Invertebrates

 

Ok ok I know this demo was released early January, no no it didn't fly under my radar, I mean I even included Red Lake Earth in RAF#31, so yes I definitely could have found the time to do a little write-up about that killer tape, it was on my to do list to be honest but... well.. you know how life is, I got pulled towards other releases, other stuff etc... and it didn't happen. Anyway Sorry State is now releasing a new run of the demo tape which gives me the perfect opportunity to finally talk a little bit about Invertebrates.

 

So Invertebrates could be described as another American band made up of punk veterans (in this case from North Carolina and Virginia) who've played in numerous bands (Public Acid, Wild Rose, Lipid, Wriggle among many others) and who manage to play some kind of incredibly fast and tight hardcore punk (that' s a conclusion that me and a good friend regularly come to when discussing the quality of the "musicians" in punk and hardcore bands: with the exception of many bands from Scandinavia, especially Sweden, American bands play in a completely different league than European bands... which is both a bit irritating and frustrating to be honest, but c'est la vie!).

So yes no surprise here this tape is an absolute ripper... it's just exactly what you can expect from the best of present day hardcore punk, it has all the right influences from all the classic super fast 80s US hardcore bands but it's played even faster and, most of all, much tighter! And that's the main difference with all the great names from the 80s, it's just incredibly well played (I could be wrong but I feel that, with the exception of a few really good bands, most of the 80's bands sound extremely sloppy compared to Invertebrates), the average skill level of US punk musicians is just super high these days (and that's great I guess). Invertebrates are probably influenced by bands like The Fix and Koro who were both fast and tight (and super good).

 

These guys obviously decided to make it sound as much as possible like a tape landing straight from the early 80s and it's a total success: the whole thing sounds quite "compressed" (a bit too much in my opinion). But don't get me wrong, it's still super powerful, the drums don't stop pounding your eardrums like a jackhammer at blistering tempos while the guitars manage to break through the chaos just like they should... it's just brilliant!

Invertebrates makes me think of three different bands for three different reasons: the comparison with Bootlicker (especially with their 2021 LP) is quite obvious as the vocals got the same kind of "low-frequency aggressiveness without being hoarse" (you know what I mean right?) and the drums... I mean the drums of course! Then there is Loose Nukes, I was listening to their Behind The Screen EP this morning in the Paris subway on my way to work (maybe I should start doing the "I can't talk about music without talking about me, myself and I" thing like a lot guys seem to be doing these days) and as much as I love their records I couldn't help but think that that "tape-sound-worship", or whatever you wanna call it, is a bit of shame when you think of how "life-changing good" (can I say that?) this band is on stage (Loose Nukes at K-Town in 2019 is one of the best shows I've ever seen) and the recording of their songs doesn't pay justice at all to that. So I have the same kind of feeling (a lot less than with Loose Nukes though) with Invertebrates. The third band is Krigshoder, because when I think of incredibly fast and tight I just of them, their tape was just the best (it disappeared from bandcamp but it's still on YT). 

But enough pointless blabbing... just pump up the volume on your fucking air-pods and press play! Invertebrates rule the world and will outlive mankind, that's all that matters!

N,J'Oi!

 

 

 

 

You can listen to Invertebrates on Rien à Faire #31.

 

  

 

 

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Spicer

 

Just a short one today about this new band hailing from Helsinki, Finland, and called Spicer, which released a pretty cool demo a couple of months ago, in January.

 

 

  I'm afraid I don't have much information to share about the band and its members, the three Finns were smart enough to stay away from the social media hype and fly under my, usually very efficient, radar. Everybody likes to brag online about the "genius" noise they make in their bedrooms you know (except these guys obviously).

 

So let's focus on the music rather than the gossips if you don't mind:

 With a drum machine, a synth and tags like "dark" and "gloomy" all over their bandcamp page, nobody (and certainly not me) would have guessed at first glance that Spicer will have the distinct honour of being a guest on the amazing Rien à Faire page. No-bo-dy! But hey! I've heard that life is all about unexpected events and so here they are. Let me explain why.

Starting with the very-well-named Tense, the demo opens up with a heavy bass-line (and I'm a sucker for killer basslines you know, who isn't after all?) before letting the cold and mechanical drums hit you in the face with a very simple repetitive beat that "holds" some very deep and catchy vocals that sound like emerging from a dark and narrow Finnish tunnel. Yes there's a lot of reverb on those vocals, and that's cool! So yes let's just say I was immediately hooked! I didn't even mind the synth (which I usually hate), which manages to stay discreet enough not to pollute the straightforward atmosphere of the song (and I love "straightforward").

