HUE & CRY

This band started just after I moved away from the Bay Area in the early '00s, but I was lucky enough to drive them on a short Midwest/East Coast tour in 2004. Wholly unpretentious hardcore tinged all female punk - simple but excellent songs and lyrics that reflect the depth of each of the women involved. The drummer now sings for NYC shredmeisters ATTAKE, the bassist is a documentary film maker and producer and recently sang for YEAR ONE, and the guitarist lives in Madrid and does time in LAS SENORAS and SILLA ELECTRICA, two of the best bands Spain has produced in years. Innocence and angst can combine to make great music.

RIDICULOUSLY MASCULINE

ACEPHALIX

With the release of Aporia earlier this year, San Francisco's ACEPHALIX set the bar high for fans of bulldozing metalcrust dirges, but before the wax has even cooled down, they are back with a new demo and a slightly different approach. Moving even further from the crust that marked the band's early output, Interminable Night is a complete low end metal lurch, taking cues from Swedish death metal and ramping the BPMs down to a steady stoner tempo. These songs sound HUGE, and make me quite anxious to hear (and see) the next chapter. 

INTERMINABLE NIGHT

US AGAINST THEM

Some enterprising Quebecer cranked out this amazing mix tape and was selling them for the very reasonable sum of $3, and I can think of few ways this side of beer to better spend that reasonable sum. All killer, not even a hint of filler on this 90 minute rager; there are plenty of hits from RUDIMENTARY PENI, LOST CHERREES, NAKED ("Mid-1930s (Pre War Germany)" is still one of my favorite UK punk songs ever), THE SYSTEM, OMEGA TRIBE and others, but this tape maker did a superb job of sneaking in the deep cuts.  Bands like KULTURKAMPF, ADMIT YOUR SHIT, A.O.A. and TOXIC WASTE fukkn rule this comp - though there is not a single dud during the whole 90 minutes. This is quite possibly the best mix tape I've shared here on TE, so if you like listening to punk, then might I suggest that you listen to this?

US AGAINST THEM

DAWN OF HUMANS

From the same scene that brought CRAZY SPIRIT into our lives comes DAWN OF HUMANS. This transcends good punk and blurs subgenre classifications until you don't care what it's supposed to be called - you just want to know how to cram more of it in your earholes. The new(ish) EP is brilliant, use the email on the tape to try to get yourself one.

DAWN OF HUMANS

ANOTHER DESTRUCTIVE SYSTEM

This seven song banger comes courtesy of LA peace punk/anarcho crust/activist rockers ANOTHER DESTRUCTIVE SYSTEM circa 1986. Super heavy CONFLICT influence with a raw delivery...nothing to complain about here. Vocalist Mark reformed A.D.S. in 2005 and they played around Southern California until '09 when they hung it up once again...new recorded material from the second incarnation is certainly cleaner, but lacks the power of this demo and the one that followed. A shame this band never put out records, as I'm sure they would be considered the top of the American anarcho heap.

ANOTHER DESTRUCTIVE SYSTEM

BLACK FUNERAL

There was an interview with BLACK FUNERAL's leader Baron von Abaddon in Pit magazine in 1995/6 that received countless yucks in our tour van. He said something about wanting his music to inspire someone to commit suicide and talked all kinds of trash about how evil he was and how much he loved Satan. Understandably, we wanted to know more about this mystical Satanic evil doing forest dweller, so when we passed through his hometown on tour we spent most of the evening asking everyone who would listen (and those who didn't care) where we could find The Baron. Not surprisingly, the denizens of Eviltown, USA (also known as Indianapolis) were not too forthcoming with information on The Baron's whereabouts, but near the end of the show a shy longhaired chap approached our merch table and said in a hushed voice: "I hear you're looking for The Baron." We whooped with excitement, but the fellow nervously quieted us down and started hesitantly sharing only after we swore to never reveal the source of such top secret information. Apparently, if memory serves, the Baron von Abaddon was (in 1996) a thirty-something fat white dude who lived in a trailer park with his mom, had shrines to both Hitler and Satan in his room, and worked the night shift at Pizza Hut (his mom drove him to work so he wouldn't have to walk through the scary black neighborhood). Perhaps the kid was talking out his ass, but he was legitimately spooked while telling us about The Baron, so we took his words as truth (also, this new image of Indiana's premier Satanic Black Metal purveyor was about to provide us with hours of entertainment in the van).  I didn't hear BLACK FUNERAL until later in 1996, when I picked up this '94 demo cassette in Nagoya, Japan (go figure) for 200¥, and imagine my shock when I loved it. Lo-fi bleak and ethereal howling black metal that sounds like it just emerged from the frosty depths of the walk-in freezer at Pizza Hut. 

