WEIRD WOMAN

 

Two fifteen minute messages that may or may not have originated from the brain of a toddler. I'm going to assume they had some parental assistance while I hope that they did not. The tape is deliberate, slow, vaguely terrifying. Listen to "You Will Not Sleep Again" while you sleep tonight.

THE MORE I SEE

Worth noting that WEIRD WOMAN lands right next to WEIRD UNKNOWN GUY alphabetically and I strongly suggest you (re)visit that post from 2018. 

MOJO HAND

 

I keep finding things that I missed in real time and I guess maybe that's just part of what being mildly obsessive is all about. I don't need to find everything or to hear everything, but I don't ever want to stop looking. MOJO HAND may have been a short blip, but what a fukkn document they left. Dusty Nuggets-tinged garage punk that feels utterly timeless (it was recorded a decade into this millennium) and screams for volume and beers and lighting shit on fire. If there was ever a band that sounded like they were very fucking seriously about good times and good jams, that band was called MOJO HAND. Grande from FIELDS OF FIRE and Harley from RABIES, though you mutants probably know them from ANNIHILATION TIME and THE PHANTOMS (respectively), but once you hear their "Let It Bleed" you won't give two fukks where it came - you'll just be grateful that it's here with you now.

THE COMPLETE MOJO: THEIR COMPLETE RECORDED WORKS 2009-2010

CULVERT CORPSE

 

Got a nice little package from the Sewercide folks last week. I say "when" when what I really mean is "filthy," of course. Three offerings from Halifax's newest export and tariffs be damned because this fukkr is worth every penny and more. You want my lazy comparison? '90s DIY crusters recording primitive black metal on a boom box and using a kindergarten synth for the leads. Yup, it's as good as you think it is. "Blood Streams" is relentless knuckle dragging raw NABM and worth the price of admission on its own....but what about "Warpath," you ask? well it sounds like a fucking war path, obviously. This was the only tape in the package, so you're going to have to seek the MISANTHROPIC MINDS // HÄPEÄ split on your own - it shouldn't be too hard to find. 

DEMO 1

DISTRUST

 

Greater than the sum of its parts, Greatest Very Fuvkin' Shit$ gives you everything that you might be (should be) expecting from the promises made by the cover, but DISTRUST gives you something else. DISTRUST gives you more. Wild studded jacket dis-crust mixed with stench and a healthy dose of Detestation, this collection of tracks smothers you like an avalanche from the unhinged Scan-DBeat of "Nuclear Tomorrow" to the hollow metalcrust of "Doomed To Oblivion," these Singaporean veterans do absolutely nothing half-assed even when it's painfully simple two riff offerings like "Protect And Save" (okay, four riffs if you count the breakdown and the second solo). Plenty of bands hump the corpse of G.I.S.M. and there's a touch of that here to be sure, but DISTRUST just harness that sonic energy and fuckkn own it in the most diabolical way imaginable. Just filthy, desperate and essential metallic hardcore. Listen to "Nightmares Of War." You're welcome. 

GREATEST VERY FUVKIN' SHIT$

SERVICE

 

Someone wanna tell me how I missed this shit? I know NO STATIK and STERILE MIND both played Santa Rosa around 2016 and I swear I never heard of these foos in real time.....thank fukk I'm hearing them now though. Dark, urgent punk with a keyboard that provides texture and mystery instead of being over-present. It's very much a sound "of the time" that sounds absolutely essential with these 52yo 2025 ears. Maybe I never heard them then because I need SERVICE now - if that's the case, then gratitude to the universe that made me wait. 

MK II

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. 

LOWRIDER

 

I could go into the story about how this tape (and the next three volumes, and the Barrio Music comps and some face melting tech/grind tapes and some wild ass DIY LA party mixes) landed in my lap, but my recommendation is simple listening. Let me tell you what you'll hear: JOHN CHINGAS with one of the coolest love songs ever, RALFI PAGAN with one of the other coolest love songs ever, a couple of BABY G & ROCK BOX tracks, a killer from TIERRA that you have hopefully heard a thousand times, and oh my fukkn stars can we please get into the history of "Two Of Hearts" because I didn't know I could love this track more and apparently JON ST. JAMES is a thing I need to dig into. Fifteen tracks - Hi-NRG '80s meets classic cruisin' tunes.....even the most casual pop observers recognize that Lowrider culture is just fukkn cool, but this shit seals the deal. I can't wait to feed you more of this shit, it's amazing. 

LOWRIDER SOUNDTRACK VOLUME 1

MURDERAT

 

Clenched fist hard banging stadium crust from Depok City. MURDERAT had a stint in the 2000s but their return in the 2020s has born a few jaw dropping releases, culminating with this absolute fukkn masterpiece in 2023. Heavier, faster, tighter....Rival Tirani is just more. Scandi-worship with sweeping leads and a gruff intensity to the vocals that keeps everything on edge. Man I would love to see this band in the flesh. 

