Bikini Body

picture by Daniel McGowan

Bikini Body is a young band from Edinburgh, UK, which is playing some kind of female-fronted modern punkish post-punk and has just released Pond Life, a 5-track EP (digital only).

Artwork by Shipei Wang

First of all Bikini Body sounds extremely british to me: the accent, the humor, the vocabulary... it all comes straight from across the pond... and I love it!

Post-punk with a punk attitude, the band delivers really enjoyable high energy songs full of  the cynical criticism you can expect from the POMs.

I am so posh is an anthem! "I'm so posh Boris Johnson is my dad"

Hands off is a great and fun feminist song about men, relationships and all that.

Vicky manages to mix some kind of powerful speaking singing with occasional shoutings, keeping the energy high and the songs catchy.

It sometimes makes me think of Necking with a slight Shopping influence.

In one word, it's a great EP!

You can listen to Bikini Body on Rien à Faire #12.

N,J'Oi!

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P22

picture by Sophie Weil

P22 is from Los Angeles, California, and plays some nice female-fronted punk rock since 2015.

The guitar player is also part of the fascinating band Behavior which adventurous album, 375 Images of Angels, obsessed me for a while a few years ago (I am not so fond of their recent releases though).

Sofia also sings in the psych rock band Wand.

Accoding to their bandcamp page their discography contains 3 tapes on top of their recent 12" EP.

I could only find one, so let's start with this one.

By the way P22 doesn't refer to the gun but to "the famed Los Angeles mountain lion who crossed both the 405 and 101 freeways to disperse in Griffith Park."

The Beat Sessions are tapes released by Shout Recordings and recorded by Mike Kriebel in his studio, The Golden Beat.

It's basically Mike recording (mostly good) punk bands and releasing the result as tapes called Beat Sessions Vol #.

Check out the Urochromes, Institute and Fried Egg Beat Sessions.

The P22 Beat Session was released in 2017 and I assume contains most of their songs composed between 2015 and 2017, which would be 11 tracks including a Chumbawamba cover.

At first sight P22 delivers high energy straight forward female-fronted poum-poum-tchac punk but if you take time to give it a few listens you will notice the weird arty breaks, the noisy guitar in the background, the chaotic but controlled vibe that the guitar and the vocals, switching between imploring laments and resistance speeches, manage to create.

Sofia's singing makes me think of JJ Doll but there is also something of Moron with a slight pinch of post/anarcho punk...

In a nutshell: it's a great tape!

The band released in april this 12" EP called Human Snake on PPM (Post Present Medium) Records.

So first of all I'm sorry guys to say this but the cover art.... is not a success!

ok it's said!

After a long intro starting like a movie instrumental soundtrack (with violins) and growing into a slightly uncanny song, P22 jumps back to punk rock with great short songs like Farrowing Crate, Reprise For Steer or Shortly which immediatly recall the Beat Session tape... but this time the band has worked on the drumming and has learned how to bring the bass upfront (which gives a strong anarcho punk vibe at the beginning of Human Snake, 1978 for example)... which is good but I also feel that the guitar is not playing the noisy trouble maker role as much as before, which I regret a bit.

The band  is obviously more creative, I love the clac-clacs on Reprise For Steer and the vocals on Endling Chorus for The Terminach for example, and more at ease with more complex songs structures but I have the feeling that the main atmosphere is a bit "down", Sofia sounds tired and resigned and the overall energy is below what the Beat Session had...

I like this EP but it lacks a bit of consistency and energy to really makes me super enthusiastic.

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Une publication partagée par Sophie Weil (@sophie_syko_dovecove_olgaa) le 23 Déc. 2019 à 2 :39 PST

You can listen to P22 on Rien à Faire #12.

N,J'Oi!

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Loss Prevention

picture by ShuttleCockMusic

Loss Prevention is hailing from Kansas City, Missouri, and has set itself the noble goal of spreading chaotic punk hardcore all over the place.

Glory to them!

These four guys have subscribed to tinnitus and nasty headaches a few six packs ago, they were seen in  the loud and dirty Bad Mouth, Narc Parade, Neptune, Kolumbine Kids, The Drippies, Nancy Boys and Speed among other weirdos' acts...

It all starts at the end of 2019 with this love demo tape dedicated to KC police force.

With 5 tracks in total and all of them around 2 minutes each, Loss Prevention is making it last longer than most of their little peers.

Slower than some but faster than most, the band smells like chaos, rage and despair... a cocktail which has had some success in the great history of punk...

I love the second guitar, losing itself in some dark alleys haunted by a drunk Greg Ginn, the ride is wild but beautiful! The kind of reverb effect on the vocals makes me think of the Brick Walls 7" by the Beta Boys.

All the songs are a bit similar but you can feel that these guys have a lot under the hood.

For their first release on wax the band is going out with 11PM Records, from Virginia, a young label which has released a bunch of great records for the past 14 months of so. Some of them have actually been reviewed here, on your favorite webpage.

