NARB

 

Fidelity be damned, this punk is fast, fierce and raw as fukk. Three songs that make up half of the band's recorded output - like stripped down skinhead shitpunk on pharmaceutical speed. I guess they just did shit different in the South Valley.  You want to hear adolescent angst captured on 1/4" magnetic tape and dumped into the digital aether? Welcome to NARB.

NARB

KMET

 

The patience required to make dungeon synth actually work is impressive, and the artists who can properly pull it off are few and far between. To create sounds that are equal parts sinister black metal, Stranger Things soundtrack and FLOCK OF SEAGULLS is one thing - to do it with a straight face is something else entirely. Croatia's KMET will have you suspend belief....anxiously waiting for a crescendo and/or a conclusion knowing that they're only inviting you along for the journey, not the destination. Smrt Feudalizmu compiles five painfully deliberate tracks all released digitally over the last few years - final cut is the magnificent "Kuga" but don't think you'll be free when it's finished. 

SMRT FEUDALIZMU

AFERDEATH

 

If you're thinking about starting the week by spending some time with a dis-crust trio from Singapore....? AFTERDEATH has got you covered. What More Must They Suffer checks every box, a ruthless pummeling that channels Soul Scars-era DISFEAR and pushes the guitar to the very edge of the sonic cliff and lets it teeter precariously for seventeen tense minutes of DBeat. Choice cut? "Greed." Seems appropriate. 

WHAT MORE MUST THEY SUFFER

THE GLASNOST

 

I woke up this morning around 7am with a cat purring in the crook of my knee and the sun washing over my face. Clicked the space heater on to take the bite out of the chill, hung out with the cat for a few minutes and then got out of bed to feed the cat and make some coffee. Took mental stock of shit I need to take care of before I head to Oakland for REALISTIC practice in a couple of hours (yeah, old people schedule rehearsal on weekend mornings) and I thought about Indonesian communist Oi!. "Wow, I really want to blast some clenched fist communist Oi! from Indonesia while I drink my coffee this morning,' i thought. So I did. And now you can too. 

WE STILL FIGHT AND AGAINST

DEAD BHUTTOS

 

Rarely have I wished for more than three songs harder than I am wishing there were more than three songs at this moment. Raw and desperate hardcore is supposed to sound this raw and desperate, and Lahore's DEAD BHUTTOS just fukkn nail it. I wasn't sure what I wanted today...until I heard this. 

DEMOCRACY IS THE BEST REVENGE

TAMTAM ARCHIVES

 

Two earlier TamTam volumes have appeared on these pages, and I highly recommend the full set if you missed them the first time/s around. If there's a through line then it's 'freak punk, no rules," but it's better to listen than to try to categorize. STRAWBERRY JAM hit like BIG BOYS if they had cut their teeth in '80s Czechoslovakia. ПАРАШЮТЬІ ХИ-ФИ are completely off the rails punk with an (almost and likely accidental) '80s industrial tinge. TEQILAJAZZZ would have fit in nicely on a random Doomryderz bill in '90s Redwood City while ХИМЕРА seem ripped from the grooves of a long long Rough Trade comp...and the rest of the twenty-two hitters here are just a master class in outsider sounds. The joy of spending time with a collection of completely new sounds from another time and another world cannot be understated, and listening to sounds from post-USSR Russia when anything (might have) seemed possible nails that feeling this morning. Listen to this one, then snag the first two volumes. 

TAMTAM ARCHIVES VOL.3

SICK BURN

 

From a 2010 Texas collection released in Poland to a 2019 California collection released in Japan, let's get ready to fukkn GO! with Sacramento's SICK BURN. They came from the ashes of RAD (really they just switched a guitarist and kept thrashing) and the Crew For Life kids recognized the greatness immediately, dumping SICK BURN on an unsuspecting Japanese audience a few years back. Their ability to be deadly serious about thrashing and content while clearly having a blast (while blasting) is exactly what made RAD so good, and SICK BURN carried the mindset into the new decade. I love this shit.

A GRAND EXCLAMATION OF GO!-ING