HEAVENLY BLUE

 

The Provinces keep delivering, this time with a new offering from HEAVENLY BLUE. They've sharpened their sound to a jagged point, polluting '60s garage punk with sinister snarls and gloriously damaged psych guitars. 13th FLOOR ELEVATORS fucking with Japan's MASTURBATION and/or SONICS reinterpreted by ghoulish South of Market meth fiends. The previous releases have all been great, but these Nova Scotia punks have absolutely outdone themselves here, and I think it's about time for a full length.

KNIFE

MATERIAL

 

Pretty sure there are a few MISSION OF BURMA records spinning in their collective minds. WIPERS too. Although, instead of hip-shot comparisons, I should have encouraged you to focus on the guitar, on the earnest vocals straining through a throatful of gravel. Then again, for the second time in a month I'm going to say that this makes me feel like I felt the first time I heard NEON PISS....and that's a high fucking bar. 

MATERIAL

NIGHT PROWLER

 

I got a call from a buddy last night. He's a record dude, grew up on punk in early '80s Boston before moving to SF and going deep down a free jazz hole way back before it was cool, and now he's spending retirement seeking and slinging records (which is something to aspire to, no doubt). One of his jazz connections gave him a tip about an old(er) head looking to lighten his load and after a quick phone chat my dude was on a plane to Boston. He sent me one photo as a teaser - a frame filled with Crass Records singlesall dead mint and most with the original $3.00 price tags still in tact - but the conversation that followed was him just listing off virtually every essential hardcore and punk record released before '85. Wild. "He played guitar in a punk band but wasn't really into the faster hardcore, so the SSD Kids Will Have Their Say was basically unplayed" Shit like that. He stayed up with the dude drinking coffee and digging through boxes until the wee hours in the morning - passing the physical component of one person's connection to an entire scene back into the world...I'm really glad that shit still happens based on personal relationships instead of just record sharks and the internet, you know? Anyhoo, NIGHT PROWLER is the solo project from one of the VACANT STATE (who has been in a grip of other bands dating back to the late '90s).  Crime Wave is the first of four tapes that came out in the early twenty-teens, and it sounds like Boston hardcore with a little tinge of the good upper Midwest shit. There you go...there's the connection. It's tenuous, but it's there. 

CRIME WAVE

SPECTRES

 

Hard to believe that SPECTRES have been in the game for almost twenty years now (check last year's stellar Presence full length), just as it's hard to believe that when they first popped onto the collective punk radar it was still novel to hear punks making new wave and/or goth sounds. While that progression is almost a given in these 2020s, Vancouver's SPECTRES have spent the in-between times forging their own path towards something that is instantly familiar. Nostalgia is a perfect dark wave recording - period, You don't need the DIY scene context or the members-of or anything else, just know that these sounds stand completely on their own. If you're from my "era" and came up the way I did, then you're going to hear things that make you feel at home (THE FIXX, THE CALL, THE ALARM), but these punks make all of it theirs and I'm kinda beside myself while I listen to "Along The Waterfront" on a tape that came in a box of crust and grindcore tapes from Indonesia. Do yourself a favor....savor this one. Please. It's special. 

NOSTALGIA

FRAGMENT

 

Maybe it was just because it's been a minute since I blasted FRAGMENT, but this tape knocked me completely on my ass when I popped it in last week. This is the same In The Dust that Desolate released on wax six or seven years ago and I swear it hits harder in a 2025 world dominated by retro 'hardcore' and punks who've grown out of the genre/s and seemingly turned to dark wave for excitement (don't get me started). This is thirteen minute of pure hell - distorted and chaotic crasher crust rooted in DBeat, speed and confusion (or CONFUSE-ion, if you're picking up what I'm laying down). Every single EP is a killer and all are recommended - I'm not even going to say this one is the best (that status might be reserved for the Serial Mass Destruction EP on Sewercide) - this one hits just fukkn right in the moment though. Listen to "Final Stand" before you do anything you think is important today and I reckon you'll change your mind as the Maritime dominance continues....

IN THE DUST

GUN SLAUGHTER // GIMP

 

GIMP: Brutal and powerful PV/Grind from Phoenix. They make shit different in the Sonoran Desert. 

GUN SLAUGHTER: Brutal and powerful PV/Grind from Vancouver. Five songs, three minutes.

