FALSE FLOWERS

 

Saw FALSE FLOWERS last weekend at Bottom of The Hill, opening for two other bands whose names I can't remember. After their set those other bands didn't matter. After their set, nothing mattered - because their set was perfect. It's hard to apply monikers like "goth punk" to FALSE FLOWERS because these punks are elevating every subgenre they touch, and their performance was a master class. Listen to the chaos that closes "Another Lullaby" and know that dark punk done properly should never be relegated to a novelty genre. Listen to "Unsafe Numbers" and know that dark punk is just fukkn punk - this shit is literally everything. Watch FALSE FLOWERS live and know that punk can be better....that it is better. 

That show was really fucking good - this band is really fucking good. 

FALSE FLOWERS

SUCCUBUS

 

This one will be tough to describe so I will try to use few words (but more words than I spent on the glorious TOURIST tape a couple of days ago). SUCCUBUS are clearly drawing from classic goth and dark wave but SUCCUBUS are just as clearly rooted in punk sounds so the result is....different. They hit like retro dark wave but they also beg to be filed alongside RAKTA and UNA BÉSTIA INCONTROLABLE and they sound like fukkn punks, particularly on "Judas." Only three songs on 2020's Coherence - soaring and determined. They are still active and still pushing boundaries...

COHERENCE

PEACE VAULTS

 

It's a cool thing when a homie hands you a few tapes in a taqueria on Mission Street...it's especially cool when every. single. one. of those tapes is a straight killer. Prisoners Of Time is one of those straight killers. UK anarcho, modern DIY goth and '90s dorm experimentation (they gloriously clash with raw bleak metal by way of screamo) vocals and vibes that take me back to "discovering" alternative goth/alt bands in 1980s Oklahoma. PEACE VAULTS hit that way, and if you know what I mean when I talk about them....I hope you know what I actually mean. "The Young Kite" deserves a very (very) special place in your rotation.   

PRISONERS OF TIME

GJ COPPOLA

 

Listen to the opening (title) track and tell me you're not going to try to fukk with GJ COPPOLA. You do that and I'll tell you to lkisten again....because there are few things like this in our sonic world. BAD SEEDS deconstructed to Moss Side Story vibes - if you know, you know - if you don't know, please learn - you're listening to a story with no words here, and the plot is entirely up to you. It's a gorgeous collection of sounds, grim and hopeful at the some time in part because the artist seems determined to commit to absolutely nothing. It's a slow (s-l-o-w) burn, culminating with "Say My Name" which could be (arguably?) sped up to create the perfect dark/goth/indie track that no one thought they needed. You needed it though...and you needed it like this. Exactly like this. 

BENGHAZI NIGHTS

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

C.A.M.O.

 

Remember the early 2010s when it seemed like every raw punk and their distortion-damaged cousin started making hard driving DIY goth punk? It was a magical era to be sure - a (brief) blip in time when FUNERAL PARADE grabbed everyone by the throat and I had an epic drive to Portland. VAASKA gave way to DESKONOCIDOS and every DBeat show had a band with lots of delay pedals on the bill. You see, C.A.M.O. isn't just a sound - C.A.M.O. is a fucking moment. If you missed it (and there's no shame whatsoever if you did), that moment is here now. Live it with me. 

COMBATIVE ANTHEMS MOTIVATE OUTCRY

CRIMINAL CODE

 

You remember CRIMINAL CODE, right? The '10s are starting to sound like they're going to age really (really) well as I reach back and pull out things that I either never gave the time they deserved or never listened to at all in the time that I had. CRIMINAL CODE falls into neight of those categories however, I spent hours with their driving, brooding punk with guitars ripped from the pleading clutches of '80s college shoegaze and injected with uncompromising ferocity from a rhythm section who urge this band constantly forward. They were eventually from Tacoma but I first saw them in a Reno basement circa 2010 or so - I was floored that first time and CRIMINAL CODE only got better as I got worse while we each cruised through a decade filled with glorious sounds, inseparable bonds and incomprehensible conflict. Yeah, the '10s were where it was at, and this band was fukkn great.