JOURNEY'S (sic) INTO HORIZONS LOST

DICKHEAD

I know what you fukks want: raw driving punk. DICKHEAD are from Indonesia, and back in 2001 they dished out this 10 song ripper - like UK82 all jacked up on homemade moonshine and tempeh. Maybe it's not the new school hipster version of Noise Punk that wears tight pants and has all the right bands they discovered on the internet emblazoned across their perfect jackets, but DICKHEAD are raw as shit, noisy as fukk, and quite likely punker than you.

Escape From Genocide System

THE ACCÜSED

I never really got into THE ACCÜSED. I had the More Fun Than An Open Casket Funeral tape in high school, but it didn't exactly float my boat, and the whatever other shit I've heard over the years hasn't moved me to delve deeper into their output. Who the fukk knows where this tape is from, but if I had heard  this monster back in the day, then I have no doubt that I would have spent the last years wrapping myself in the ACCÜSED flag, because this shit rules hard....REALLY hard. The songs here appear on 1985's Martha Splatterhead EP and The Return...Of Martha Splatterhead, released the following year, though I do not know if these are the same versions (I kinda think not, since these seven songs are pretty clearly from the same session, and it seems odd that they would have used the same shit for a Combat Records full length as for an independent EP); hopefully some super fan can clue all of us in. Is all of THE ACCÜSED shit this good? "Lonely Place" by itself makes the whole demo worthwhile - the term "raging" has rarely been used more appropriately to describe blistering hardcore jams. Splatter Rock demo is written on the tape, but frankly I could give a shit if this is a demo or just a recording of vinyl releases, except that if this is the EP recording then I guess I have officially added that slab to my meager but hopelessly optimistic want list. Even the ridiculous "Fuckin' For Bucks" is a fukkn killer, and I can think of few better ways to kill a few Sunday brain cells.

SPLATTER ROCK Demo

RECTIFY

I posted the Ebullition demo last year, and here is the follow up release from the Welsh band RECTIFY. They were an ocean away, but cranked out a sound that was right in line with their contemporaries in the US (mostly New York).  There's a touch of cock rock in the vocals, and even more so in the occasional tasty leads, but it suits the tunes just fine...I picture this dudes being stiff and uninteresting to watch live, the kind of band you keep watching because they can all play their asses off but you want them to just unleash. '90s US hardcore meets HELMET? It totally works. 

VIRTUAL REALITY

HMMM...

If you aren't sold by the cover and the stable of UK punk that it promises inside, then there's not much my pleadings will be able to do to encourage a fast download. The Casio drum machine bedroom recordings from A LOVELY WAY TO DIE? are an amusing headscratcher, but the rest of this tape is blown out top quality '80s UK punk...you know you love SUBHUMANS, NAKED and DESTRUCTORS but delve deeper and get into 3/D SCREAM, PATROL (best tunes on the tape) and 4 MINUTE WARNING. A killer comp tape from Hit Ranking Fanzine, enjoy your Friday.

HMMM...

