very medium round sound which gives an old-school anarcho punk vibe to the lot. On top of that the vocalist seems to particularly like the typical vocal flow dear to a part of the 80s British anarcho-punk wave (obvious on Vision Zero).
Yes, to me a lot in Jailer is reminiscent to the most "hardcore" bands from the 80s British anarcho-punk movement, I can think of Anti-System, A.O.A or some parts of Conflict's discography even if Jailer adds to that a "noise mayhem approach" closer to what Scandinavia used to offer at the time.
Something else entirely: the most music-loving or film-loving among you will appreciate the surprising reference to that good old Richard Wagner on Sexual Janitor.
Whatever Jailer will make you think of, it's obvious that these guys' four songs totally rip. It got that in-your-fucking-face energy mixed with great songs structures and perfect punk vocals which make you wanna pogo AND listen to that shit on your way to work in the morning while you're being crushed in the packed subway wagon. The only thing that bothers me a bit is the tendency to play noisy but annoying guitar solos here and there (especially on Human Momentum), thankfully it doesn't reach the "Metal-inspired threshold" so it's still fine.
Let's hope that, not like Sirkka, something else will come out very soon...
Oh yes, of course I agree too... what the fuck is this cover artwork?
If you follow this page regularly (and Google's telling me you don't) you
probably noticed
my post about Dyatlov's debut EP, two tracks of insane upbeat noise-synth-punk made in Holland which made
it to
my year's end top list
(highest distinction any band can dream of these days).
Well the crazy Dutchmen are back on
Spazz Records
with a new two-track EP called Insect Paranoia.
Before plunging into noise and sweat, the first thing I noticed was the sudden change of style/atmosphere in the cover, while the one from their
first EP was clearly to not be taken seriously, even mocking
poor Anatoli and his professional mistakes, this one is glommy and
morbid, recalling the dark shores of genres called anarcho punk, d-beat, crust, dark
waves etc... and not what I imagined as a sunny Dyatlov's beach on
the North Sea... (I
actually can't picture it).
And indeed Insect Paranoia's overall atmosphere is a lot less
"fun"...
If you survived the watching of the above clip, well first good on you
mate you're probably not epileptic and won't collapse anytime soon at your
little niece's next birthday, on the contrary if you are writhing on the
ground in pain while vomiting your corn flakes you probably didn't pay
attention to the nice warning at the very beginning, you know just before your eyes got nuked by
thousand of fluorescent flashes (they warned you though, so... too bad).
So no Dyatlov didn't turn into a dark/cold-wave band (thanks
Satan), the "noise-synth-punk" formula remains untouched but, yes there is
a BUT, I don't feel the bursting upfront energy of
Wound Man...Insect Paranoia is more restrained, bleaker, less
in-your-face, building more in repetition and length. And that doesn't
necessary mean it's a bad thing, it's just different but I have to say
that it was the "mean", "resentful" and "aggressive" atmosphere (we're not talking NYHC
aggressiveness type here of course but you know what I mean) that I
particularly enjoyed in their first release and it's a bit more difficult
for me to get into it this time.
Less flashes, more lovely Dutch landscapes (life is a journey).
So Death Machine / Factory (a double track in one, amazing!) starts exactly like what I was expecting for the A side: noisy, fast, mean and straight to the point! One minute and some twenty seconds later (the end of the too short Death Machine?), the second track builds from the rubble in a cold "industrial" atmosphere (this is Factory after all) before mixing in some kind of "farcical" Freak Show vibe, giving to the whole thing a strange atmosphere full of extreme discomfort and uneasiness coming for two opposite sides of my "pop culture horror themes clichés" (the abandoned factory and the early 20th century freak show).
And it does work beautifully! I think I like this side a lot more than the Insect Paranoia one, it got the driving upfront craziness I'm fond of at the beginning and the slow discomfort building of a very peculiar atmosphere afterward, and yes that's great!
Anyway I've heard that a full length's on the way (on Spazz again of course)... and that's a release I'm definitely not going to miss!
N,J'Oi!
PS: it seems that Rader Kraft, an electro minimal-synth live act from Amsterdam, will release very soon some kind of "cover" of Insect Paranoia (why not).
The new year's starting really well, January's been a really fructuous
month in terms of punk music and this RAF compilation got a lot of
killer tracks in store for you all little thrill seekers. A lot of
hardcore punk, but not only, and if you're patient enough to listen
until the end there are a few "outside the box" surprises there for
you.
Seventeen bands hailing from all over the planet, from the US of course
but also from Australia, Italy, France, Greece, Spain, Holland, Norway
and Japan...
I'm trying to keep as international as possible while not avoiding the
great stuff coming from the land of the free.
N,J'Oi!
01 - Insane Urge - There's a World 02 -
Assistert Sjølmord - Kontroll 03 - Invertebrates -
Red Lake Earth 04 - Lumpen - Renuncia a tu vida 05 -
Foil - Peruvian Coke 06 - Jailer - Sexual
Janitor 07 - Counter Control - The World is Burning Up 08
- Comunione - Esca 09 - Glands - Break Me 10 -
Piss Kinks - Fight I Can't Win 11 - Rampage! -
Notion of Elite 12 - Split System - Hit me 13 -
ΜΠΡΙΤΖΟΛΙΤΣΕΣ - ΚΟΥΡΑΔΟΚΑΣΤΡΟ - Shitcastle 14 -
Thatcher's Snatch - We're Going to Hell 15 -
Boucan - French Manucure 16 - Dyatlov - Death
Machine - Factory 17 - Gotou - Wet 背