And that's exactly the winning formula the band keeps develops throughout the next four tracks, whether it's with a simple but heavy guitar riff on Inwards and Days Of Drifting, or with a fast "hardcore" beat on Not Yours To Keep (even if those weird synth sounds at the beginning worried me at first), these guys manage to do their thing while remaining "hardcore" in a way. And that's pretty cool!

Cold Machine concludes beautifully the whole thing with a perfect mix of all the tricks perfectly used on the previous tracks, it's catchy, it's straightforward and simple, the vocals get into your head... it's exactly what I wanted (it just lacks another killer bass line somewhere but eh! c'est la vie as they say in Paris).  

 

So yes I really enjoyed this demo! I's love to draw super smart comparisons to some very obscure new-wave / EBM / synth punk bands but that's definitely not my area of expertise so I won't (well ok the only band I could think of was Special Interest because they fucking rule but that's very different!). Anyway, give this shit a listen and let's see if anything else comes from the north in the coming months... Fingers crossed!

 

 

 

N,J'Oi!

 

 

 

 

You can listen to Spicer on Rien à Faire #32.

 

  

 

 

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Running

 

I talked briefly about Running in my post about Brandy one year and a half ago, the two bands sharing the same vocalist, and this new tape recently released on Physical Medium finally gives me a good reason to talk a bit more about the band from Chicago.

I'm not going to "scrutinize" the quite long discography of the band but rather give a quick "overview" of their main releases before taking a closer look at this tape. If you're not familiar with Running music, I would suggest to listen to the tape first and then go backwards, but you can do whatever you want.

 

Running released their self-titled debut album in 2010, a time when mass extinction and World War III were still just another depressive vague topic and not an upcoming date in our agenda. Running is punk, chaotic punk with lots of noise. These guys make it loud, real loud, the sound is heavy and crunchy but don't get me wrong, shrieking feedbacks are never very far, ringing ears are just around the corner... To make it short I would say that Running is a mix between the sound of the MC5, the energy of the dirtiest garage punk, Chicago noise-rock and a strong punk attitude. What a mix, huh? Yes this is the type of cuisine the band has been cooking up with every conceivable condiment for over a decade. Put on your bib, it's spicy and it stains.

 

With Asshole Savant (their second album, if you consider that a one-sided 12" is an album, I do) released in 2012, Running gets a bit more reasonable, the chaos of exploding noises of the first album has been tamed, the trio's now playing something closer to a trashy kind of garage noise or something like that. Something that would not be completely off topic on Voodoo Rhythm.

This album is not easy to find online, so I uploaded the files I found: Running, Asshole Savant.

That's it! With Vaguely Ethnic (2013), the band's found the perfect balance in their recipe, delivering what is, in my opinion, the embodiment of what Running music is. The trio keeps playing the same kind of trashy garage noise they explored in Asshole Savant but this time they add a stronger rock'n roll attitude, catchy guitar riffs and, most of all, a great sound. Yes in this LP is a bit of a rough draft of what Brandy will be a few years later: a delightful cocktail of extremely catchy songs.

Same as with Asshole Savant, download it here: Running Vaguely Ethnic.

 

 

 With Wape Up Applauding (2016), Running moves away from the trashy, but catchy, garage punk of Vaguely Ethnic, to make things slower, deeper, even more subtle maybe. Running is still Running, that unique guitar sound and the very recognizable vocals (with a lot of chorus effect) announce it very clearly from the first seconds of the record. But this time the trio takes their time to build up slowly noisy atmospheres, atmospheres which can almost be described as psychedelic sometimes as the repetition of haunting riffs, often heavy but never brutal, exalts the brain to excess. No catchy chorus or melodies here, Wake Up Applauding is not danceable, it's dark, twisted and dense. No "hit song" either, the album is a whole that you got to attack repeatedly, from different angles, to be able to penetrate to the core. A bit like this strange and thick layer of skin on the cover.

Not their easiest album to get into, but perhaps the one you'll come back to most easily.

Almost impossible to stream online, here is the downloadable version: Running Wake Up Applauding.

 

 

And that was mostly it until now. Ok there are other EPs and collabs I haven't mentioned, for example the very last Running release is an instrumental and very psychedelic tape with Ryley Walker recorded in 2018 (not very interesting in my opinion).

So let's come back now to Asked You Nicely, the "cassingle" I was talking about at the very beginning of this post. Recorded in 2019 in New York, these two songs are unfortunately the very last of Running, Alejandro Morales (drums) passed away in March 2021 (RIP). 