OUR TURN

I moved from Oakland to Milwaukee in 2002 (though it was a gradual move, and I wasn't completely Midwest based until summer 2003), and was lucky enough to be in the Midwest during a very fruitful few years for punk and hardcore. Killer bands from all over the region passed through frequently, bands from overseas frequently used our house to sleep and shit in, and Milwaukee kept cranking out great hardcore and punk bands the whole time I lived there. But I missed a whole wave of shit from the Bay Area while I was gone...like OUR TURN. The cover kinda gives this one away: ripping youth crew drenched hardcore from San Francisco, but they only existed for a short time and aside from tracks on 625's Barbaric Thrash comps, left us with only this demo. Practically every early '00s youth crew/fastcore revival cliché can be found on these seven tunes, but when Carl urges you to "swallow your pride and take the higher ground // keep your fucking hoods up // and your fists down!" you stop caring that you've heard these riffs before, because now it's OUR TURN. 

STEP ASIDE

FLOWERDAY

It's been a month since the last noise post, but this FLOWERDAY tape more than makes up for lost time with a terrifying wash of electronic white. Perhaps some of the harshest shit I've ever heard, these two tracks are like being trapped underwater while waves and currents whip you in all directions until you've forgotten which way is up. A few more minutes into the first side and you just submit...sink into your chair and let the sound take its course and have its way with you. Maybe it's silly to get all philosophical about noise, but tape has a transportational effect on me and it is awe inspiring - if only in its relentlessness. Desperate, bleak, painful noise.

SNUFF VICTIM

BALTHASAR GERARDS KOMMANDO

B.G.K.'s Nothing Can Go Wrogn was the first record I ever ordered through the mail, picked from the Alternative Tentacles catalog because the cover looked cool and packaged along with my Jello Biafra 3xLP spoken word release. The first time the needle hit the vinyl my mind was fukkn blown - I had never heard rage like this before, and these dudes were fast. I think B.G.K. are Holland's answer to Tulsa's N.O.T.A. (or maybe it's the other way around)...just amped up rapid fire hardcore punk, and this live tape highlights the band at their fastest. Excellent quality live recording from 198something, the tape might have been recorded in Phoenix but maybe I just think that because "PHOE" is scrawled on the label...YOUTH OF TODAY and 7 SECONDS are on the other side but no other information is available (I suppose I could ask Devon, to whom the tape belongs, where and when this set was recorded). The guitar, however, is fukkn SCREAMING so I really could give a shit where it was recorded, I'm just glad that it passed through my hands. 14 songs here, but the set cuts off partway though "Distorted Views," so there might have been more at one time.  One of the best hardcore bands ever, though I never noticed until today that Rene's vocals kinda sound like Lee Ving.

B.G.K. live

NOMAD

My weekend ended in the noisiest possible fashion: watching San Jose fucks IN DISGUST shred the shit out of a South Bay basement, but I'll hold off posting their shit until their band calls it quits. But now the weekend is over, and that means it's Monday...and time for more noise. New York is cranking out  ragers lately, and seeing NOMAD a couple of weeks ago put these kids in line with Noise Punk elite. The formula is simple, the challenge is to do it right: echoed vocals are howled, guitars pierce the stagnant air, drums are in a constant battle with a wash of cymbal hiss, and the bass rumbles underneath the chaos. NOMAD fly the DISCLOSE flag higher than most, rarely veering to far off a well weathered path...and that's just fine. The new(ish) EP kills, I suggest you get it as soon as you download these noise punk shits.

NOMAD

EUTHANASIE

EUTHANASIE's later recordings were recently given the vinyl treatment by Loony Tunes Records, which is what prompted me to pull this tape out - compiled recordings from 1985/6, the initial demo from West Germany's EUTHANASIE takes the best parts of Deustch Punk, UK anarcho and brooding goth punk and wraps it all into one great C60. The guitars seem lifted off of '80s BANSHEES records and then reworked to suit the mid tempo political punk. Ferocious and shitty sounding on tracks like "Weisser Schnee," melancholy anarcho tunes like "Justified Rape" create the dark vibe that permeates even the faster tunes that are the highlight of the tape. 14 songs over the course of a dreary and rainy morning.