THREE SONG TAPE

HEX NOIR

 

You'll excuse the inclusion of the first track - damaged though the cassette may be I still felt the sonic damage represented was worth...presenting. Ohio's HEX NOIR are a painful amalgamation of deliberate industrial noise, raw black metal and oppressive grind - the punks don't make 'em like this very often (Demo II comes from 2009) so when the punks do? We take them in whatever primitive and excruciating form they are offered. The replication is DIY to a fault so the listener suffers while the tracks themselves flourish....

DEMO II

INTERNAL AUTONOMY

Hard to understand why this band continues to fly under the radar, but here I am with their fifth demo from 1991 and I'm still pinching myself hearing these sounds for (not the) first time. Authentic dark wave steeped in UK anarcho with BLACK SOLSTICE connections, INTERNAL AUTONOMY are a truly unique (sounding) collection of souls - and to go from the chaotic CONFLICT-esque bombast of "The Time Has Come" and the mania of "Doesn't Anyone Believe Me?" to the PINK DOTS vibes in "An Anthem For Humanity" and the pure proto-goth of "Just Another Day" and "Foresight + Hindthought" is a magnificent feat. Every IA release hits different, and the experimental phase/s at the end of their run are often the most compelling for me - I hear new sounds literally every time I listen. My copy is a dub labeled '5th DEMO - MASTER TAPE' so any souls holding a copy with the artwork....? You know how to find me.  

PURPLE AVANT GARDE NOIZE EXPERIMENT

MYSTIC PRIESTESS

 

MYSTIC PRIESTESS listen like the full realization of a concept, an if the band was a plan hashed out meticulously over years and scenarios before the first rehearsal. Influences? Sure, and perhaps they're even obvious.....but moments into "Toxic Masculinity" and where MYSTIC PRIESTESS are coming from is the furthest thing from your mind. All you care about is who MYSTIC PRIESTESS are and what they are doing now (or at least what they were doing up until 2020). It's something special to listen to something you can so instantly understand and still continue appreciating through the very last note - and their 2017 debut on Transylvanian serves as a reminder that we (all) deserved more of them than we got. 

MYSTIC PRIESTESS

DETH CRUX

 

A few years before the full length on Sentient Ruin came this untouchable (albeit brief) death rock opus from DETH CRUX. There's something about Los Angeles goth punks that hits different - just as punks often play goth better than goths play goth, Los Angeles goths play goth punk like only Los Angeles punks can play goth punk. The CHRISTIAN DEATH to CIRIL pipeline birthed these dreary souls and in this world for which so many have so little for which to be grateful....? Listen to "Swallowed" and then listen to it again. DETH CRUX was just different.

PEARS OF ANGUISH

HYSTERIC POLEMIX

 

Remember back in 2012 when MORAL HEX and FUNERAL PARADE dropped those demos that completely took over my personal airwaves? You probably don't remember that because...well, they were my personal airwaves and maybe you were listening to something else then? Anyway, those demos appeared and every time I put one on I felt like I couldn't listen to anything else until I had wore that tape the fuck out - B and I jammed the MORAL HEX on repeat during an early morning drive from SF to Portland once while he crushed six stouts in the copilot's chair, clutching the boom box and reveling in how much better it sounded after each beer I don't remember anything else about the drive, I don't remember the show we played when we got there - I remember listening to that tape driving through the fog. This is how HYSTERIC POLEMIX hit me when I first heard it. That's also how this HYSTERIC POLEMIX tape has hit me every damn time I've listened to it - almost like I have to flip the case backwards on the shelf because as soon as I see the spine I'm gonna reach for it and not even think about another tape for the rest of the day. And today...? Maybe it's as much about how the sound makes you feel as it is about the sound itself, right?

HYSTERIC POLEMIX

AUTONOMY

 

I first shared this tape a long time ago, when Terminal Escape was in its infancy and blogs were still a way for people to search for and discover new or new-to-them sounds in the post-SoulSeek pre-YouTube world. I posted this AUTONOMY tape when things were better, when the world wasn't a shambles and it still felt like the good times were real. AUTONOMY started in Carbondale (which serves as a weird triggering omen for this typist) but they moved around a lot and they released several other recordings after this 2011 cassette. Some of the shit is really good but nothing ever touched "No Need" so I was pleased to pop this one in just as I am pleased to re-share it with you, dear visitor. Things are different now and there are asterisks and exceptions to everything good, but this is still the best AUTONOMY release, so why not reach into your own past and listen to sounds of determined frustration that were recorded before your frustration was determined? 