Shoot to Kill is obviously another expression of appreciation for the men in blue, it's true that, lately, they have been highly praised in the land of the free.

With four songs only and two of them close to the minute mark, Loss Prevention have sped up their game.

Following the demo recipe, this 7" is just spicier, rawer and nastier... the second guitar is all over the place, the singer has definitly lost it and the drums just keep beating it again and again...

A lovely dose of chaos in a world of despair, these guys are on the right track...

Would love to check them out live!

You can listen to Loss Prevention in Rien à Faire #12.

N,J'Oi!

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VA - Rien à Faire #12

Summer is here!

Enjoy your holidays (or not) with a bunch of new tracks; this one starts nicely like the morning sun before jumping into a swimming pool of raging punk and hardcore and finishes the day with a cold beer and some great post-punk!

 N,J'Oi!

01 - Cat Scan - Respond
02 - P22 - The Manger
03 - Nape Neck - No Platforming
04 - Clamm - Keystone Pols
05 - The Worms - Anxiety Pit
06 - Impotentie - Stille Rebellen
07 - Attestor - No Choice
08 - Jocko - Wise Man

09 - Leper - Chopped
10 - Loss Prevention - Blind Eyes
11 - Snarling Hate - Takeover
12 - Suck Lords - You're A Hype
13 - Gimmick - Killer Clown
14 - LIIEK - Conceit In My Head
15 - Bikini Body - Hands Off
16 - Walking Korpses - Healthy Teeth

 

And as usual the full compilation can be downloaded:
HERE
 

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MASKE

MASKE is a new band from Berlin which, on top of having the name of the year, just released their first full length at the beginning of June.

A bit of history first with the 2-track demo released in May 2019.

Two (good) tracks that are included in the 2020 full length.

But let's come back to 2020...

Leere Blicke, the first song available on their bandcamp page, totally blew my mind and my expectations were really high for the rest of the Tape...

and finally after some delays because of you-know-fucking-what... here it is!

cover art by
Ferdinand Dölberg (great Egon Schiele / Gustav Klimt vibe no?)

ok let's recap a bit first: MASKE is playing some great german punk with a clear influence from the first waves of underground bands, at a time when hardcore was stammering its first words in the language of Slime and the art students of the Neue Deutsche Welle were not working in the Advertisement Companies of their daddies yet.

In a nutshell any songs from TAPE would not sound akwardly out of touch on Soundtracks Zum Untergang (the first one), alongside early punk tunes from Hass, M.D Blitz and other classic 80 bands from the not-too-rough side of Aggressive Rockproduktionen.

To be honest I was expecting a really good but classic post-punk album, instead I got a great mix of german rock/punk/post-punk with an 80s sound... yes this thing is pretty diverse, looking a bit too much like a tribute to the 80s sometimes...

Der Würstenkraut smells like Brian Setzer's favorite brilliantine, Ecstasy is (I guess) more a classic rock ballad than a punk song, Hardcore is (obviously) a tribute to the first "hardcore" german bands and Schatten will make you smile if you speak french and have heard of NTM (you have)...

I really like Virtual Reality which with a super classic punk song construction manages to give a blunt description of the digital power of multinational companies on our connected lives...

Keep your distance and enjoy MASKE!

You can listen to Maske on Rien à Faire #10

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Coriky

Ok I know everybody is getting crazy about it... and to be honest I am too!

(I was already super excited about it last october...)

YES, like baby Jesus on a cold night in a barn, we can say that it's finally here! 

CORIKY, the new band of the Evens duo (Ian McKaye, Amy Farina) and Joe Lally (Fugazi, The Black Sea, The Messthetics with Brendan Canty), has finally released its first LP!! (on Dischord of course).

The original release date was supposed to be end of March but because of the you-know-fucking-what crisis it was pushed back to the 12th of June, well at least it comes right on time for summer.

I am not going to go through the resumes of the three band members, everybody knows how impressive they are...

But maybe the less famous one is Amy's previous band, The Warmers from DC (of course), that I HIGHLY recommend...

But back to Coriky! 

So let's be clear, Coriky sounds closer to The Evens than to Fugazi, this is definitly The Evens + the bassist of Fugazi and not Half of Fugazi + the drummer of The Warmers.

Anyway whatever it is it is just insanely great!

Once again Amy and Ian are the ones holding up the vocals, both of them singing a lot, but the three friends are also singing a lot TOGETHER, a bit like in Fugazi some times yes, and it's cool. If you are familiar with Joe Lally solo work (and you should!), you know that he is not a bad singer even if it doesn't get out as powerful as what Ian and his wife can deliver. And that's probably why he doesn't sing much in Coriky, and that's also why Coriky sounds so much like The Evens...

At first I thought that Joe was indeed really discreet on this album, not adding so much to what could have been The Evens 4th album. But the more I listen to it (and I actually only listen to Coriky anymore), there is this cool and soft groove in the background that just makes it all rounder and softer... like a sunday afternoon in your warm living room, sitting in your favorite couch with a hot cup of tea in front of you...

