Feral

 

A short one today about this new band hailing from Atlanta, Georgia, and called Feral.

Featuring the singer of Judy And The Jerks at the bass and the drummer of Nag and Western Civilization behind the drums, this group relies on a solid experience to deliver a very high quality demo beautifully illustrated by Ross Adams (a visual and tattoo artist originally from Oklahoma City who played in numerous bands including American Hate and Crush Crusher).

Released on Earth Girl Tapes (a label well known to this page you can read a bit about in my enthusiastic post about Fumes from last November and which focuses primarily on the Hattiesburg scene) this demo shows from the very first seconds that it fits perfectly on Hampton Martin's label: It's fast, there's that punk vibe that meets the speed and energy of hardcore, it's clearly well played and the live recording provides that sense of urgency so dear to our old punk ears that is also prevalent on most EGT releases. 

But Feral are not only good at playing ripping fast punk songs inspired by early 80s US hardcore, and that's when it becomes more interesting than you average next-door hardcore punk band, they're also able to build up dark but thrilling atmospheres around mid-tempo songs like in the moving Touching Tips and its driving guitar riff or in Cycle (my favourite track of the tape) and its heavily post-punk oriented chorus. 

 

Yes Feral demo is full of promise and I'm confident that these guys and gals will be able to deliver a top notch EP or album very soon if they really get on with it. Let's see if the other bands the members are in leave them enough time to make it possible.

You can listen to Feral on Rien à Faire #34.

 

  

 

 

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Vangas New Single

Just a quick one to talk a bit about the new single by The Vangas.

If you are not new to this blog you may have seen my enthusiastic piece about the past releases of the band from Atlanta.

Well the little green men are back with a new 2-track single on Chunklet Industries Records (like their first single) and man that is great news!

Every Day is The Same / Sandstone are clearly coming from some swampy noise rock pool... Vangas is not fucking around any more and wants it dirty, heavy and in-your-face in a very loud and noisy way...

Heavy bass, angry/desperate vocals, stomping but obsessive drums,  alternatively discreet, bursting and insane guitar parts: Every Day Is The Same is a masterpiece of modern despair, a beautiful incarnation of entrapment feeling. And as half of the world has been or is still experiencing a lockdown, I am sure I will not be the only one relating to it... Genius!

Sandstone takes us for a longer trip, more than 5 minutes long it gives plenty of time to our sexually deranged goblins to explore the darkest corners of their noise rock... As a spectator we can only be (once again) the witnesses of the band enthusiasm for noise, larsens and everything that can sound like chaos out of an amp... Grab holding our plastic chairs and beer cans, petrified, we can stare, blink maybe and listen to our ears bleeding...

Yes it is dark, very dark and it will remind to a lot of you long evenings of teenage depression, warm beer and shapes carvings in the forearms...

Vangas is good.

Guys give us a LP now!

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Vangas

picture by Leighton Hoey

 Vangas is from Atlanta, Georgia and has been developping a new kind of fetish for sex with goblins since 2017 (at least!).

But let's focus on these guys' music...

 

I can smell the Chloroform, Cha-Cha-Cha EP is the first band release (online only, end of 2017) and is a good occasion to enjoy, on top of the band obvious taste for the spooky and creepy, four (good) songs of high energy low-fi garage punk. 
4 songs? but it's a 5-track EP?

Ex-ac-tly... the fifth song (Jackson is Dead) is mostly noise and guitar-pedal-versus-larsen wandering... a good introduction to what the band will offer next...

 

 In 2018 the band releases (on bandcamp) a live recording of their Industry Night show on October 20, 2018 in Athens, Georgia. And, as they explain themselves "A large portion of the performance is nothing but improvised noise, or just us fucking around with guitar pedals and swinging mics across the room" in which pops, from time to time, a song or two from their first EP...
Yes these young boys don't like to play it nice and clean and their taste for dirt and noise will soon bring them to other shores...

Facial Tissue, Vangas' first full length, was released (on bandcamp only) one year ago (April 2019)  and you can forget everything you thought you knew!
Forget the first EP! it's a completely different show here: with 9 new songs, and 6 of them longer than 5 min, this is not garage punk anymore but a full menu of noisy and heavy rock, something between noise rock and some kind of psychedelic post-hardcore... the kind of rock'n roll which doesn't cruise drive nicely on the highway...

And the fact that this album is so hard to define is probably what makes it so interesting.
The drums are heavy, the guitars are switching between heavyness and total noisy crazyness while the singer shouts and screams despair and anger...where the FUCK have we landed?


Vangas reminds me a bit of the crazy swiss geniuses of YC-CY on this one, with a more punk attitude maybe...

 Synth, chains, drum machine, metal sheetin... everything is a weapon in the war against silence and boredom that the band is leading... and the final battle takes place on Two Men Fucking (you can see the video above), the last assault of pure noise on our poor eardrums... 
 

A bit less than a year after Facial Tissue, Vangas is back on tracks with a new 2-songs EP (as a 7" on Chunklet Industries, first Vangas physical release).
And I am amazed, once again, to note that the 4 guys are still in motion... of course we are still closer to the LP than to the first EP but not so close either: the bass lines are rounder, the vocals are wailing, the vibe is smoother (at least that's what they make you believe at first)... the 90s DC post-hardcore scene influence is getting stronger right?  


But the Vangas guys got more than one trick in their little bag, and the smoothing is just a start before a furious scratching departure...
Yes chaos is never far, nothing is sure or secure and Vangas will make a point at teaching it to us till the very end...

picture by Leighton Hoey

 You can listen to Vangas on Rien à Faire #10.


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Nag

Nag is a punk band from Atlanta, Georgia, which has been around since 2015/2016 and features members of bands like Predator, GHB, Acid Freaks and Beat Beat Beat. 

 It all started with a self-released (later out on Scavenger Of Death) cassette in 2016.

With these 7 tracks of highly surprising punk rock, Nag delivers an original mix of modern post punk with some dark 77 influences (the dark side of the Damned ?).

Hopping from the psyche vibes of Dead Sea to the pure punk gem energy of Identify this demo is a real album, full of diversity and great songs which deserve a proper vinyl release.

A great start for sure!  

 First vinyl release on Total Punk a few months later, once again Nag doesn't like to do like everyone else and delivers 2 songs way more interesting than the usual low fi garage punk 7" you can (mostly) find on Total Punk.
False Anxiety is a beauty of simple perfect punk song and I'm So Small is an extremely surprising 3 minutes long dark complain, jumping from fast drumming to slow despair...
 

 

 And the band is not slowing down a bit, releasing two more 7" in 2017:

Files on Space Taker Sounds and Henry's Lathe on Chunklet Industries.

Keeping it a bit psyche and dark but definitly punk, Nag still has a lot to say.

Next release is a split 7" on Space Taker Sounds with Lip from Baltymore (check their garage post punk out!) in 2018.

Two songs of 80s psyche punk with weird noises and some synth (the end of Surfer!), Nag is not giving up!

And after a little line-up change on bass we arrive to the latest Nag release (december 2019), Red Panda, which doesn't seem to have any physical existence yet. 

Three songs for what probably is their best material to date, three songs of high energy post punk with a beautiful 77 vibe, three songs of pure Nag genius...  

You can listen to Nag on Rien à Faire #8.

N,J'Oi!

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