A WAR TO END ALL WARS

INDIFERENCIA

Great hardcore from Argentina circa 1995...the healthy 'crew overtones might date this tape a little bit, but the power of the gang chorus on the opening track is undeniable and I was hooked from the start. Fast as shit, killer breakdowns, full throaty vocals...the circle pit in "Esquivas Tu Propia Ley" is low and mean, the attack is constant and I wouldn't change a thing.  This shit will grow hair on your chest.

Respirando Violencia

reposted May 2013

PAXTA-CORE: UNDERGROUND UZBEKISTAN

For those who aren't familiar, Tian An Men 89 Records have been releasing music from the far corners of the earth for well over a decade, and it's through this label that I first heard about punk scenes in Nepal, Algeria, Korea, Iran and the list goes on. Many of these bands destroy the boundaries of what we might consider "punk," but the bastardization of musical genres in these faraway lands often results in songs that are far more interesting than just another rehash of those same three chords that we all love. Several of TAM89's vinyl releases were put to cassette a few years back, and here's the Underground Uzbekistan comp LP for your Friday. The mellow bedroom minimalist track from BGMOLSTY I GROBOVYERZHSTY is my favorite, while HARDCORE OPA are probably the punkest thing on the tape. Other styles range from classic 1-2-1-2 punk rock to more commercial sounding alternative (though delivered in a raw and interesting enough fashion that it ceases to sound even remotely "commercial") to more indie numbers like those from SKIZZERZ.  This label cannot be commended enough for exposing these bands to the world (and and exposing the world to these bands).  8 bands, 15 songs, 7,000 miles from my house.

PAXTA-CORE

EUNUCH

Maybe this shit should have waited until Monday, but I've eyeing the EUNUCH tape languishing near the top of the "to be blogged" pile for way too long. Brutal and neanderthal all female powerviolence from Boston, these are ugly and smart sounds not to be consumed by the weak or the narrow. There is a guitar, but it just rumbles and makes noise, leaving the pulverizing to the bass and drums and the eviscerating to the vocals. I believe I mentioned that this shit was ugly, but I would like to reiterate.

EUNUCH

FIRST IMPRESSION

The historians claim the first and second waves of punk had gone completely to shit when the clock struck 1990, and that the third wave (or fourth, depending on how you count waves) hadn't yet kicked into high gear by 1991. I had a conversation last night (shouting match really, over blaring ironic soul music and top shelf whiskey) with a pal who has long contended that punk died in 1986, while I keep trying to convince him (we've had this conversation several times over the last 15 or so years) that he only thinks it died because he stopped going to punk and hardcore shows and started listening to MORBID ANGEL. The point is (...as if I can ever really get to the point, but surely you - dear follower - have realized that by now...) - there's a pretty notoriously dry spell from 198something to 199something filled with a heap of bands trying to recreate the glory and spontaneity of early punk and hardcore - and failing miserably. But there's diamonds mixed in with all that crap, you just need to start wading. Maybe FIRST IMPRESSION aren't a diamond...but their mid tempo deliberately plodding UK punk rates at least a cubic zirconia and I think that most of these songs would be straight up killers with a few minor tweaks. I guess that tweaks are out of the question for this 20 year old cassette, so blast these tunes and join me for some creative mental editing to make these songs the classics that they almost were. 

FIRST THINGS FIRST

CHRIST ON PARADE

No introduction required here, just bombastic and furious Bay Area hardcore from 1985. The drums are loose and packed with face melting power, and the guitars pick frantically. The geographical influences are obvious in this early version of CHRIST ON PARADE - this demo sounds like the first 12" releases by DRI, CRUCIFIX and MDC all jammed onto the same tape over one another. Some of these songs later appeared on the A Mind Is A Terrible Thing and Sounds Of Nature LPs, but I'm not sure anything can match the awkward teenage power of this demo.