AUTONOMY

•••

FEAR OF NOISE

 

Fear Of Noise always seemed like they had everything fukkn dialed. Their fests were compact and not overwhelming, trading quantity and pretense for quality and efficiency - get in, have fun, connect with your people, have a good night, do it again tomorrow. Also, the lineups were fucking deadly, as evidenced by this cassette that replaced the ill fated 2020 edition. A veritable 'must listen' list of West Coast hitters at the turn of the decade with predictably heavy San Diego representation. SCREAMING FIST and PROVOKE lock arms with LÖCKHEED (Portland), AGONISTA and VIOLENCIA (Tijuana), SYRGAS (Sweden) and locals VILE REALITY, BLINDING GLOW, DISCOVERY, NEGATIVE BLAST, a true freak cut from D.WREX and loads more. Twenty six slammers in all, courtesy of Speed Creamer and the nicest fest I've been asked to play. 

FEAR OF NOISE 2020

WET SPECIMENS

 

Sometimes I'm (slightly) torn with proper live releases. Like, they should probably go on Escape Is Terminal but really that blog is more for live recordings and not live releases, but also I am more or less the boss around here really I can put whatever I want wherever I want it....so WET SPECIMENS are here (also they are here). Two bleak hardcore slammers and a dark WIRE cover - seven minutes of howling upstate New York mania for your earholes on a Thursday morning. Worth noting that the Johnny Moped set I posted on that other blog earlier this week is a total face melter. 

LIVE AT DON FURY STUDIO

AUTOR

 

This thing is so good. Austria's AUTOR are dark and weird in all of the creepy ways that the punks go bananas for....but they are different. And they are so fukkn good. I'm not gonna drop any comparisons because I truly feel like AUTOR exist on an island they've built themselves. I'd like to visit that island...perhaps live there.

NEKTAR

PRODUCT KF

Think about the time you first heard COMPLICATIONS. Think about how familiar it sounded even though it sounded completely new (to you) in that moment. Think about how excited you were to have discovered a new band with a new sound who were actually a new band with a very old sound. That's how I felt when I listened to PRODUCT KF last week....and now I can't stop. 

PRODUCT KF

 

CANTO DE SIRENA

There used to be compilations every Friday, and while I'm not sorry for shirking my self assigned duties I am definitely chuffed when I remember to drop a killer comp on the last day of the traditional work week.  Canto De Sirena starts like a snapshot of Bay Area DIY goth punk with ÖTZI, ADRENOCHROME and DESEOS PRIMITIVOS in rapid succession...so you'd be forgiven for being a little surprised by the blackened melodic crust assault from TORTURE GARDEN that wraps the first side. The flip is all Texas and is just as varied sonically with lumbering dark freak sounds from TOXIC WATER, fiery punk from MUJERAS PODRIDAS, then SO UNLOVED and HELLFURY close out the tape with manic thrashcore and ripping thrash (respectively). It's almost a regional split (TORTURE GARDEN are from New Orleans) which is going to earn you bonus accolades from the folks (okay...the folk) at TEHQ, but this comp doesn't need any help. So...see you next Friday. 

CANTO DE SIRENA

SLOPPY JANE

 

What if the things that we knew as "indie rock" were all as dark and demented as SLOPPY JANE? These songs grab you instantly and they fukkn hold you. Like they hold onto you while you listen. They make you feel okay to feel scared and uncomfortable, and Dahl's voice is from an entirely different realm...a place where you are welcome, but a place where you will never feel at home. 

SURE-TUFF

DOMINANT HAND

 

On the one hand...what even is this? Creepy goth soundtrack scores with brooding baritone vocals presented as '80s PIAS fodder? On the other hand...does the what even matter? Do you need answers or do you want to submit? But on the DOMINANT HAND...on the dominant hand you will find DOMINANT HAND.

DOMINANT HAND