Reversal of Man - This Is Medicine (1999)

Classic late 90s screamo/hardcore. Listened to this LP twice in a row on Saturday while doing one million pushups, still hits. There was a moment, during "Butterflies", when I realized I was listening to a song about a friend who had died, that I had listened to a bunch of times with my friend Danny who died last year, in the very room in which we had probably last listened to it; and I felt like my heart had migrated to the front of my skull and was about to explode. But I breathed, got a good clear picture of Danny in my head, said "Hey, it's great to see you, I love you," and did some more pushups. My therapist would be proud.

Track listing:

1. January Twenty Second

2. Enoch Ardon

3. Fashion Cowboys

4. The Houngen

5. Butterflies

6. Mittens and Muzzles

7. Bless the Printing Press

8. The Lottery

9. Dying on Cue

10. Conjecture

11. Hills Have Eyes

12. Transfer Zounds

13. Hand Me Complaints Please

14. Rubberneck Telepathy

15. Idle Adolescents

16. Twenty Second Example of Repetitive Nature

Friends

Let's go dig some oil

And destroy some country

You should also listen to:

pg.99 - Document #5 (2000)

Crestfallen - Streaks of Terror (2003)

Electric Frankenstein - The Time Is Now! (1996)

Two of my dearest friends, along with my beautiful wife, never gave My Bloody Valentine a chance, and they all had the same reason: they thought they were a mid-aughts MySpace emo band. (Honestly, I'm pretty sure they were all just confusing them with My Chemical Romance.) When each of them finally heard MBV -- two of them because of me, the other because she read the Thurston Moore book -- they of course loved them because they're the greatest band of all time. Is it a bad band name? I don't think so, no. At least, it wasn't when they came up with it. But I'm certain that my friends weren't the only ones.

Similarly, for years, based on their name and aesthetic, I thought that Electric Frankenstein was one of the hundreds of Cramps-worship bands that invariably failed to understand what made that band great. And of course, I was wrong. Electric Frankenstein make some of the best garage punk rock and roll this side of Scandinavia. It was about 10 years ago that I discovered this, and I'm still kicking myself for all the wasted years. Technically a compilation of an EP and two 7"s, The Time Is Now! was my first EF album, and it's still my favorite.

Track listing:

1. Teenage Shutdown

2. The Time Is Now!

3. Superstar

4. Right on Target

5. I Want More

6. Demolition Joyride

7. E.F. Theme

8. Fast & Furious

9. Rise and Crash

10. We Are the Dangerous

11. Too Much for You

12. A Sweet Sickness

My heart stopped aching

It just ran out of room

I don't feel crazy anymore

There's blood on the moon

You should also hear:

Teengenerate - Get Action! (1994)

Gluecifer - Ridin' the Tiger (1997)

Flux of Pink Indians - Strive to Survive & Neu Smell (1989)

Unsurprisingly, I've been tripping down musical memory lane. This comp is a real formative punk classic for me that I've somehow managed to miss posting all these years. Strive to Survive... is easily a top 5 anarchopunk album, and Neu Smell is arguably the best Crass Records 7" that isn't by Crass. From an era in which it probably felt, for a second, like punk might actually amount to something resembling a political movement.

(I haven't actually listened to this rip, I'm listening to my physical copies, let me know if the rip sucks.)

Track listing:

Strive to Survive Causing the Least Suffering Possible

1. Song for Them

2. Charity Hilarity

3. Some of Us Scream Some of Us Shout

4. Take Heed

5. T.V. Dinners

6. Tapioca Sunrise

7. Progress

8. They Lie We Die

9. Blinded by Science

10. Myxomatosis

11. Is There Anybody There

12. The Fun Is Over

Neu Smell

13. Sick Butchers

14. Background of Malfunction

15. Poem

16. Tube Disasters

17. Poem End

Build up some speed, don't shut your eyes

Make sure that everyone in the train dies

You don't get no prize, no time to say goodbyes

Just smile everyone, you'll be on TV tonight

That's right

More peace punk that we would listen to in our cars driving around suburban Maryland:

