DEATH GASP

 

My fukkn stars this shit sounds so desperate. AMEBIX, INEPSY, VENOM. Low end cavernous churn. Absolute evil and/or sonic destruction. Pittsburgh man....let's go to Pittsburgh. 

EXECUTIONER

THE CAVEMEN

 I got Sex Bomb Baby as a promo when I was in high school and I simply didn't get it - I thought "Ha Ha Ha" was a funny novelty song, but I didn't....get it. I saw FLIPPER in Norman, Oklahoma sometime around 1991 and still didn't get it (even though I knew it was important and I was supposed to get it). The next time I saw FLIPPER was at El Rio in San Francisco sometime in the early 2010s, I lasted a few songs but got to see a former coworker (a 60+ year old SF punk OG) throw a beer at them and tell them they should go back to shooting heroin (said former coworker was 'formerly alive' a few months later). 

ANYWAY......

I only talk about my weird irrelevant and inconsequential relationship with FLIPPER because "Ca Ca (My Wall)" kinda hits me they way that the aforementioned encounters did. THE CAVEMEN are different though - it's FLIPPER for sure, but with THEE OH SEES and a splash of Albini (see: "Ritual") and THE SPITS for good measure, all presented on a tape that was duplicated on a pile of turds and eventually sinks into the depths of murk. It's okay to observe, young punks. It's okay to be curious and still not understand. Real freaks will remain distant - even from other freaks. 

BAND IN B.C.

LITTLE ANGELS

 

File under: Bands I might have seen if my life were different. I bet they were fukkn great in a basement; nasty, writhing North American punk with some of the fiercest  (and destroyed) vocals in recent memory. Check the pick slides on "Clock In" and the urgent ramshackle drums throughout. It's really just a perfect example of what hardcore with honest attitude is supposed to sound like. Apparently there are more cassette releases from LITTLE ANGELS, please send them to me. Slide into my DMs or whatever kids use to request communication these days. I don't know; I am old and irrelevant. 

LITTLE ANGELS

SCUMMY AND THE SCUMS

 

How many Covid projects were there.....? Rhetorical question of course, because there were countless Covid projects across all genres that achieved various levels of realization before things returned to whatever "normal" was in 2022 (or so). SCUMMY AND THE SCUMS fit the bill - a deceptively named project since the entire band seems to be composed of someone called Mr. Scummy. T(he)y produced five glorious minutes of politically charged and relevant (in a "time-and-place" sense) hardcore and offered it to the world in 2021. The rest of us motherfuckers should have listened to "Where's Joe?" but then again...it wouldn't have made a difference. Aside from the people dying, Covid times were some of the best months of my adult life. The future was uncertain but we had the moment. 

SCUMMY AND THE SCUMS

HEAVY TEMPLE

 

It's hard for me to describe which (and how many) nerves this one struck a nerve when I listened the first time, but I can assure you that that nerve count has only increased with subsequent blasts. IDES OF GEMENI, MOTÖRHEAD, LOST GOAT, PENTAGRAM, SLEEP - it's all here...and there's more. But the "more" is HEAVY TEMPLE. Which is to say that this band deserves to be classified and categorized with those aforementioned references because.....I don't know man, I'm just a middle aged dude with an opinion. And in my opinin, this HEAVY TEMPLE is really fukkn good and the rest of their shit is really good too.  

CHASSIT

TERRITORY

 

This dude who works with me brought me this tape and a vegan BLT hoagie sandwich from Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, he brought the sandwich from the east coast, and it was (still) delicious. Also this TERRITORY tape is a blown to shit DBeat beast....so I won twice. You only win once - you're just gonna have to trust me about the sandwich.

WAR FOR...?

INHUMAN DISSILIENCY

 

Just when I was about to make some "old and out of touch" comment about how I just don't understand "kids these days" I realized that some of these tracks were recorded more than two decades ago. I guess that just means I was never meant to understand the wonder of PENNSYLVANIA GRINDING SLAMMAGE and that INHUMAN DISSILIENCY was simply never meant for me. And yet I keep listening - it's like a damn car crash and my neck is breaking while I keep trying to catch a glance. I remember when Kevin from RITUAL CONTROL told me what "slam" was while we were watching a "slam" band in Mexico in 2014 and....well, I thought I was just getting a handle on crab-core and then this thing happened and I simply accepted that I didn't understand. Still don't. Vocals on "Vomiting Decaying Fecal Matter" actually sound like someone is grunting "piggy, piggy, piggy" and it's about the most suitable moment of the entire tape. Tracks here form their 2004 demo, the split with DIGESTED FLESH, the Festering Fuckhole Slop split with ARTERY ERUPTION and the much sought after VOMITOUS split entitled Engorgement Of Exquisite Disembowelment. Erratic grind/sludge/slam with swamp monster vocals and....well, enjoy?

