OPIOD CRISIS

 

This is the kind os post that could end up as one declarative sentence or a stream of drool and babble while I fall over myself trying to explain and/or define every nuance - logically it will end up somewhere in the middle but the point will be the same: Do. Not. Skip. This. There's something in the water in Vienna these days, and there are some kids there who rival 2000s Boston in their ability to take a thing, emulate it, and make it their own. First it was BACKYARD, who worshipped at the altar of PLUTO/NO LESS/DOOMRYDERZ. Then I heard TONAL SHIFT and I couldn't stop thinking about that show in Pomona a lifetime ago (mostly TOTAL FURY though). And then there was this....three pieces of low end distorted filth that bridge a gap between DYSTOPIA and hell. I implore you to focus on the way OPIOD CRISIS use distortion and recording limitations to make "Prenatal Exposure" (particularly the beginning) sound as demonic as anything I've heard - the song itself feels possessed. And then there's the title track "Favelas De Brutas," a seven-plus minute opus that left me absolutely stunned. These kids take their craft so much further that simple worship, and I can only imagine what it will be like when they make their next move. 

FAVELAS DE BRUTAS

WEREWOLF JONES

 

I posted a different WEREWOLF JONES tape last year and I stand by the words that I slurred then. And today I will add to those words that WEREWOLF JONES are old punk for a new reality. Because people like pretentious comparisons and impossible combinations, please take STOOGES, MOTARDS, JESUS LIZARD and LAUGHING HYENAS and make a band out of those sounds. But also make it a hardcore band. I should have posted this on the live blog because it was recorded live (at the Outer Limits Lounge), but y'all don't look at that one (you should though - theres good shit there in general and also today) so it's here. This shit hits right. Brace yourself.

STROH DOWN

SOCKEYE

 

How do you describe SOCKEYE to the uninitiated? Folks who've spent any time here should already know (as should anyone who paid attention to US DIY freak shit in the 1990s), but...how do describe SOCKEYE to someone who simply has no idea? And I'll take it a step further and ask: How do you explain SOCKEYE to someone who has only existed in the internet era? I don't think a SOCKEYE could organically evolve today, in a world that is curated and intentional. SOCKEYE were....different. They took not giving a fuck to new levels before not giving a fuck was even a thing. Confrontational and/or intentionally offensive bands had come before them and outsider art punk was already passé long before they started in late '80s Ohio, but the level of "fuck it" that SOCKEYE projected can't be understated. For the newcomers: think THE DEAD MILKMEN and SCHLONG with an (early) ANAL CUNT sense of "humor" if such a thing actually exists (existed). Alternately, what if a bunch of boob and poop jokes formed a band? Like, maybe this is just the sonic embodiment of an eyeroll. I've Got An Indian Reservation In My Cum is a collection of (then) unreleased cuts recorded between 1989-1991 on one side with live sets from 1990 (opening for SUCKDOG) and 1991 (opening for POST MORTEM) on the flip. It's a lot....90+ minutes of innocent immaturity that feels more welcome in today's very adult and very real reality than I can properly explain.

I'VE GOT AN INDIAN RESERVATION IN MY CUM

LAMICTAL

 

Three minutes. Four songs. Northwest Indiana rebirthed in Southern California....When I think about Los Angeles, I want to think about seeing LAMICTAL be total freaks in the Sunset a couple of months ago. I don't want to think about what I think about now. But that's what I think about. Fuck this shit. Fuck ICE and all the acronyms. It's fucking scary....hopefully it's also steeling. 

VIOLENT CONVULSIONS

AMASUNZU

 

Ten minutes of insanely ugly powerviolence from Hungary. Pure blast mania of the highest order, like a band trying to conjure GODSTOMPER's unhinged chaos and the precision of IRON LUNG at the same time.....and I'm telling you, punks: It works. 

AMASUNZU

TOWANDA

 

I haven't spent any time with TOWANDA in quite a while, but listening to Freak Of Nurture makes me want to spend some quality time with their entire catalog because these four songs are absolute life changers. Modern dark punk attitude and presentation drenched in late '80s college/alt and current indie and grunge and shoegaze and...something. I don't know what the something is, but "The Antiheroine" sounds like TORCHE and WHITE LUNG in a bouncy castle and I am so fukkn here for it even though "Vanity Project" is really the game changer. If you won't listen to reason....there's always TOWANDA. 

FREAK OF NURTURE
-------
Also: FUCK I.C.E.

SERIOUSLY. 

NO BUSINESS

 

I know I blabbed about NO BUSINESS waaaaaay back in 2024, but I would like to (again) not that they were a short lived and extremely good band from Oakland. It's like they stood in the modern world and reached back to the early 1990s and borrowed the punk shit from early grunge and used it to build the foundation for a few timeless punk songs. I appreciate them for that. Even though they are all jams, "Stop Saying Sorry" is the jam.

 NO BUSINESS