Lost Cherrees - All Part of Growing Up (1984)

Toxic Waste - Belfast (1987)

Social Unrest - Now and Forever (1988)

Melodic CA punk/hardcore that often crosses over into post-punk territory. I bought Now and Forever on cassette when I was a baby punk from some junk shop in Fells Point. I also bought this shitty thrash tape and Lita by Lita Ford on LP, which really impressed the middle-aged butt-rocker dude who stopped me on the sidewalk by pointing at the Lisa Ford record and shouting "now THAT's a woman!" Still hilarious.

Social Unrest/Now and Forever: I honestly wasn't that into it at the time. Too melodic, too melancholic. I like it OK, but between them and Minor Threat, who I was also just getting into at the time, it was no contest. My favorite song by far was "Handcuffs Too Tight", the most straightforward hardcore song on here. So I completely forgot about the band and album until a few months back, when I sold a bunch of old cassettes, noticed this one as I packed it up, and tracked it down on the internet. I like it way more this time around.

Track listing:

1. Katarina Witt

2. Now and Forever

3. I Am the Nation

4. Sexboy

5. Club 4

6. Crisis in Black and White

7. Red Army Drug War

8. Handcuffs Too Tight

9. Sins of Paris

10. Ever Fallen in Love?

11. Highroller Desolation Angels

Thrown in the truck

Beaten to fuck

You'd also like:

Peter and the Test Tube Babies - The Mating Sounds of South American Frogs (1983)

New Model Army - Vengeance (1984)

Kliché - Supertanker (1980)

Synth-heavy Danish punk/new wave excellence. First found via the Pære Punk comp -- truly one of the best punk comps in existence -- where Kliché stood out for their more melodic, pop-y sound. What I really love about this band is what I hear as not-so-subtle krautrock influences, which are most pronounced on instrumental intro track "Igen Og Igen" and the endless, euphoric repetition of 10-minute album closer "Masselinjen".

Track listing:

1. Igen Og Igen

2. Havets Ble

3. Hetz

4. Militskvinder

5. Panorama

6. Aldrig Mere

7. Stjernerne I Deres Ojne

8. Bodygaurds

9. Maselinjen

I do what I wanna do

Also listen to:

Edith Nylon - Edith Nylon (1979)

Flowers - Icehouse (1980)

Gluecifer - Ridin' the Tiger (1997)

Absurd, debaucherous, full-tilt Norwegian punk rock and roll. As far as I'm concerned, they never made a better record. Pure, raw, coked-up chaotic energy to fuel your next bender. 

Track listing:

1. Leather Chair

2. Rock'n'Roll Asshole

3. Bounced Checks

4. Evil Matcher

5. Rockthrone

6. Burnin' White

7. Titanium Sunset

8. We're Out Loud

9. Obi Damned Kenobi

10. Under My Hood

11. Prime Mover

I'm the eye of the oily hurricane, baby

I'm the slayer of the dorks

Also listen to:

Rocky & the Sweden - Total Hard Core (1998)

Barebones - Ground (2001)

Disclose - The Aspects of War (1997)

A chaotic, careening 4-track practice space recording from the great Disclose. As noise-fucked and raw as they ever sounded.

Track listing:

1. Volkssturm (National Storming Party)

2. Courage

3. The Cause of War

4. The Aspects of War

5. Why Isn't There War?

6. Heartless

7. In Fact

8. The Grief

9. Smell of the Rotten Corpse

10. After an Air-Attack

Futility and lawlessness

More like this:

Gloom - 撲殺精神破綻者 (2003)

D-Clone - Creation and Destroy (2013)

Disfear - Everyday Slaughter (1997)

"But DEAR SPIRIT," I hear you say, "if you're so busy, surely your pushup regimen must be suffering!" Not to worry, my caring, inquisitive reader, it's not. I'm still shupping like a madman. I've even taken to shutting my camera off and busting out a quick 50 when a classmate in a Zoom lecture asks a question about something I already understand. Today, I did pushups #200-300 to Everyday Slaughter, arguably the greatest straight-up d-beat record ever recorded.