EXHUMATION OF ROTTEN ENTRAILS

•••••
CONTEXT: I swung by Ragin' Records a few days ago to pick up a deadly grip of oldies and funk comps (including the Lowrider tape I posted yesterday) and naturally did some digging while I was there. Got a dead stock MUDWIMMIN EP and a single by a band I had never heard of and can't remember the name of but there was a song called "Straight Outta Tehachapi" so you know I'm gonna bite. There was a box in the back with a shitheap of JIMI HENMDRIX tapes, a SPETSNAZ demo and unknown (to me) metal tapes from DEHUMANIZER, COLONIZE THE ROTTING, ATAUDES, VOIMATON and this gem from INHUMAN DISSILIENCY. Shit was cheap and I had already broken the seal, so I acted appropriately about bought everything. 

DIALER

 

Someone feel like telling me how a present-era band manages to effortlessly conjure '80s Albini and early '00s indie alt in the same apocalyptic punk track? Twenty seconds into "Palpitation" and I swear they move from BIG BLACK to BLOC PARTY and I just have so many questions. "War Reality" just offers more confusion - a chaotic, jerky proto-industrial track presented as North American basement punk that just makes me wonder where DIALER has been all my life. Or where I have been for the last few years of mine while they were creating these sounds. On the subject of sounds, the final cut is an eleven minute War Of The Worlds caliber thriller that will stop you dead....it seemed so unreal until it didn't. Doesn't. 

PALPITATION // WAR REALITY

HISSY FIT

 

The '00s were a wild sonic decade. You might have seen HISSY FIT on a bill in a lethargic Pennsylvania basement with DISFEAR a few days after Hot August Nights wrapped up and the Eastern Seaboard was recovering from a four day cocaine bender. I say that now and it simply makes no sense, but then....? Well, it was just DIY punk, my friends. It was depressed and frustrated and hopeful - and   twenty years later we're struggling to determine which of those emotions have faded away and which ones we're stuck with. 

HISSY FIT

•••••

There are two bizarro electro punk numbers on this tape that may be leftovers from repurposed source/s, but they might also be re/imagination/s of HISSY FIT's Region Rock adjacent approach to addictive anthemic punk. I'm down either way, but detectives are welcome to contribute thoughts. 

SQUELCH CHAMBER

 

As much as I liked the Everything Turns To Shit release from Wet Cassettes, this recording from Philadelphia's SQUELCH CHAMBER is absolutely feral. All consuming grind tracks devour themselves as the band descends into sludge and noise portals to create an indescribably terrifying assemblage of sounds that nods to Fair Warning-era VAN HALEN and MUERAN HUMANS of back-to-back tracks. Not only is it that varied, but Much Drugs is simply that fucking good. Listening to this tape is a white knuckle experience from start to finish, and I am truly in awe. 

MUCH DRUGS

PURLING HISS

 

This is some of the most glorious damage I've ever come across - timeless freaked out Kraut-esque mostly instrumental jams with a funky monotony that's impossible to describe. There's a moment in "Crocodile Tears" where I start to wonder if Philadelphia's PURLING HISS are doing a little too much until they cross an intention threshold and make it clear that they are going all in.....and then clearly I'm right there with them. You know the music that you put on and think you kinda forget about and then you notice that it hasn't been in the background at all? You notice that you are a part of it? That's the power of Meandering Noodle, and it's formidable. 

MEANDERING NOODLE

GRUMBLE

 

Fuck me, man - Region Rock as a descriptor is such a motherfukkr. The shit is easy to hate on...if you're an asshole (or me). But if you actually listen? Shit, tell me something I want from punk that's not here and I'll tell you it's something from punk that I don't need. Except relentless DBeat - I do need that shit. And GRUMBLE does not offer that, so I can still listen to other records and tapes (which is good, variety is important). But I'll be fukkd if I can't listen to this shit and feel like everything is right...and that's especially weird (and perfect) because 35 years ago I was listening to people 10 years older than me make me feel like I wasn't alone - now it's people 20 years younger than me doing the same fucking thing. I know that's a lot of numbers and math is a real piece of shit, but my point is....right now, this GRUMBLE tape is doing everything right.

MILLION DOLLARS

...help me realize every day ain't so great...

PASS THE ELIXER

 

The folks from Noise Addiction (and Noise Addiction II) put this together in 1987 - just some kids from Pennsylvania trading punk tapes and making a zine who decided to make a compilation to accompany their ninth issue. But Pass The Elixer is different...because it's a flawless document of a (or at least their) time and place. DISORDER mingling with QUOD MASSACRE and MISANTHROPIC CHARITY? Lehigh Valley's FOLLOW FASHION MONKEYS, ANTHROPHOBIA and BENTONITES sharing space with MISANTHROPIC CHARITY and PRESIDENT FETCH from Copenhagen and P.K.G. from Torrance, California. Some of my favorite QUOD MASSACRE tracks, a few rippers from PATARENI...you get the idea. This is what it was all about, and these kids did it right. 

