There's all sorts of stuff in store here for this reviews edition. No two releases alike! Multiple subgenres represented, as well as one great autobiographical graphic novel about a year in the life of a young punk! So whatever your interest I'm sure you'll find something to pique your curiosity here.
CANDY, “Heaven Is Here”
A band that truly encapsulates utter chaos within their music, the kind of extremity fit for raging in a wasteland as things resembling humans circle pit around a burning cop car under a toxic sky, Candy release their second full length and there’s all sorts of stuff going on here. They somehow manage to combine doses of punk, metal, thrash, hardcore, industrial, and powerviolence into a melee and it all flows together. The first half of the record tries its hand at all these subgenres a bit more while tracks like “Hysteric Bliss”, “World Of Shit” and “Fantasy/Greed” lean more into Japanese hardcore, thrash, and ridiculously speedy punk for a trio of fastcore blazers. However, both “Transcend To Wet” and “Kinesthesia” are full-on industrial experiments that honestly don’t do a thing for me. I enjoy when the band has added those elements to songs just to make even more noise within their music, but as stand-alone tracks it just feels like filler. The final track- a 10 minute soundscape further makes this album feel more like an EP with a bunch of added experiments that go on too long. It’s cool that Candy continue to expand their sonic terrorism into various styles and make it all sound like a chaotic nightmare (the album cover essentially gives you a visual impression of what to expect). However, the live instrumentation, coupled with various samples, is where the band shines. I can do without all the added stuff in there. (Relapse)
CHIME OF BAYONETS/ PERSONAL STYLE, “Tap To Load” b/w ”Black Sage” split 7”
We live in a time where the idea of bands self-financing (well, mostly) a two-song 7” record that clocks in with a total of probably 6 minutes of music seems outrageously foreign to me. Like, do you know how much it costs to press a record, like any kind of record? And how long you have to wait to get that record pressed? If I were to do that (and this is primarily why I don’t make 7”s anymore) I’d have to be convinced that those were the two best songs I’d ever written in my entire life. The ‘more bang for your buck’ allure towards pressing an LP really makes the expense and patience one must have feel a bit more worthwhile. Just putting that out there. Yet the dudes in Chime Of Bayonets and Personal Style have pressed a couple 7”s at this point, pretty much on their own. I’m unsure if they consider these the two best songs they ever wrote, but they certainly are consistent with the rest of the music they have created, which errs on heavy indie rock/punk I suppose? When I listen to them I really feel like I’m back in the late 90’s checking out random selections from the Southern Records catalog, or anything advertised in Punk Planet and being satisfied with having taken a chance on a new band. One song here is slower, a bit more somber, and adds some horns here and there while the other track is way more upbeat and energetic. The cover is printed on clear plastic (acetate perhaps?) and it makes things look both interesting and confusing. (HabitForming Records)
CLOAK/DAGGER, “Temp Life” b/w “Dawn Patrol” 7”
They stay quiet most of the time, but every few years the VA-based Cloak/Dagger will emerge from their slumber to dish out some garage rock punk action that is sure to be a worthwhile listen. While this newest offering is only a two song 7” it does offer a glimpse of what they’re up to. I feel that since they are such an extremely part time band anything new they put out will undoubtedly bring in a new audience and this is a fine place to start. However, I’d like to offer my opinion that their last full length, “I Want Everything” (from 2017) is probably their best material to date so if you want to explore more than just the two tracks here I’d highly recommend that record as well. So you get a 7” that looks a lot like those Sub Pop singles you see here and there and sounds a hell of a lot like Hot Snakes with more gruff vocals. (Quit Life)
DEADGUY, “Buyer’s Remorse”
I’m going to reiterate some things I stated when reviewing a 7” of lost material released by Deadguy a few months ago and that’s that I never thought I’d ever see this band do anything ever again. They didn’t exactly part on the best of terms and I figured too much time had elapsed for them to even give a shit about giving it another go. But here we are and they have played several shows, the first of which (from 2021) is documented in full on this live LP. There was another live recording from the band from their second lineup where the sound quality is pretty awful that was released 20 years back. I saw that incarnation of the band a bunch of times and was happy to have been able to see that. But I never saw the original lineup of the band and my feeling (backed up by some grainy 90’s footage) is that it was a chaotic trainwreck of broken guitars, damaged eardrums, and permanent injuries is only half true with this recording. The setting of this live document comes from a much better sound system, far better live recording techniques, and a large stage mostly out of harm’s way of Huckins guitar swiping you across your scalp. So it sounds pretty darn good. The band hits a few off-notes, which, given this is Deadguy going off, they had better be. But overall they play really well, on the cusp of all-out chaos and legitimately ripping it up. The songs are pulled from both “Fixation..” and earlier material (I never got to see them play “Puny Human” live so this was an audible treat). Having the added visual presentation from Tim Singer is always a plus and that almost hidden watermark imagery on the front and back cover is just a little chef’s kiss on top of an already good-looking (and sounding) LP. Here’s to hoping those maniacs keep this up, squeezing a little more life out of Deadguy for all us misanthropes who swear by their material. (Decibel)