RIVAL TIRANI

MARÍA MARTHA SERRA LIMA

 

Don't ask too many questions, okay? Just.....don't. Keep those questions to yourself, even though the answers are right here. MMSL is (was) an absolute vocal powerhouse and the opener "Soy Como Toda Mujer" is a perfect '80s pop ballad on a tape packed with perfect '80s pop ballads. "Amor Secreto" is like a telenovela put to song, and Plenamente will transport you to another world if you simply allow yourself to be transported. A world for lovers indeed. Un Mundo Para Amantes. See? I told you not to ask. 

PLENAMENTE

TRAP THEM

 

Sometimes you need something different. Something heavy and commercial. Something ugly. I was blasting and enjoying the first side of Filth Rations and thinking about how completely outside of my realm these sounds actually are (even though the sounds themselves are completely within my realm), and then I flipped the tape and the second side wouldn't play at all and I tried and still nothing so I thought....yeah, tine for some more shitty poorly produced punk. So thanks to TRAP THEM for the respite. I was nice to nestle in the lap of brutality for seven minutes. 

FILTH RATIONS

PROTEST

 

I mentioned this release when I was blabbing about the MIDHUMANS tape a few days ago. The bands are nothing alike, except that both existed in the 1990s and then reformed in the 2010s - MIDHUMANS were from Indonesia, while PROTEST were one of the first DIY DBeat/crust bands from Singapore. Thankfully, this release captures the first (?) PROTEST demo from 1998 (The Biggest Proof Of Human Greed Is War) along with 2017's Moral Injustice. Both are killers, and it's interesting to hear the band as initially presented and eventually realized. The vocalist is the only constant member, and the modern incarnation is significantly more metallic, polished and.....well, brutal. Both incarnations are spectacular though, I'm glad I have both. 

MORAL INJUSTICE
THE BIGGEST PROOF OF HUMAN GREED IS WAR

••••••

HELL ÖN FIRE // KÖMBATAN

 

Okay, so someone has listened to a little DISFEAR and that's so totally good with me. Mayhaps they've cranked some MOTÖRHEAD too, and that's also acceptable. Loom at the cover and think about what you know is in store for your earholes.....and yeah, that's what you're in for. All that and more. HELL ÖN FIRE are like INEPSY through a Powerload filter, it's textbook shit and it's perfect. KÖMBATAN are like MOTÖRHEAD recorded through an ANNIHILATION TIME filter, also textbook and also perfect. I'm having a hard time accepting that all of this exists....you should just have a good time raising beers and blasting the shit out of this shit. Because this is shit that was made to be blasted. 

D'BEAT ROCK 'N' ROLL MAYHEM

THE END 32

 

Tell me you aren't tired of the DIY Indonesian hardcore that's been squatting these pages for the pasts weeks (months?), because there's another box of gold headed my way shortly and I am not even close to finished with the last two deliveries. SE Asian DIY hardcore is a fascinating case study - the countries and scenes that make up the region are completely different in so many ways, the scene in Philippines was popping in the '80s but Indonesian punk didn't really start growing for another decade. Singapore is essentially a "first world" country economically but the scene there is inextricably (and geographically) connected to Malaysia's. And while all of these scenes grew separately, they all influenced one another and they all drew from the resources that were available.....notably the (then) punk scenes from the US, Japan and Europe. Now I'm left to figure out how a band like THE END 32 came to exist in early 2000s Indonesia. The sound is unbridled ferocious DIY grindcrust, and I feel like this was atypical in early '00s Jakarta (though I could easily be wrong). We're talking ASSÜCK level blasting - listen to the way the blasts change speed on "Against Animal Testing" and then ask yourself what the fuck you were doing in 2002. That shit was (is) next level - straight up - and then they do the techno shit on"Stupid 2" and my mind is blown because of the when and the where, you know? There aren't many DIY punk/grind releases that hit this hard regardless of context and/or origin.....this shit is special. 

SUFFER

FOUR WAY THUNDER ATTAKK!!!

 

Strap in, motherfukkrs. Forty-one blasts of lo-fi fastcore/grind in just under thirty minutes, featuring four of Indonesia's fiercest unknowns. SESAK NAPAS, SCREWFACE, URBAN SOLDIER and STANDARGANDA each have their own take on the "genre/s," but really this is just an exhausting and in your face sonic assault. Blast beats, samples, irreverence, high pitched screams, jack-off riffs - hit the time machine and drop this collection in 2001 and watch the nerds weep. 

INDONESIAN IV WAY THUNDER ATTAKK!!