Track listing:

1. With Each Dawn I Die

2. Anthem of Agony

3. Crimescene: Worldwide

4. A Race for Power

5. Spectre of Genocide

6. Everyday Slaughter

7. Subsistance

8. Totalitarian Control

9. Frustration

10. Aftermath

11. 101 Overkill

12. Captured by Life

13. In Fear

It's all death

More d-beat:

Disgust - Brutality of War (1993)

Framtid - Under the Ashes (2002)

Discard - Four Minutes Past Midnight (1994)

By request, here's some old-school Swedish kång to smash your head against. Raging d-beat filled out by wild speed metal soloing.

Track listing:

1. Intro / Resist and Exist

2. Death Race

3. Sounds of War

4. I Won't Surrender

5. Never Ending Nightmare

6. Four Minutes Past Midnight

7. Nuclear War

8. Why Should They Die?

9. Nuclear Sunrise / The Final Dawn

10. One Day

11. Armed Revolution

12. Lights Out

13. Stand Up and Fight Back

14. Fear / Take a Look at Tomorrow

Ough!

More:

Disgust - Brutality of War (1993)

Totalitär - Sin Egen Motståndare (1994)

Every New Dead Ghost - An Endless Nightmare of Stations (1992)

Driving, hard-edged goth rock. An Endless Nightmare of Stations was this UK band's swansong, but it definitely doesn't sound like they were running out of steam -- it's energetic, muscular, punk, and even kinda fun, all while maintaining a 100% morbid goth aesthetic.

Anyone who has a better rip than 192, get at me.

Track listing:

1. Decadence

2. Obvious

3. Not in a Lifetime

4. Headless

5. Relics

6. Insanity

7. Sweat

8. Understanding

9. Small Talk

10. Signs for the Sacred

What's happening in the city?

You'd also like:

Pressurehed - Sudden Vertigo (1993)

Autumn - The Hating Tree (1997)

Kill the Man Who Questions - Sugar Industry (1999)

Philly political hardcore. I first heard Kill the Man Who Questions through the great Punk Uprisings Vol. 2 comp, on which their song "Your Backlash Against a P.C. Hysteria Is a Fucking Joke" was a personal favorite. I tracked down Sugar Industry via mail order, and it became something of a formative record for me. One track in particular felt like a revelation to me: "You Say It's Your Birthday", a haunting, seething spoken-word piece about the brutal hypocrisy of the pro-life movement delivered over an uneasy, stuttering instrumental. Also, I put "Good Cop, Bad Cop" on a bunch of mixtapes. It's the kind of vaguely arty, anarcho-90s-hardcore that at this point is hopelessly unfashionable, but fuck off, I'm old.

Track listing:

1. Sugar Industry

2. A Study in Elitism

3. White Face

4. You Say It's Your Birthday

5. Where's the Alternative

6. I Apologize for My Hunger

7. Coatrack

8. And You Say You Own It

9. Senior Portrait

10. Census

11. Work Ethic

12. There Will Be No Amnesty

13. Because I'd Probably Fucking Wet Myself

14. Good Cop, Bad Cop

15. Preaching to the Converted

Squeezed out of a crotch, slapped twice on the ass, and cut from the womb. Nine months after conception, you'll start to learn that the political vigilance paid to your so-called rights is now lost as an abstract idea in a sea of hectic human shit. Those that rallied for your birth now offer their sincerest "who-gives-a-shit"s in all your post-natal endeavors. You may not learn the names of those that bravely fought for your rights as a fetus. Perhaps one day, forget the selfless men and women who through prayer, blockade, and clinic harassment you owe your life. So will they conveniently forget you when you're starving in government housing? No, better yet, jail? No, better still, abused by foster parents, totally unemployable with a $200 a day addiction? No, best yet, bleeding to death in a bathroom, clutching a coat-hanger while their war wages on.