YOU: Curious, intrigued, eager....hungry.

ME: Piece of shit.

GIMP // GUN SLAUGHTER

WOLVES EYES

 

For all of the black metal posts over the years, I have probably declared that I don't know shit about black metal in half of them(or more). And here I al 16 years after I started, still feigning ignorance as I listen to Quebec's WOLVES EYES. We aren't going to get into the name (because literally....how can you not know?) but we are going to talk about the brilliance of rudimentary and rote black metal with distracting croaky frog vocals. The music is the equivalent of baby-skin's-first-Oi!-band dupa-dupa but translated to minor chord Scandinavian black metal with.....those creaky ass vocals. But like I said, I don't know shit about black metal so maybe it's not actually funny (even if it's not....it kinda is). Regardless, I blasted this tape yesterday like three times and tried to figure out what I would say when I posted it...turns out I didn't really figure out anything to say but damn I like listening to this shit. 

NOSTALGIA IN OUR SOULS

SPLEEN

 

More punks and skins (and black met'lers) playing hopelessly catchy dark punk. More instant classics, this time from Montreal's SPLEEN. There's a hint of RED DONS and maybe even a sprinkle of Nuggets here and there to keep it (even more) interesting. SPLEEN might have flown under your radar for a while, as then did mine....but you don't have an excuse anymore. 

SPLEEN - "II"

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

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. 

SHOXX

 

Someone wanna tell me why a band this good with a pedigree this ridiculous only drops one fukkn tape? Some fierce ass modern day chaos-core circa early 2010s, there's a moment or three when I think about S.H.I.T. but when I listen to "Down The Toilet" I just think about balls out no filter hardcore and....can we talk about the pedigree? BASEBALL FURIES, NÖ PÖWER, BATTLETORN, MERCHANDISE, WORSE, MISSIONARY, POLLUTION and several more. Can we talk about the tape? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUKK?! How can eight minutes make such a lasting impact? Well....it's the riffs. It's the "practice room but it sounds like fire" recording. It's definitely the riffs. it's the vocals. Again - how on the godforsaken earth was SHOXX allowed to release just one cassette with four songs on it? Shit is fukkd up. Listen to "Down The Toilet" my friends....you will not be the same.

SHOXX

LIQUID ASSETS

 

Wipe the snot from your upper lip (use your sleeve, dummy) and feast your earholes on LIQUID ASSETS. Not sure if they're referring to their sweat or your blood, but this marble mouthed garage hardcore is as precious as fluid commodities come these days. Or those days. "You ready to rock, everybody?" someone in the studio asks before they launch into "Europhile" and it's like "I'm Guilty"-era CURRENT and Floyd's Texas DICKS are sucking each other off in front of me while I'm drinking my morning coffee and the liquid assets are just...everywhere. I feel rich. And wet. 

LIQUID ASSETS

SILENT ORDER

 

Here it is, the shit Mondays were made for. The shit that used to fill the void left by the evaporation of freedom and the return to reality for weekend warriors turned office zombies. When I started posting so-called 'noise punk' tapes on Mondays, it was a different time. When I started posting so-called 'noise punk' tapes on Mondays, I was still in VACCUUM and the world of extra-damaged and over-manipulated hardcore was a world where rocks were still being uncovered. VACCUUM hasn't existed in well over a decade now, and so many rocks have been  uncovered by over-manipulated and extra-damaged hardcore freaks that they started playing generic street punk as some weird kind of revolt.....but the gems are still there. There are still sonic reminders from the past reminding you that on this day - the start of your week of futile toil - you are making the wrong decision. Because what you should be doing is searching desperately for more noise. There are bands who tortured their instruments for you....and you haven't heard them yet. Ottawa's SILENT ORDER did it in 2014 and they did it for you. To remind you: It's Monday. You fucked up. It's all noise. 

SILENT ORDER

YOUNG GUV

 

I don't even know with this tape. You've got some wild SPITS-TARDS damage, you've got killer cuts by a band called MARVELOUS DARLINGS, you've got a live cut from THE BITTERS....and you've got weird interludes and acoustic and 'other' things by GUV. Full disclosure: I don't know who the fukk GUV is. But damn this is a cool sounding (and feeling) tape...I like things that sound (and feel) cool.