HIGH DESERT, THE, by James Spooner
There’s something immediately familiar, as well as some things outside my experience, that make “The High Desert” such an appealing read. Some may be familiar with the author/artist of this graphic novel James Spooner via his documentary “Afro-Punk”, which came out over 15 years ago (yet it still makes the rounds), as well as the accompanying music fest of the same name that went on for a number of years afterwards. This is his first foray into the world of comics and it is an autobiographical telling of his time coming up as a young punk in the middle of nowhere. What was a familiar concept to me is that I’m likely about the same (or similar) age as the author so I’m aware of discovering the mystery of punk rock pre-internet when you had to search around for things, find ways of making conversation with the local skaters and weirdos, and just fumble your way through it. But what a payoff! I also came up in the early 90’s with similar experiences of knowing a few punks a little older than myself who introduced me to that life, or people my age also trying to just figure it out and dealing with social pressures from high school peers who made fun of you for the way you dressed day in and day out. The difference, though, is Spooner had the distinction of growing up in the middle of nowhere (I also grew up in a small town but it just happened to be one of the hardcore epicenters of the world at the time so access to things was a little easier to come by), and being a black kid in a predominantly white scene (snow is my natural camouflage like most of the punk kids I grew up and became friends with). It’s a great story about a year in his life when he was just getting into skateboarding, figuring out his relationship to his family being not only bi-racial but also bi-coastal, expressing his identity, and dealing with straight up Nazis in small town America some 30 years back. I always love a good ‘punk kid coming of age’ tale and the 350+ pages of this kept me reading pretty much non-stop to the end. (Harper or your local indie comic retailer)
MUSEUM OF LIGHT, “Horizon”
Imagine yourself out in the forests of the Pacific Northwest near a mountain lake. It’s a bright, crisp summer morning. The weather is cool, the air calm. You contemplate the scenery for a bit and then begin your hike up the massive mountain that lies before you. Throughout your day-long upward journey you take in the monumental size of the thing before you, how it expands above seemingly forever. Yet you push on. You know you can reach the top, even though your calves ache and your back is becoming permanently hunched. As you get closer to the summit you round a switchback and the sun casts a striking, golden glow upon the peak within your view and it’s glorious. Moments such as these are few and far between, and often best experienced alone. One person versus a mountain. You reach the top, plant your feet, breathe in the cool air, contemplate for a bit as you survey the land 40 miles in every direction around you and take it all in, and then you begin to descend. Museum Of Light is the soundtrack the whole time. They make big, giant rock songs that move slow but fill with melodic howls of victory. They are masters of tone, executing perfect giant sounds. The songs are semi-lengthy, but never overstay their welcome. It’s just enough. “Horizon” is the mountain climb and the massive apex all in one. Enjoy. (Spartan Records)
NEOLITHIC, “Shattering Vessels”
While a couple of the guys in Baltimore’s Neolithic may be rooted in the hardcore scene (Pulling Teeth, End It, Ruiner, etc) the closest these dudes come to playing anything remotely hardcore might be on the track “Impious Devotion”, which has an All Out War feel to it…. So still pretty metal. The rest of this debut full length is straight up death metal. There’s lots of chunky, double-bass groove, a fuck ton of blasts, and a whole bushel full of guttural growls. And what sort of apocalyptic ode to the end times would be complete without some samples of a wise, yet broken, old man poetically musing about the folly of mankind and our hubris in the face of extinction? It’s got it all I tells ya. There’s even a painted cover depicting a frost giant or something approaching Dracula’s castle or whatever. I’m no expert on death metal, and I’m generally fine when it comes my way, but judging this in comparison to other death metal records is above my pay grade. I have no idea. I’m typically no fan of death metal vocals but the music does the job of shoving extremity down your throat. So there ya go. (The Other Records)
PASSIONPLAY, “Sinking”
I can only imagine the dudes in Providence’s Passionplay spent a good chunk of lockdown practicing a lot because the songs on their second release are such a big step forward in terms of technical mastery and intensity. It’s not that their previous record was disappointing in any way. I enjoyed that one too. This just ups the ante with their (sort of) Converge-school of metallic fast hardcore with totally insane drumming, plenty of blasts, lots of technical guitar riffs that do some showing off, but not so much that it doesn’t let the song flow, and most songs under (or at) two minutes. That’s what I’m talking about. Save for a short instrumental in the middle and the last track doing a lengthy (comparatively) outro the rest of this thing is fast, blasting hardcore that is undeniably raging. Bonus points for referring to children as ‘faithful, hateful, little shits’ in “Rubberneck” and it’s ode to God and guns and the deranged parents who can’t get enough of either. (self-released)
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