Opening up with WUYFOWTIA, Running benefits from a particularly sharp sound that's used to punch you in the face with the best of their noisy, almost raucous and cold, almost industrial, rock whose icy melodies pierce your eardrums to the bone until your brain drips through your nostrils. Savage!

But don't get excited, you're not getting away, the trio's not done with your fragile mind: The five-plus minute track Asked You Nicely tortures every inch of your body and soul until you talk, sing and scream your lungs out... sorry no one can hear you here in the basement baby. It's cold, very cold, and that sharp shrieking metallic sound is going to hammer you down man... Wow what a track!

 

The third and final track is a remix of Asked You Nicely by Bill Conors (the man behind Physical Medium, he also made the tape cover artwork), and this version is even colder and darker than the original one. A lot of gloomy electronic sounds are taking you hostage and your cell this time is the antechamber of EBM and all this kind of gloomy, gothic and deeply unsane electronic music. You're totally wasted in a sweating basement, the party's been going on for days, weeks maybe, you can't move and you're watching, helplessly, Running meticulously crushing your useless brain...

 

What a tape! Probably the best post-mortem release Running could dream of! 

REST IN POWER!

 

 

 

 

 

You can listen to Running on Rien à Faire #32.

 

  

 

 

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EXIL: New tracks

 

If you checked my 2021 Year's end top list, you may have read my review of Exil's last year LP, well good news it's not too late if you haven't yet and wanna learn a bit more about the band... Ok so the swedes are back with two new tracks which "didn't fit" on the coming 7" titled Mercenary which should be out on Adult Crash in fall 2022 (pressing plants delays are insane these days). So these two tracks are just an appetizer and should be released "on pro-tape together with 2 songs from the coming 7”, and 2 songs from the Warning LP" by the same Adult Crash.

 

 

  Suffer is in my opinion very representative of the kind of sound Exil "usually" delivers, it's fast and in your-face: the drums pound your face relentlessly while the very aggressive and slamming bass sound takes over the heavy Poison-Idea influenced guitar riffs and the dual vocals respond to each other on the verse. And that leads to the chorus where the "main" singer takes over the screaming with intonations reminiscent of Damaged Head's latest releases.

With its three minutes, Overdose is a "long" hardcore track. It starts off mid-tempo, driven by a heavy bass line, before speeding up a bit and turning into some kind of oi!-infused track in which OVERDOSE is chanted and shouted all the way through, the singer being regularly joined by gang vocals that take us to the "street" side of punk. It's very efficient, powerful and catchy to be honest, definitely my favourite of the two tracks.

Just a few more months to wait before the new 7" (and maybe a new LP not too long after?)! That's a pretty cool teaser anyway!

 

 

You can listen to Exil on Rien à Faire #32.

 

  

 

 

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Kätyrlauma

 

Kätyrlauma (Google's translation is A Herd Of Minion... I'm not sure it's correct but it looks like a very Finnish word anyway) is a quartet from Turku, Finland, which has been around since 2018 or something like that. These ladies and gentlemen play some very straight forward hardcore punk with female front vocals which has the unusual, and distinctive, feature of being deeply inspired by the history and mythology of Finland.

Their video-clips, the way the singer is dressed on stage, the group pictures etc... the whole band aesthetic is more reminiscent of Nordic-mythology-obsessed gothic and metal bands than of furious hardcore punk bands so that's quite original (and why not after all).

I couldn't find much about the musical backgrounds of the four Finns except for Teemu (guitar) who sings in Västiä.

 

 

 Released in 2019 on Blast Of Silence Records, Kätyrlauma self-titled 8-track EP is full of that Finnish folklore I'm was mentioning before (it's pretty obvious even for a guy like me who don't know much Finland, its folklore and its language). Indeed God Google's telling me that some of the songs' titles are Noitanainen (Witchcraft), Metsän Kutsu (The Call Of The Forest) and Maailman synty-trilogia: 1. Maan sukellus / 2. Polvella muninta / 3. Taivaan taonta (The Birth of the World trilogy: 1. Earth Dive / 2. Knee Laying / 3. Heaven Forging) and all that kind of stuff... And yes I agree that's a very long song name.

Eight songs (for a total of almost 11 minutes) on a 7", that's a pretty good score. The record kicks off with bells ringing like a medieval alarm on a grey autumn morning, the enemy's on his way, fighting is inevitable! And yes Kätyrlauma throws us into battle without hesitation! Thanks to a powerful, but too "clean" sound, clearly lacking of a "sonic identity" in my opinion, and the furious vocals of Lotta-Lucia (who works as a visual artist when she's not screaming at the top of her lungs dressed like a Pagan priestess), the songs exude an uninterrupted feeling of overflowing rage that doesn't leave a second of rest (that's the kind of folklore that will get grandpa up for sure!).