As usual the lyrics are beautiful and super weird at the same time, full of this modern poetry vibe edging with total non-sense (BQM) that we got used to with Fugazi...

And as usual I don't care I just find myself singing and humming those songs after a few listens... Last Thing We Ever Wanted Is War...

Ian is taking advantage of the electric guitar to give birth to a few burst of Fugazi-like noisy "solo" (Inauguration Day, Shedileebop) that could sound weird in the quiet world of Coriky but actually don't...

It reminds us once again where those guys come from and that they have not forgotten anything of it...

And it ends with Woulda Coulda, a beautiful ballad, a quiet bonfire song, a 70s influenced happy ending... the perfect conclusion to another great album for the DC family...

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Meadow Burials

If you are familiar with this blog you may have had a glimpse of the punk-noise of Ghost Of The Avalanche, a duo from Bath, UK, in Rien à Faire #7 (if not it's not too late to catch up!).

Well it happens that Nick Tone, the man behind the bass and the mic in GOTA, is also playing/singing in (after being a solo project) the punk rock trio Meadow Burials, and that's what I am going to write about today. 

 

art by Gwion

As any good book it starts with a Preface, a preface before the real deal ok but I would also describe the band first tape (in 2019 on DIE DAS DER) as an Exercice de style (Exercise in Style).

All by himself Nick is having fun trying to catch the core of a few styles of punk rock, delivering 5 short songs full of references and love for rock'n roll. 

Addiction got a strong early Hives vibe, Let The Right One In is a love letter to the melodic garagish punk side and I immediately thought "I know a band which sounds exactly like that" but no name has reached my brain yet; in the lot I hear some Misfits, some Pisse without synth, and maybe even some early Black Flag...
In a nutshell it's a nice start but it lacks a bit of personnality to really trigger my attention. 

 art by Gwion

Almost one year later Nick is back with two mates and a 7" on DIE DAS DER.
The Modern Age was recorded "with a ‘real’ band in a ‘real’ studio" this time and delivers 3 tracks in 2 and half minutes, these guys don't waste any time!


A lot more punk hardcore than Preface, Meadow Burials keeps the fuzztone guitar sound and low-fi-but-not-too-much vibe of the 2019 tape but with a more urgent feeling... things are not going well, time is running out, the modern age is a disaster, there is no time for compromise, the trio from Bath is in a hurry.
With the speed and maestro of Circle Jerks, Off! or early Black Flag, the band doesn't neglect the melodic side of hardcore and delivers a really enjoyable but way too short 7". 

N,J'Oi!


 You can listen to Meadow Burials and a lot of other great punk rock tunes on Rien à Faire #11.


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Crucial Features

 picture by Kissi Ussuki

Crucial Features is an all-girl band from Vilnius, Lithuania, which has been around since 2016 and plays some kind of 90s Riot Grrrl grungy punk heavily influenced by Babes in Toyland. 

Oh and all the songs are in Lithuanian, which is both great and unusual to my ears.
The band started as a quartet and is now a trio. 

Crucial Features is, since the beginning, really close to the photographer and artist Kissi Ussuki who, on top of taking great pictures of the ladies, is responsible for the artwork of their two albums. As you will probably notice her collage technique is not without reminding Mr.James Patrick Shannon Morey (AKA Winston Smith) or the Crass Records era.

 

Released in 2018, Kaprizai (Whims) is the band first release and features 6 songs of fast and angry grungy punk. With the heavy guitars and drums, the band has clearly chosen the sound of the 90s and despite a few unfortunate metal-influenced drum patterns and guitar solos it is an enjoyable piece of what sounds in my ears like a 90s post-USSR eastern european punk rock. 

My lithuanian is a bit rusty but from what Evil Corp Google translates for me the lyrics are well written on top of being emotionnaly and politically engaged like in Badmetis (Bad Year: about hunger and famine), Ir Šuo Kariamas (And the Dog is Suspended: about social alienation and depression?) or Gyvatės (Snakes: about individualism and mercyless competition).

 

Venera Budo (The Awakening of Venus), the first full-length album of Crucial Features, was released in late march 2020 (self-released, digital only) and is without any doubt (and by far) their best release.

The band has clearly digested the whole discography of Babes in Toyland, I mean it's almost like a slav reincarnation sometimes, from the vocals to the recording everything is a vivid example of the successful result of their adoration for the Minneapolis trio.

No more bad taste, no more unsound hesitation, Crucial Features is delivering a perfect album of the best of 90s Riot Girl punk... 

Powerful, fast, angry but perfectly mastered, the 10 songs got the right breaks at the right moments, the perfect screams and gang vocals of feminism angryness at the right time... This album is a success from the first second to the last... 

 picture by Nannook

The lyrics remain a bit of a mystery but as it is stated on their page "Crucial Features are digging into subjects of unconventional beauty, the cult of vanity and “woke” culture hoping to find an awakening of their own."

And I do believe they do.

 You can listen to Crucial Features and other great stuff on Rien à Faire #11.

N,J'Oi!

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