Records that had a similar impact on me around the same time:

Born Against - Nine Patriotic Hymns for Children (1991)

Aus-Rotten - The System Works... for Them (1996)

Doc Corbin Dart - Patricia (1990)

Related:

The Crucifucks - L.D. Eye (1996)

Doc Corbin Dart's only official solo album. Released the year after The Crucifucks split, Patricia marked a sharp departure from that band's abrasive punk into the jangly world of Replacements-esque indie/alt rock -- although his vocals continue to positively drip with animosity and sarcasm. It's also way more personal than any of the Crucifucks stuff, dealing primarily with Doc's neuroses and mental health struggles.

Track listing:

1. Out My Window

2. Falling

3. The Cathedral

4. Don't Look In

5. Little Town, Little People

6. Fear of Abandonment

7. Casket with Flowers

8. Patricia

9. Here for You Now

Something gnawing constantly

My nerves are frayed

So happy to see you but I start to shake

You should also hear:

Paul Roland - Burnt Orchids (1985)

Alice Donut - The Untidy Suicides of Your Degenerate Children (1992)

Judgement - No Reason Why (1996), Haunt in the Dark (1997), Process (1997), Night Brings (1998) + Just Be... (2000)

Related:

Chicken Bowels - Chicken Bowels (1987)

Five EPs of god-tier Japanese hardcore. As raw and raging as Judgement could get -- check the phenomenal ending of "Kick Them Over" -- they always had a kinda melodic, (to my ears) crusty/metallic edge. (Couldn't figure out a way to make 5 covers look nice so Just Be... is not pictured above, but it's in the download.)

No Reason Why

1. No Reason Why

2. Kick Them Over

Haunt in the Dark

1. The Mad Dog

2. Haunt in the Dark

Process

1. Process

2. The Situation

Night Brings

1. Night Brings

2. Heart of Darkness

Just Be...

1. Saylove

2. シンプル

3. Just Be...

4. ドライヴ

Laugh til you die

Also listen to:

Lip Cream - Lip Cream (1989)

Rocky & the Sweden - Total Hard Core (1998)

Aanal Beehemoth - Forest Paranoid (2008)

Swedish raw black metal/hardcore hybrid. Echoing vocals over full-tilt, death-punk ragers and meat-and-potatoes, Gorgoroth-style black metal. As far as my tastes are concerned, one of the most successful black/punk fusions in existence.

Track listing:

1. Forest Paranoid

2. Dirty Soul

3. Kill for Money

4. Miserability

5. From Aanal with Love

6. Nuclear Hell

7. Penetrator

8. Frost in Head

9. Loaded Head / Empty Veins

10. Form of Satan

11. Sin Tonic

12. Witch Hunt

All them grannies fuck with three-headed dog

Sniff the cocaine from the helping hand of Satan

You'd also like:

Abigail - Intercourse & Lust (1996)

Order of the Vulture - Christ Killer (2004)

Pressurehed - Sudden Vertigo (1993)

Related:

Farflung - The Belief Module (1998)

A killer, industrial/punk/darkwave-informed take on Hawkwind-style space rock. Jittery, Suicide-esque drum machines, analogue synths, thick guitars, and FX-drenched vocals. There's also a sampled, incoherent racist rant on "Dead Air" that the band clearly isn't endorsing -- just thought I'd mention it.

Track listing:

1. Sudden Vertigo

2. Red Delta

3. Dead Air

4. God's House

5. Shockneck

6. The Right Stuff

7. Majestic 12

8. Man in Static

9. Time Slip

10. Conscious Controll

11. Wet Engines

12. Slo Blo

Don't you wanna be one of the dead?