 

Thinking of Finland and ripping hardcore bands it would easy to draw comparisons with all the distinguished pioneers of the furious Finnish sound but Kätyrlauma's not there really. My brain leads me rather in the direction of other bands with powerful sound and female vocals like C.H.E.W or Torso even though these two bands got a stronger and more obvious hardcore twist.

In this early 2022 the band is back with Aboa Furvus (Aboa is the old latin name of the city of Turku and Furvus is a latin word meaning dark/gloomy so, and based on the cover artwork and the songs' titles, I guess it refers to the 1827 "Great Fire of Turku" which is still up-to-now the largest urban fire in the history of Finland and the Nordic countries), a new 7" released, once again, on Blast Of Silence Records (and Hyiset Lewyt, which seems to be the band's label).

 

 

Opening once again with the ominous sound of the bell, this new EP picks up right where the previous one left off and Kätyrlauma's lost none of their furious energy! I would even say that the band has gained in intensity thanks to a slightly less "clean" sound. These guys play very fast and very tight hardcore punk, showing no mercy for the listeners' poor ears throughout the seven tracks of Aboa Furvus... no slowing down and no tea-break here, you'll have to hold on till the end! And as much as I enjoy speed and rage in punk I also appreciate when bands manage to leave "resting spaces" along the way, and I feel that Kätyrlauma's music would have been easier to enjoy in the long run with a few "breaks" here and there. 

 

 

  Confirming its penchant for a dark, and almost "gothic", aesthetic, the band continues to explore Finnish myths, folklore and historical events (from a time when present-day Finland did not yet exist)  in a way that, literally, sounds particularly hard-hitting and brutal for someone like me who doesn't grasp anything about the language. This time they also deliver a few music videos whose atmosphere alternates between cheap (and quite funny to be honest) winter scenes of boredom and gloomy evocations of the aforementioned dark folklore the band is particularly fond of. The good point is that, based on what I see the below video, they don't seem to take it too seriously either...

 

 

  As expected, the female vocals remain the most remarkable component of Kätyrlauma's hardcore punk, alternating between shrieking banshee-like screams and hateful guttural roars, the vocalist gives off an absolutely tremendous energy... her very high-pitched tone will surely tire some in the long run (I personally like it) and it's really appreciated when she's joined by a second voice, male this time, which revives the whole thing a bit once in a while.

So Kätyrlauma is the kind of band that, without any doubt, exudes something very unique (the atmosphere, the songs' topics, the vocals etc...) and manages to play a very high-energy kind of straight forward hardcore punk reminiscent of some of the biggest names in the genre, however I feel that the records would have gained of two things: a "more punk", dirtier kind of sound and, most of all, of slightly different song structures at times, more ventilated, more " free-flowing ", in order to be able to walk our ears more easily through the spectrum of its hardcore punk.

 

 

  N,J'Oi!

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can listen to Kätyrlauma on Rien à Faire #32.

 

  

 

 

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Rifle

 

Rifle is a new band from London, UK, you're probably going to hear a lot about in the coming months as this short demo seems to be only a teaser for what's gonna come next. I don't who these guys are exactly but I would not be surprised if they're connected in one way or another with the Chubby And The Gang / The Chisel gang.

All I know is that one of them plays in Fur from Brighton.

 

 

  Four tracks, 7 minutes of music, is not that much but it's more than enough to understand that Rifle's already found their own style. Embracing a kind of vintage / demo tape sound which takes us back to the end of the 70s / early 80s, these guys manage to mix the raw side of late 70s British punk (Chelsea, Menace, The Users) with some rock'n roll guitar riffs and a "street attitude" leaving no doubt about the "oi! background" some of these guys have.

Yes there's something of the very obscure (and sometimes very politically dodgy) oi! demos/tapes from the early 80s that all the "real oi! lovers" cherish in secret (I won't mention any names for obvious reasons). Obvious on The Flag, these influences meet a few melodic guitar lines at the end of Feet First that don't fit in the limits of the genre but add a very enjoyable little something that makes the difference between new bands with the right influences and uninspired worship bands.

The vocals are definitely one of the strongest, and catchy, points of Rifle's songs. The singer masterfully delivers a catchy and powerful, but not really aggressive, vocal that sounds, above all, extremely British, and you guys know that this is a big part of the charm that many bands from the perfidious Albion exude. I would like to emphasize my particular fondness for the very good anti-war song Feet First, particularly and sadly relevant these days.