CALL IT WHAT YOU WANT

RANDOM AXE OF TERROR

Listen to the riffs cranked out by these Michigan thrashers and relish in raging thrashcore insanity with tasty breakdowns, but feel that high end distorted guitar pierce your fragile and weary eardrums and wince every time the crash cymbal hisses through your temples.... aaahhh, glorious Noise Punk, it must be Monday!! Heavy japanese 'core influence, especially on the drums, with early '00 fastcore song structures, and it's hard to tell if the noisy end product is due more to intent or lack of resources, but the vocals are terrifying, and the extraneous noise ramps up the ferocitometer until everything is pegged in the red. What better way to start the week than with 8 minutes of government hating punk loving noise laden rippers circa 2003? I couldn't think of one either, so get into some Detroit style Howling Punk Oblivion.

THE KIDS ARE ALL FUCKED

PRETENTIOUS ASSHOLES

Chicago 1990s chaotic hardcore seems to be synonymous with that band named after the Death Wish dude, but I think of bands like MY LAI, DANGER MOUSE and PRETENTIOUS ASSHOLES. While demos from the first two are in store for the future, this Sunday is a ten song scorcher from PRETENTIOUS ASSHOLES - perhaps 9 of the angriest minutes I've shared on The Escape. Insane powerviolence/ grind/hardcore insanity...it might not be recorded as well as a modern day incarnation of the same animal, but I challenge any and all current bands to match their careless fukking fury. I suggest putting on your "getting my ass blown out" pants on before listening to this, and if you don't have the means to listen loudly, then don't bother.

PRETENTIOUS ASSHOLES

BORN DEAD ICONS

One of my favorite bands of the '00s - and some of the best punks I've ever met.

NEW SCREAM INDUSTRY

LIVE NERVE

Live mix tape glory for your early fall Friday. GRUNTMUSCLE is the only band that I had even heard of before this tape, so get ready to tuck into some random jams from some late '80s rockers from New Zealand (I think that's where the tape is from, and I am open to correction and/or confirmation). BIG ED'S USED FARM sound kinda off kilter with a really clean guitar - sounds like Jasper Thread (DEAD MILKMEN) playing for THE FALL and I kinda like it, but I'm glad there are only a few songs. MORAL FIBRE are more straight up UK punk, fast and catchy with great bass lines (especially "Black + White"), while DODGE WEIRDOS slog through a plodding bass heavy 4 minute dirge. In case that wasn't odd enough, THE STRAP-ONS spend twice as much time making three times the racket on "Do You Swallow Cum?," which is art/noise/improv weirdness at it's finest. NERVOSO close out the first side with two raw rippers - sounds like they might have been a pretty basic female fronted UK styled punk outfit, but this live treatment makes them sound absolutely fierce. The flip side starts with STENCH THERAPY, who are pretty awful. I mean awful as in they sound like shit, but I kinda think it rules. More NERVOSO and BIG ED'S USED FARM (seriously, what the fuck were they thinking with that name?), raw snarling madness from GORSE, and the aforementioned GRUNTMUSCLE wrap up the tape (slow and noisy, like FLIPPER delivered by arty post punks). The sound quality ranges from satisfactory to really noisy, so prepare your ears for a serious workout.

LIVE NERVE

THE OBSCENE FEMALES

I prefer their tracks on Thrasher The Cat's Faves, but "(She Looks Like A) Giraffe" is such a gloriously random combination of mid '80s LA punk and driving Riot City gone cock rock UK shits...think later G.B.H. with the technical proficiency of early TRANSISTORS, add cocaine and viola!: THE OBSCENE FEMALES! The one lesson that I took from this tape: IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T LOVE IT - JUST KEEP LISTENING. And now I think this shit is great, even though I will go to sleep with visions of the guitarist shoving his whammy bar up Meg Whitman's kiester...not because the music is bad, but rather that she is bad. But if he wrapped the whammy bar in money, would she really be that bummed?