OUR TURN

 

Turns out there are two different covers for this demo (I'm talking about the tape - I know there are several versions of the vinyl reissue) and I uncovered this copy of the live photo version a few weeks ago. Does the world need more fast, energetic, earnest straight edge crew 'core? I guess so, because OUR TURN has been blasting on repeat at TEHQ today. Every trope and pitfall is here, and all you want is more of all of it. Shameless emulation heavily influenced by early '00s fastcore. "Explanation For Action" and "step Aside" all day long, and someone please convince Neck to finish that documentary? If you know, you know.

STEP ASIDE

Yeah, I posted this in the early days of TE, but that link is long dead and who's gonna comb through 5,600+ posts to fond some crucial 'edge jams and also....why not post the shit again since this one has a different cover? Right?

MIDHUMANS

 

Early, raw Indonesian hardcore captured live in 1999 (as the title suggests). Prepare yourself for a sonically blistering listen, and then reward yourself with another live recording from a reformed MIDHUMANS almost twenty years later....just as raw and only slightly more cohesive. If it worked in the '90s....why fukkn change, right? Aside from a couple of comp appearances, this is the only MIDHUMANS output I can find - not for the weak listener but more than worth it for the die hards. 

TAPE COLLECTION SERIES: LIVE RECORDING 1999 • LIVE ON STAGE 2016

CHILL PARENTS

 

This is what I want to hear when someone mentions "modern hardcore." What I actually hear is typically something closer to short-hair metal or re-packaged '90s alt; breakdowns instead of riffs and "punk" rooted in FOO FIGHTERS choruses instead of FLIPPER. This is what I want to hear though, so my ears were pleased when the filthy stomp of "Pissy" started dragging my sorry ass into the shit. It's earnest, it just sounds real, and it feels like it comes from a place that I recognize. You wanna get punched in the face? CHILL PARENTS can do that for you. It feels good, I promise. You're welcome. 

CONTENT // COLLAPSE

BANDA DES FEMER // SVNYA

 

Ramshackle buzzsaw Spanish punk from the only two bands I've ever heard of from Menorca. You've heard of Mallorca? Welcome to Menorca. I think these punks are mostly Barcelona based now, but hoooooooooo boy does this shit scratch an itch if you like your punk ignorant and raw. 

TALAITIK ATTACK

SPYDER DEAD

 

More Indonesian punk because the shit rules. Going back to the roots for this one with From Life To Be Death..! released in 2000. UK by way of USA spikey punk anthems like "Apathy" and "We Still Against" will power you through your day while you wonder what it must have been like to be a punk in a disastrously oppressive political regime. A you wonder if you've got what it takes....

FROM LIFE TO BE DEATH..!

BRICKS

 

If you pay attention, then you heard four of these six tracks back in November on their self-titled tape. Actually, if you were really paying attention then you would started pumping this shit back in 2022 when both tapes were released....but we can't all get hip to everything in real time, right? So yeah, the PENI-esque "Enemy" and the heavy steady squirm of "Servant" are the new (to me) cuts here (and "Servant" into "No Sanctuary" is the clear standout) so even if you were paying attention last year? Time to power up.

NO SANCTUARY

LAST DRIVE

 

A dozen high energy snotty punk tracks that land somewhere between SCREECHING WEASEL and GRIMPLE. Buzzsaw guitar, hopelessly catchy vocals, raw-as-fuck production....seriously, what's not to like? Choice cut is "Full Of Riot" if only because they appear to be playing the song just a wee bit faster than they are able. The whole song is two riffs and a bridge. Six notes total. Like I said....What's not to love?

LAST DRIVE

FREAK VIBE

 

I feel like I've been hitting these kids pretty hard lately, but that's because I've been jamming their tapes pretty often.....so you get what I'm getting, you know? They make 'em different in the PNW and FREAK VIBE were one of the differentest - it wasn't like you'd never heard the sounds before, it was like you'd never heard them quite like this. And you weren't accustomed to hearing them from DIY punks. And FREAK VIBE were punks of the highest order. No fucks given, leaving everything on the floor, punk. This might be my favorite one, but I'm glad I don't have to choose. Dark, slimy dirges that remind me of GALLON DRUNK, STOOGES or even a dusty desert raunchy BAD SEEDS. Of course you're going to get CRAMPS comparisons here (and they aren't out of order) but really what you're hearing is FREAK fuckingVIBE. 

PROTESTRATION

ANTIPHATY

 

The title suggests they've been around for ages, and the title is correct. Don't be fooled. by the stench-core cover art - contents here are unfiltered raging street punk capped off by a remix that lands like '90s NAUSEA by way of PRODIGY. Also, wonder if the band name is an accidental misspelling of "antipathy" that just stuck....I hope so. 

20 YEARS UNDERCONTROL