PASS THE ELIXER

ENAMEL

 

Another dose of mid-teens USHC that slipped by me in the moment...amazing what you miss out on when you're focused on not falling the fuck apart. Philadelphia 2016, nice and squirmy the way the kids liked it back then, but it's the way that ENAMEL surge forward that really grabs me. It's as if they settle into a tempo and then...the drummer holds them back just enough to feel them try to catch up when he kicks it back up. The bands are completely different, but it's the same way I sometimes feel about Markley's drumming in ECONOCHRIST - a rock steady four on the floor with a looseness around the pace instead of within it. Most of you are going to notice the vocals, and that's okay because they are in your face and full of fire. Some of you are going to pay attention to the guitars instead and that's okay too because they are a swarming duo of no bullshit North American hardcore riffs and they are exactly what I need today. But I'm still gonna hone in on that rhythm section because they're giving me pause, they're making me think and they're making me listen. I guess I should have paid more attention in those twenty teens.

ENAMEL

FUCK SS

 

When the kids say that something is "fire" it confuses me, because fire is a noun, not an adjective. You can use "fiery" as a descriptor, but....well, it's a generational thing, but I simply don't get it. Or at least I didn't get it, until I popped this FUCK SS demo in the deck. This shit? This shit is straight fire. 

DEMO SS

WORSHIPER

 

Can I tell you the thing that instantly sucked me in? I mean...of course I can. It's my blog thing and I've been telling you things for 5000+ posts now, but I still like to think that you're all eager and willing visitors and consumers. The opening track on WORSHIPER's Pleasure Of The Flesh (titled "Pleasure Of The Flesh" of course) simultaneously reminds me of a song that FUCKFACE would have written at the very end of the run when we were all very very high and a song that a band from Norman, Oklahoma would have written when I lived there in the early 1990s. Something akin to "White Vans In The Mission" by way of FOR LOVE NOT LISA in a time machine but with (very) heavy JESUS LIZARD energy...and that's the shit that's gonna hold my attention securely, you know? So I listened intently, and there's no doubt WORSHIPER are their own animal - while channeling the dark and heavy UNSANE, BLESSING THE HOGS dirges that permeated a segment of the '90s scenes. It's not just good, it's exceptional. And it's not just a rehash, it's a rebirth for a dissonant band who had a short and complicated run in the late 2010s that was cut short by addiction and struggle. Unearthed and remixed a couple of years ago after the passing frontperson Mike Parry, the fine folks at Strange Mono and the band's two surviving members have done the rest of us a service by re-releasing this recording. I was sucked in anyway, the sound/s hold me tight and the ugliness is familiar and strangely comforting, but the context makes this release extra. You can feel the ugliness and the desperation, and you understand WORSHIPER even more in the process.

PLEASURE OF THE FLESH

SQUELCH CHAMBER

 

People use terms like "cacophonous" and "disorienting" to describe shit like this. But SQUELCH CHAMBER embody these descriptors in the most gloriously confident way. Bursts of chaotic grind drenched in noise, industrial slogs with tortured vocals, static laden doom missives...and a cover that breathes new (and needed) life into later-Rollins era FLAG.  I dare suggest that Everything Turns To Shit is not only necessary listening, Everything Turns To Shit is correct. 

EVERYTHING TURNS TO SHIT

COUNTY CONSERVATION DISTRICT

 

Imagine you're on a walk (because you're young in this imagination, and you don't go on "hikes" yet) in the woods behind your house. Or a friend's house. Or your aunt's house. And you stumble on something that piques your interest. So you move some leaves. Or you dig a little. And maybe you're not alone and your friend (or your cousin) helps you and you're both curious. Not excited yet, but definitely curious. As you scrape and/or dig, you hear...something...and now you are excited so the scraping and/or digging becomes more fervent. Discovering things lost in the woods is a special thing when you're young. A coin, an old beer can, a rotting nudie mag, someone else's mail, a photograph - it all has a story and when you find it, you're the author. But today (or that day, in that imagination), as you scrape and/or dig, you've uncovered a moment. COUNTY CONSERVATION DISTRICT are (in) that moment and you've arrived...uninvited and very welcome. You (and your friend or your cousin) stumbled upon a sound and an experience. And in that moment (this: moment), you cannot imagine ever walking out of the woods to your other home. Or your friend's house. Or you aunt's house. Because you are in this now. You are here. It's okay to be scared...you can have Some Fear, but you are here now. It's okay. Just listen. 

SOME FEAR

MACRONYMPHA

 

One hour of complete aural madness some of of the true masters. Thirty years in and MACRONYMPHA are still creating the walls of harsh noise presented on 1995's Psych Rot. Rough sonic abrasions that defy description just as they confound conventional listening. To be experienced, friends...even if not necessarily enjoyed. 

PSYCH ROT

BILLY & THE BAD PEACH

 

What a fucking mess this is. What a disgusting and dreary mess. Think about KILSLUG and KILLDOZER. Think about CRAMPS and GALLON DRUNK and think about BRAINBOMBS. Think about sonic damage. Think about going for a ride with the bad kids and deciding you don't ever want them to bring you home...even though you told your mom you were just going to the movies with your friend Steve. Your mom calls Steve and finds out you lied...but you're already gone. Think about that. 

BILLY & THE BAD PEACH