OOH,  MY BELLY

SAVAGE DEATH

The Crucified In Hell demo seemed to go over rather well, so wrap your ass around SAVAGE DEATH's debut release: Mass Genocide. The shrieks in "Evil Dead" sound more like SLAYER than SLAYER themselves, and the no frills speed primitive speed metal does constant battle with tape hiss and guitar distortion that would make DISCLOSE proud. What were you doing in 1985?

MASS GENOCIDE

HICKEY

This is HICKEY in 1995, a pre-LP greatest hits juggernaut recorded live on WFMU in East Orange, New Jersey pleading for shows, places to sleep and attention. "Greatest Hits" might be a bit of a misnomer, since they played virtually these same songs nearly every time I saw them during this period, and these may well have been the only songs they knew (though "El Farolito" is conspicuously absent from this set - perhaps HICKEY thought them Jersey folks wouldn't really grasp the importance of a good burrito at 4am). The (in)famous and as-yet-still-unreleased Live In Mobile Home Alabama was recorded shortly after this radio show, and when they made it home a few weeks later, they ruled the neighborhood - by accident or by design is up for debate. Karoline was with them on this tour, her second adventure with HICKEY in less than a year (she married me, clearly she has a penchant for smelly boys and questionable life choices), she said that after their on-air pleas for accommodations were unsuccessful, they pulled the van into the WFMU parking lot and slept the sweaty night away. The next morning while Aesop was puttering around the lot, campus security shooed him away saying "You can't sell your fruit here, you have to leave!" I still miss Matty's uncanny ability to make you feel like things matter, even when you knew full well that they don't....

HICKEY on WFMU

ABRAHAM CROSS

I got a package last week from Black Konflik in Malaysia, and it presented me with a genuine conundrum: do I celebrate another Noise Punk Monday with some of the distorted sounds contained in the box, or do I celebrate 13 years of marriage with a rip of a tape that symbolizes some sort of connection that my wife and I share? Suffice to say, Karoline ain't the biggest ABRAHAM CROSS fan, so Noise Punk wins! Tokyo's ABRAHAM CROSS combine classic Japanese crasher crust with distortion laden wall of noise and long atmospheric (but still chaotic) build ups, and though these songs are fukkn brilliant, they cannot hold a candle to the live assault. "Message From Forever" could pass as a '90s shoegaze anthem, and it's followed by two of the most ragingest minutes I've heard put to tape - just pure manic insanity. The track listing is slightly confusing, but the A side of the tape consists of tracks from Dan-Doh's Terro-Rhythm comp, the brilliant Tokyo Sound System comp, and the Skate All Day Drink all Night comp (all from 2005), as well as their side from the S.F.P. split EP, though the tape seems to be missing "Plastic Sun" from Tokyo Sound System, even though it's listed. The B side is even more confusing, so I've tracked it as one onslaught - 28 minutes of otherwise unavailable live material recorded at Earthdom (June 2007) and Shinjuku Loft (April 2005) - that barely touches what it is like to feel this band live, but does show them at their psychedelic pinnacle of chaos (especially about 14 minutes in). The first time I saw ABRAHAM CROSS, they had a hi-hat player...one dude out of his fukkn mind with a microphone on a hi-hat cymbal sitting in the middle of the stage wailing away on it like he was Eddie Van Hi-Hat for the entire set, and the next time I saw them I could hardly hear anything after being brutally pummeled by maximum volume techno through the house system for a full 20 minutes while the band set up their four guitar rigs (the guitarist for STRUGGLE FOR PRIDE was a relatively new member at that point, and it seemed he might have had something to prove...he proved it). Total and complete live destruction, offered to you via cassette.

END OF TIME

It should be noted that I married Karoline 13 years ago today, which means that my streak as "The Luckiest Man On Earth" has continued for what would seem to be an exceptionally long time. Here's to that run continuing long after Noise Punk Mondays are forgotten...

