ARMOR

 

They do shit different in Florida. You surely know this, but rarely have you heard a better example than this ARMOR demo from 2019. It's the hardcore that you love, just delivered with a murky, dangerous, desperate edge that makes it clear that ARMOR are....different. Mayhaps no better example than "Age Of Machine," a full on juggernaut of galloping fury that slides into the down low crouch and squirm of "Daydreaming" that puts the whole thing to bed. You know these sounds, you just don't know them like this. Not yet. 

ARMOR

======================

RHINO

 

Filthy, grimy, gruff, squirmy hardcore street punk. The tempo shift that closes "Spinning" is worth the price of admission on its own but you're in luck; this is ten minutes of angst ridden gold. One self-titled demo from 2018 is all you get from Rhino, which seems appropriate for a band littered with members who seem obsessed (or content?) with projects who drop a handful of songs and then dissolve (CRYIN' HAND, BOOGER, ZIG ZAG, SMELTER, EJECUTADÓR, CURBED, PUTRID BOYS....this list just scratches the surface). At the risk of repeating myself - if the songs are this good, then fukk it. 

RHINO

SPUR

 

This one almost made me question my commitment to physical tape rips....because the shit is so damn demanding and in your face and I feel like the murky lo-fi replication kinda pulls back the power. But I am a purist, so you get what I got. And you're gonna get smacked in the damn mouth by Florida's SPUR just like I did. And when the pit-churning mosh part in "Scraping By" drops you're going to be yearning for fidelity just like I was...and don't even get me started on "Headache" because the desperation is particularly palpable there. the point isn't what's lacking though, because this tape is ready to be party blasted. This tape is pumping out of a shitty ass speaker while young kids attempt new tricks at the downtown skatepark. This shit is real punk - it's desperate and honest. This punk is real shit. 

COWBOY KILLER

JULIO IGLESIAS

 

You know him as the guy who did the duet with WILLIE NELSON, but Julio's career started more than a decade before he moved from Spain to Miami. Dude had hits in German, Portuguese, German and Italian in addition to crooning in English and his native Spanish. 1980's Hey! might be his pinnacle of swinging Spnish pop - there are some syrupy sweet crooners and some tracks that should have been on Love Boat or Fantasy Island montage segments. This tape is appropriate damaged (read: 'well loved') and some of the cuts present as extra weird or slightly tweaked, but I feel like this is a come-up when you're turning songs like "Morrinas" into cavernous burners. Look, there's a reason why Iglesias is a household name, and Hey! is a good reminder that it's not just about the radio hits. 

HEY!

NO COMPLY // LOS CRUSTÁCEOS

 

On one side you've got ten minutes of furious blastcore/PV/grind from Chile's LOS CRUSTÁCEOS with a. blatant and heavy West Bay Doomryderz influence. And it would be simple enough to tell you that the other side rips and recommend a DL+listen....but NO COMPLY is on the flip. You know NO COMPLY, right? Fuck me (and fuck you) if you don't, but if you don't....please do. NO COMPLY are (were) a special thing - Florida's SUPPRESSION perhaps. Like...if you know and you were there then there's no replacement, even though an outsider might raise an eyebrow. NO COMPLY's contribution to the second wave of DIY/PV is impossible to understate, and this 1999 live recording captures them in a rare, raw moment of ferocity. It would be very hard to find a band more dedicated to the craft than NO COMPLY, and when Justin passed in 2023 we lost a real one. Listen with volume and listen with intent, my friends. 

NO COMPLY // LOS CRUSTÁCEOS

SACRIDOSE

 

I don't remember if we played with them or not, but NO STATIK stayed with some SACRIDOSE folks when we were in Florida. Does that impact or influence my listening experience in 2025? Nope. Shit is pure and fierce face melting North American grindcore. No bullshit. Sick.

ANXIETY TREMORS

ZIG ZAG

 

Hopelessly brilliant late '10s North American hardcore punk firmly rooted in early '80s North American hardcore punk. To listen to "I Can't Die" is to wish that you could die....so listen. 