GUV LUV MIXTAPE VOLUME 1

EVICTION PARTY // LEPER

 

More from EVICTION PARTY - gruff and clean with a the sound of freight trains rolling in the distance. Previously stated, but this 'style' isn't my thing...until it hits just right and it becomes my thing. I admit that I like the self titled tape a little better, but also the determined ramshackle nature of this recording is hard to knock. The flip here is what gets me cooking this morning - ferocious crust tinged hardcore until...well, I'm guessing they cranked a few CHOKING VICTIM records in their time, but they were growing out of it in 2007 when this split dropped. There are a few parts that remind me of my time in HIGH ON CRIME, so there's a touch of nostalgia at work, but really I'm just digging listening to two very different bands while I slam coffee before a ride to work. 

EVICTION PARTY // LEPER

SHIZOPHASIA

 

It's not often that a band sees, reaches for and achieves a vision with this much success. It's as if the entire trajectory of SCHIZOPHASIA was laid out by and for them before they played a fucking note and it shows, especially when you look back at their body of work. Ferocious noise punk injected with and interjected by noise and electronics, sometimes working together and sometimes in opposition. The releases can be challenging (part of the appeal of course), but you always feel like everything you're experiencing is a part of someone else's plan whether it was a part of your plan or not. And a decade after the release of 3000, I have to say that feeling tracks. 

3000

EVICTION PARTY

 

I may have occasionally dismissed Region Rock in these pages and I have surely disparaged the subgenre in person, so imagine my distress when I hear something that clicks just right and I realize that...."fuck, I think this is that subgenre I casually knock without really knowing what the fuck I'm talking about." We all get judgy from time to time so I'm not going to beat myself up over it, and I'm not even sure that that is what this is anyway so there's that too. But when I hear something that clicks just right, I keep listening. The music sounds strained, the musicians themselves sound strained - as if even these relatively simple melodic punk songs are just out of reach. The vocals nail that JAWBREAKER by way of DOOM after three packs of Lucky Strikes vibe, and if it weren't for the clean guitar some of these tracks ("My Debts To You" particularly) could have been born in a Rust Belt basement in the 1990s. Maybe the appeal of Region Rock is the darkness-by-way-of-hope energy that permeates the sound in a way that transcends the music or the lyrics. Or maybe that's just EVICTION PARTY....or maybe I don't really know what I'm talking about. That's always a possibility worth considering. I'm gonna have more coffee now. 

EVICTION PARTY

TROPICAL DRIPPS

 

There's no way that a description using words can do TROPICAL DRIPPS justice. Hell, if I described them to myself I probably wouldn't even be interested - but this is why we listen. Simple and stripped down Canadian indie with a little sprinkle of lo-fi glam and....and some surf guitars? Yeah, I know. It doesn't make much sense but oh my stars does it work. "Sludge City" should be (or should have been) a smash hit somewhere, especially with the chorus that deftly lands the 95 second song, and then the close out a three song cassingle with a surf instrumental? Like it was a whole ass record? I can't explain it folks, I'm just here to speak truth and tyhe truth is that I love these TROPICAL DRIPPS. 

WRONG WAY

and bonus points for taping an alternate cover onto the outside of the case...

GROWN UPS

 

Shit doesn't have to be fancy, and sometimes it doesn't even have to be special. Shit just has to be right, you know? And Calgary's GROWN UPS hit just fukkn right today. Infectious garage punk - the kind of shit I would have biked down Locust to see at that weird bar I can never remember the name of where I saw SOVIETTES once sometime around 2010...which means nothing at all to you, but it means something to me. 

GROWN UPS

D.I.Y. CONSPIRACY VOL.5

 

These D.I.Y. Conspiracy comps have all been hitters so far, and the fifth is no exception. This is the heavy one, with bands landing blows from all over the wall of noise hardcore, doom, stoner, and proto-grunge spectrums.  Modern bands reared on COWS, SOAD-by-way-of-AIC, CELEST(E), JESUS LIZARD and the like, plus a couple of hardcore blasts and a very intense industrial noise/grind track from DEMIKOV. Choicest cuts to my ears are BUZZØØKO, CALF and FEEDBACKER. Extra bonus? I had never heard any of these bands when I pressed Play.

D.I.Y. CONSPIRACY VOL.5