STRÖNT

 

Feel like being bludgeoned? Cool. Because I don't really think STRÖNT know how to do anything else. At the corner of Ramshackle Rd. and Bombastic Blvd. you'll find three dark ruthless doses of intensity from 2016. Enjoy? Enjoy.

STRÖNT

03 MARCH 1987

Another KALX broadcast with Pat at the helm. I would say that just hearing "Cavalry Cross" again is enough, but fortunately that's just the opening salvo for a for 90+ minutes of music, irreverence and wit. Pat was on one this time, heavy on the outside '70s dirt rock trip but really just playing whathefuckever he wanted. I suggest turning off and transporting yourself to a different place - better or worse, it may give you the perspective you need when you land. 

KALX - 03 MARCH 1987

NOXIOUS PRIX

 

I posted another NOXIOUS PRIX demo a while back, and everything I said there applies here - except that this tape doesn't sound like it was duplicated over the phone. Absolute punk as fukk clenched fist street fighting mania from San Francisco circa late 1990s. Rarely have I encountered a punk band who were so honest and uncontrived, and the result with NOXIOUS PRIX was palpably desperate. Talon was a tattooer the last I heard, and I have no idea who the other people in the band were or what became of them. Gonna crank "Super Yuppie Weekend" when I hit the road to the Central Valley later this afternoon. 

NOXIOUS PRIX

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

PERSONAL DAMAGE

 

Oh, I'm sorry. You been living under a fukkn rock for the last four years or so? it's cool. It happens. Maybe you have a job? Maybe you have a family? Maybe you're an adult and you think that punk died in 1986 os some nonsense? Well...I was late to the game too, so you aren't alone. PERSONAL DAMAGE is the perfect collision of '80s LA punk and 2020s US hardcore punk. Listening to "Shut Your Mouth (Close Your Mind)" is like feeling sixteen years old...and that's erasing a lot of years and a lot of trauma for an old ass has been like be, so I am fukkn here for it.

AMBUSH

 

TROPICAL DEPRESSION

 

Even a casual visitor here knows that I am drawn to freak sounds. The difficult listens are....are a fuel. It's not always comfortable (and that is, in fact, the point), just like working out your own thoughts when you don't have words. Or when you don't know what the thoughts are. The difficult listens are good because they challenge you(r ears), because they are awkward, because they are unfamiliar. Thunderous fist banging kång and a wall of pummeling DBeat? Shit, that's like a bowl of grandma's mashed potatoes and gravy compared to New Orleans trio TROPICAL DEPRESSSION. Hold The Knife Close is a four song lumbering exercise in patience....guitar squawks like a free jazz alto, the bass plops, the vocals wail like a feral child crying for ice cream before bed at 3am and the drums that are supposed to hold everything together instead seem to just encourage the sonic mania. There are times when you wonder if the members of TROPICAL DEPRESSION are even on the same page at all and then....."fukk, this is intentional" and everything changes. Imagine CRUCIFUCKS and STILLSUIT and FLIPPER trying to work out a SWELL MAPS cover set and you'll be on the right path...or the wrong one. Five songs on the lyric sheet....four on the tape (and one of them cuts off). Because you need to keep wondering. Keep fighting. Keep trying. 

HOLD THE KNIFE CLOSE

INFANTILE DISSENTION

 

Positively demented outsider metallic anarcho freak sounds from Vancouver....I posted another tape last year and I was very pleased to revisit that one while listening to this one. It's not just good....it's intense. 

INFANTILE DISSENTION