ZIG ZAG

PUNK SINGLES

Remember a few days ago when I posted that (killer) SOCIAL UNREST demo and talked (for the umpteenth time) about how cool mix tapes are and what an invaluable service the tape makers and traders provided for their contemporaries (and countless punks to come)? Well, allow me to present this unnamed slammer probably created sometime in the early 1990s by persons unknown. DOGS, NUNS, EAT, ANGELIC UPSTARTS, THE FREEZE THE FUCKIN' FLYING A-HEADS, NORMALS, BLEACH BOYS, MOLESTERS, SLEEPERS....all tracks taken from singles that were probably (almost) affordable when this tape was put together. Solid as fuck from start to finish - this is the kind of tape that distracts you when you put in on while you're hanging out or trying to do shit. also the kind of tape that makes you want to just sit and listen and think about all of the records you don't have. 

PUNK SINGLES MIX TAPE

ANTIFACES

 

What a simple and ferocious (or ferociously simple) tape from Miami's ANTIFACES. Manipulated  stomps delivered with unhinged fury and wild hooks - like LA FRACTION mixed with modern LA Raw Ponx. It sounds so easy when you describe it sounds so wild when you blast it. 

SONMIDOS RECICLADOS

GROSS

 

I posted a GROSS tapeography that included these five songs a few years ago, but I feel something different when you year them isolated (side note: this is a problem with discographies and collections in general - no way that classic two song 45 sounds as good when the songs are sandwiched onto an LP with a bunch of other should-be-stand-alone bangers...but I digress, it's what I do). GROSS sound like misanthropy. GROSS don't sound angry so much as just disgusted. Done. Like a band who are just finished caring, and the titles drip with sarcasm; "Positive Changes," "It's Better This Way," "There Is So Much Celebration," "Big Changes" and "My Cool Friends" read like subheaders on a detailed termination notice casually tossed on the bedside table by an author who thinks on his way out...I Have Never Felt This Good. 

I HAVE NEVER FELT THIS GOOD

PLURAL BEING

 

Full on knock yer socks of hard driving dirty punk from Florida. It's worth mentioning that I watched the Wäntage KARP documentary last night and reached for PLURAL BEING this morning. No, one doesn't necessarily sound like the other, but the ability to suffocate the listener while offering infectious repetition will sound familiar. This tape is all we got (get?) from them, so look straight into the sun and blast "Revolution Bummer" today. 

PLURAL BEING

FRANK'S ENEMY

 

I confess that I wasn't expecting FRANK'S ENEMY when I popped it in. Florida death metal from the mid 1990s? Sure, I got this. Then "Human Reich" launched its putrid assault and I felt the skin slowly peeling off of my face as they blasted and...and here we go. "Torturer." "Cauldron." "Imbecile Factory." The sonic timbre is a constant warning that FRANK'S ENEMY are only going to get filthier, and they get weirder too - "Cannibalized" has a nauseating churn, and I feel like the sounds have as much in common with IMMORTAL FATE as with standard Florida death metal...then check the guitar in the 7+ minute "In Answer" and know that you're listening to sounds from another realm.

NEOBLASPHEMIES
•••••

Worth Noting:

1. The tape ends with a truly bizarre funk / metal / grind number.

2. FRANK'S ENEMY are still active today.
3. The band was, and is, Christian. 

VERMIN

 

Just stick to the fucking plan. People have spent decades solving these sonic equations, leaving us with formulas. The formulas work...if you follow them. Strict adherence is not required, but encouraged. And VERMIN studied every measurement, studied every component. VERMIN stuck to the fucking plan. And the result is not a statistic, not an anomaly. Our Noise Is Music is the sweat that has lubricated punk generations. Our Noise Is Music is the further realization of a concept. Our Noise Is Music is proof. Just stick to the fucking plan. 

OUR NOISE IS MUSIC

PERIOD BOMB

 

What a mess. I mean in the best possible way of course, and I use those words simply because I have no idea how to accurately describe PERIOD BOMB. Permanently Wet is the sound of sounds in a blender: damaged noise/psych, '90s riot grrl, savage punk stomps, swinging electronic chaos - it's all in here, and the deeper you listen then more you hear. PERIOD BOMB were (are?) exceptionally prolific and constantly all over the place, and while there's something special about pressing PLAY without really knowing what you're going to get, this collection administers that feeling in the space of one tape. I tried to track the titles....but, well, it was hard so I kinda gave up.  