 

So yes that's a great demo that makes me think of what some Aussie bands delivered a couple of years ago, Gaffer for example (even if they're obviously more influenced by Crisis) and most of all Punter, probably the closest sound to Rifle I can think of at the moment even if they tend to add a lot of woo-hoo here and there and have a stronger "hardcore punk" vibe. 

 

Just go for it, listen to that shit, I'm telling you it's just the beginning of the Rifle era!

 

 

PS: No Solution Ltd / Urban Decline Archive made a very limited tape release of the demo in the US if you're interested...

 

N,J'Oi!

 

 

 

 

 

You can listen to Rifle on Rien à Faire #32.

 

  

 

 

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Ugly World Amusement Park

 

A short one today about this cool demo hailing from the Australian state of Victoria. Ugly World Amusement Park is Shane and Nick, two friends who most probably played in other bands before that (but I could not find any information about them). Nick is also a visual artist and he is responsible for the super cool artwork of this demo cover, I absolutely love it. UWAP, as the cool kids say, is therefore a duo studio project (except if they wanna play live with no bass and one guitar only but I would not advise it), the kind of project I can strongly relate to as I'm involved in something similar called Guimauve (some more tunes coming soon!).

 

 

  Ok so this demo features five fast hardcore punk absolute rippers! It's fast, it's angry, it's straight forward, it sounds exactly like it should: it's perfect!

Strongly influenced by 80s US hardcore, UWAP songs are mostly made of fast parts but also got some heavier parts (on Gut Oil most notably), mix the whole thing with very snotty (sometimes even a bit "trashy") punk vocals and you obtain a killer result reminiscent of the best bands from the current Kansas City scene like D.Y.E or Loss Prevention... which are influenced by the whole No Way Records era... which was strongly influenced by ripping fast 80s Midwest and Cali (among others) hardcore punk bands like The Necros, The Fix etc... you know the deal. And to not limit my name-dropping to the almighty United States of America I can also think of Akne from the UK or of a "lighter" version of Scab Eater from 'stralia.

But as we're talking of a duo studio project I guess that one of the most accurate comparison would be with Courtroom Sketches (check out their super cool tape).

Well anyway it is pointless to lose more time to ramble unnecessarily, you got the point, this is a killer demo so turn up the volume and blast your eardrums!

 N,J'Oi!

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can listen to Ugly World Amusement Park on Rien à Faire #32.

 

  

 

 

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Soft Torture

 

Soft Torture is a new punk quartet from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, made up of Chuck, Jess, Sam and Aaron. Chuck (bass) played in YDI (pronounce Why Die if you're cool), an early 80s hardcore punk act from Philly, Sam (guitar) plays in DeStructos, Aaron (drums) plays in Haldol and Blank Spell, has played in The Stasi and even in Bad American at one point, a killer hardcore punk band mentioned before in my post about Wipes. Aaron also manages World Gone Mad Records which has released some of his bands' records, Soft Torture being no exception.

 

 Ok that's way enough for an introduction, turn up the volume and listen!

Fast and loud indeed! With no track exceeding two minutes, there's no time to waste, they play a super tight kind of fast-punk/hardcore punk with frantic rhythms and guitar riffs supporting mad and hallucinated female vocals. These eight songs (I don't count the outro as a real song) got that weird twist that would make some add the adjective "arty" to my previous and, I'm sure you'd agree, most accurate description ("arty" tends to be used a bit too often to describe anything slightly different from your next-door drunk pogo punk band so I'll refrain from sticking it on Soft Torture's music today, if you don't mind), let's just say that these guys are pretty skilled at making their songs sound both super fast AND super weird, a difficult outcome to achieve that requires a certain amount of musical "mastery" (the guitarist's killing it!).

The vocals also has a lot to do with the strong sense of "madness" and frenzy that immediately made me think of the awesome Judy And The Jerks, of their English counterpart of Sniffany And The Nits and, to a lesser extent, of Thing and Crotch Rot.

The record concludes with a 2:30 long outro which pops up like a pin-up from a cake at your grandma's birthday party: a bit unexpected you know... (well I don't know your grandma but I figure...). A slow and melancholic instrumental ballad more reminiscent of some Doors B-side than of Black Flag but I like it, isn't the world slowly sinking towards its own extinction anyway? 

Soft Torture falls into a well-known category of super tight and super fast "weird" punk with female front vocals that's been extensively explored over the past decades but that I always enjoy (I'm a sucker for this shit), especially when it's played as well as Soft Torture do. A very good release!

picture by Angg Muñnzy

N,J'Oi!

 

 

 

 

 

You can listen to Soft Torture on Rien à Faire #32.

 

  

 

 

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