R.I.P. Mark Sheehan

OUT COLD have been criminally under appreciated since their inception more than 20 years ago. Through a gauntlet of guitarists and bass players, Mark and John have managed to create some of the purest hardcore I've heard - Goodbye Cruel World is an absolute masterpiece. I met Mark only once, when I was on tour with friends of his from Finland; soft spoken, nice and reserved, zero attitude whatsoever. He was 41 years old, way too young, and he will be missed.

IDENTITY

Sweden's IDENTITY existed during that perceived hardcore void from late '80s to early '90s, a time that the closed minded claim produced no bands worth listening to. The closed minded are wrong, and IDENTITY is a prime example - this is the standard to which modern "melodic hardcore" should be held. Brilliant tuneful guitar leads throughout and hooks that border on melancholy, while the music blasts onward with few breaks in tempo ("Can I Really Trust Your Words?" is about as mid tempo as they get, and the kids could still pit to that one pretty easily). I picked up an EP in a bargain bin years ago on the recommendation of a fastcore obsessed buddy who said this was one of the only melodic bands he liked, and after I got over the surprise at Mr. Blastbeat suggesting what is basically a pop punk record I fell in love with the jams. This 1990 demo is rawer and rougher than the records (all of which are worth buying, and can usually be had for cheap, because no one cares), none of the charm is lost. If I were to try to make a bridge between mid-era HÜSKER DÜ and PROPAGANDHI's Less Talk, More Rock, I would make it out of these songs. It might be hard to get people to dance across it with me, but those who joined me on that bridge would have a really good time.

IDENTITY

DESKONOCIDOS

Their European tour started yesterday, but I couldn't justify blatant promotion of a killer band over posting a mix tape every Friday. Austin's DESKONOCIDOS play the absolute best combination of '80s Spanish punk, dark post punk, and some infectious brand of melodic proto hardcore. Basically, you will pound your fist into the air and dance your ass off and scream along at the top of your lungs singing some total gibberish because your ass probably doesn't speak Spanish. These songs are culled from their EPs on Todo Destruido and Lengua Armada, the split with SACRED SHOCK and two unreleased bangers that close out the tape. Songs like "Desaparecer" and "Juventud Perida" are instant classics, while there are moments ("Pesadillas" specifically) that remind me of more mainstream pseudo post punk bands, but delivered with a raw fury that the radio hitmakers could never replicate. 

DESKONOCIDOS

SAVE THE DEAD

From the opening riffs delivered by Oklahoma's BLEEDING NUNS, and the lyrical assaults that make up "Fuck Fashion" and "Neo Nazis," you know you are in for a killer fukkn mix tape. What follows is the best hour of under appreciated US hardcore punk...Mississippi's WORKIN' MUTHAS, Idaho's STATE OF CONFUSION, Michigan's BORN WITHOUT A FACE, Wisconsin's US DISTRESS (from the original K-Town), S.N.O.T. from Texas, STEVIE STILETTO, BLEMISH ON SOCIETY, HEADLESS MARINES and MAGGOT SANDWICH from Florida, Virginia's PSYCHODRAMA (their song "No Homo Zone" was clearly recorded well before the emergence of politically correct punk politics), Alabama's DISPERSION, and then there's GROUP OF INDIVIDUALS (weirdest song on the tape) from Chicago and bands from parts unknown like BONG and POISON. Musical styles all sit in between the world of '80s American punk and '80s American hardcore, and the quality is way higher than one might expect from a tape comp of unheralded bands - though STEVIE STILETTO is marginally appreciated by punk historians and MAGGOT SANDWICH are generally recognized as a solid second tier (and therefore relatively affordable) hardcore act - plus, I dig their mustaches. I asked Aesop about this shit, since a healthy percentage of these bands are from Florida, but he just told me that BLEMISH ON SOCIETY were terrible (though I kinda dig their shitty songs here, if only because they are so shitty) and MAGGOT SANDWICH ruled (which I already knew). I was kinda hoping for a story about 15 year old Aesop fucking the drummer for DISPERSION's girlfriend in the back of their van while they played a show in Florida, just because that would have been funny...not such luck. No stories, just great jams.

SAVE THE DEAD