PERMANENTLY WET

METAL DEMOS

If you asked me (and if you're reading then you kinda did), this is absolutely the way these recordings were meant to be circulated. First wave US thrash assault from some of the greats collected on cassette, copied by die hards, and passed by hand to thirsty kids in school hallways or sent across the world to pen pals from the classified pages of underground metal rags. It's not supposed to sound full, the shit is raw and primal and that's why it worked. Schuldiner's guitar on Reign Of Terror is just wild (extra points for the hard pan on the rack toms), and Thunderstruk makes it hard to understand why WHIPLASH weren't more of a household name. Bay Area royalty is represented (early pre-thrash DEATH ANGEL is really hard to fukk with - more in line with NWOBHM but with serious teeth), and EXCITER's "World War III" is an absolute killer. The kid who put this beast together knew what was up, and I thank them for it. 

METAL DEMOS 

Probably a decent time to revisit a couple of earlier posts with the same spirit. An unmarked tape of (more) metal demos (check the comments - some excellent sleuths have done good work but there are still mysteries to solve) HERE, and a magical collection of early Bay Area killers HERE. If your ears ain't bleeding, then you ain't listening properly. 

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES FROM DAY ONE

 

Here it is: Region Rock. Those shitty folk punk banjo playing inept coffee shop rock motherfuckers that ain't punk that people call Region Rock? Fukk that shit. Because you know what's punk? Fukkn STUN GUNS and SPAWN SACS and LES TURDS and KREAMY 'LECTRIC SANTA and shit like that. So forget what you think about some overly broad and arbitrary subgenre descriptor, because if this is Region Rock then I was there for it the first time and I haven't left. 

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES FROM DAY ONE

30 BANDS, 51 SONGS FROM "THE REGION"

REINA AVEJA

 

The REINA AVEJA trip from Florida to California blew a lot of minds in 1998. They just casually laid waste to every band they played with...heaviness that came from another world delivered by women who came from the other side of this one. The approach to sludge-laden slogs was punk, which brought justifiable BUZZOV•EN comparisons, but the approach to punk was fierce and femme in the face of those comparisons. They recorded an album with Billy Anderson while they were out here, an album that has (unfortunately) never seen the light of day, and the band spread out shortly afterwards. The bassist spent has been in several bands since, and is currently in a freak punk outfit called GRP.TXT. I spent a couple of years in LAUDANUM with the drummer and her partner before I moved to Wisconsin...making noise with them was really fukkn fun. Anyway...someone should release that record Billy recorded. 

ROYAL JELLY

BAD YEAR

 

Seven doses of Florida fury from the lost decade of aughts. I think some of these parties were later responsible for DEAD FRIENDS, but I might be wrong. I fucking love the way the drummer rides the bell before the breakdown in "Unleashed" though, and the other tape that Drugged Conscience did is a total ripper too. Can't think of a better way to ugly-up five minutes of your day. 

BAD YEAR

REACTIONARY 3

 

Gainesville, Florida. Early 2000s. Discordant DIY emotional hardcore. Recording is all fucked up, the guitar is sloppy and cranked way too high in the mix. Vocals have that anguished/gruff quality but could transfer seamlessly to a non-emo hardcore band, so they never totally fit. The bass walks the careful line between blurts and noodles and the drums are doing some shit but they are totally buried so you can't really tell what it is for the most part. But you see, none of these observations are complaints or even critiques, because they are what make REACTIONARY 3 sound interesting some two decades later. Just some kids, punching above their collective weight and going real hard - that's what I want. Now listen to that guitar dominate "Since I Quit My Job" like '84 Mould just showed up to a '04 FUGAZI rehearsal and brought all of his amps. Like...all of them. 

REACTIONARY 3

VICIOUS BRICKS

The second (of only two?) demo from these Florida mutants is nothing short of seven minutes of unadulterated brutality. Murky cro magnon hardcore, seeking retribution and validation through power. The result is terrifying and disorienting, and leaves you breathless and confused if consumed properly. 

 VICIOUS BRICKS