Also listen to:

Alien Sex Fiend - "It" The Album (1986)

Death Ride '69 - Death Ride '69 (1989)

Framtid - Under the Ashes (2002)

Red-lining Japanese d-beat. Total fuck. Probably the band that I tried to ape most when I was briefly in a generic d-beat band.

Track listing:

1. Intro

2. The Total Arse

3. Over Population

4. Scapes of Tragedy

5. Tomorrow

6. Consuming Shit and Mind Pollution

7. Centuries of War

8. Death Protest

9. Curse

10. No Installation

11. Life's Hard

12. We Must Impart

13. Bomb Blast

Pictures of starving children sell records

More like this:

Gloom - 撲殺精神破綻者 (2003)

Kriegshög - Hardcore Hell EP (2008)

Chicken Bowels - Chicken Bowels (1987)

Japanese puuuuuuunk. 6 songs and 11 minutes of full-tilt, spazzed-out hardcore, plus a yolked chicken.

Track listing:

1. Keep Our Fire Burning!

2. You Live in Dream

3. Real Beauty

4. No Control

5. Lie and Truth

6. Fuckin' Crime

Have a wild and sexy weekend

Also:

The Lewd - American Wino (1982)

Lip Cream - Lip Cream (1989)

Struggling Harsh Immortals - 死 (2015)

Anthemic, thrash-y Japanese hardcore colored by programmed drums and serrated industrial noise. The brainchild of Katsunori Nishida, who's been in a bunch of notable Japanese punk/hardcore bands. I'm too lazy to do another "new records that I've been listening to" post, but if I did, the new S.H.I. record would definitely be on it.

Track listing:

1. Theme

2. Green Horse

3. Rejection

4. Empty Inside

5. Lucifer Rising

6. Suicide Solution

7. New World Order

8. Enter the Hell

9. Suicide Solution (Dub Version)

The reaper is you and the reaper is me

Also listen to:

Chaos U.K. - Chaos U.K. (1983)

Rocky & the Sweden - Total Hard Core (1998)

Uncurbed - Peacelovepunklife... Andotherstories (1998)

Classic, fist-pumping Swedish d-beat/hardcore. As you can tell from the album cover and song titles, the band's presentation and vibe is very 'punks-is-hippies'; however, the delivery is a whole different story -- it's beefy, ripping, and tight. "A Taste of Tomorrow" and "Forget the Future - Live in the Past" were among the first mp3s I ever downloaded, in 1998, off of some random, extremely primitive punk website. So you can thank Uncurbed and whoever uploaded those files for kicking off my obsession with downloading every piece of music ever recorded.

Track listing:

1. Tomorrow Rebels

2. System Stinx

3. Welfare or Hellfare?

4. Anarchy and Peace (Brothers and Sisters)

5. If I Need I Make!!

6. A Taste of Tomorrow

7. Passed Away

8. Breakout

9. Realize

10. Living in a Squat (So What!!?)

11. Forget the Future - Live in the Past

12. Never Change

13. Celebration to the Losers

14. Liberation Hippies

15. Government Education

16. Party Punx

I send them so much shit

Hope they all choke

More like this:

Totalitär - Sin Egen Motståndare (1994)

Hiatus - El Sueño de la Razon Produce Monstruos (1995)

Lip Cream - Lip Cream (1989)

By request, here's a lil' Lip Cream. Classic, fist-pumping Japanese hardcore. Sometimes it feels like I've posted everything there is to post, and then someone requests something like this and I realize how wrong I was.

Track listing:

1. 罪 –Sin–

2. カモフラージュ

3. Fresh

4. Bloodsucking to Death

5. Into the Confusion

6. Fight Alone

7. F・C・D

8. From My Soul

9. Never

10. 紅蓮（光る風）

11. Trap of War

12. 無 –Nothing–

Punk is not about fashion

But punk is about fashion also

If you like this, listen to:

Chaos U.K. - Chaos U.K. (1983)

Born Against - Nine Patriotic Hymns for Children (1991)