BOY IN LOVE

For a few years, I tried to ensure that every Monday here was greeted with noisy, raw, distorted filth. Probably DBeat too, but definitely raw and distorted. BOY IN LOVE use their disdain for traditional "music" to attack from a completely different flank, joining forces with the black clad crust hoards to wage an all out assault on everything from BEACH BOYS to PEARL JAM, leaving Herberts and Valley Girls wandering in deaf confusion, their collective socially implanted understanding of music in ruins. BOY IN LOVE ridicule rock 'n roll with an irreverence that simply can't by overstated - imagine a band of adults playing FOGHAT covers in a rural sports bar on the fourth of july while pissing on FOGHAT records and wiping their asses with the flag. Selected offerings include"Well Written Suicide Note," Jamie Lee Curtis' Piss," "Sensitivity Is Ignorance," "Grandpa's Vagina," although there's really nowhere to start and nowhere to end...almost like an actual war. 

IT DOES HAVE TEETH

TANGENT

Sometimes - not very often, but sometimes - a band self describes perfectly. Sometimes a band describe themselves in a manner that makes you know how you're going to feel when you listen, and then they make you feel like that....but more. This is one of those times. 

 

It's worth also mentioning that this six song tape is terrifyingly good. The songs, the recording, the lyrics, the guitars (seriously, the leads are so sick...somehow balancing Reatard and Mould and COCTEAU TWINS at the same time), the entire presentation. Fit is one of the most perfect recordings that I heard in 2018. 

FIT

XHENDRIX

A pal described this band to me as "psychedelic powerviolence," and I'm having a hard time expanding beyond that. Classic late '60s hard rock crashes headlong into brutal and primitive mid '90s West Bay classics on XHENDRIX's 2016 (and, thus far, only) release...it kinda fukks with your head. The tones are sublime, owing a debt to a simply superb recording that captures the band's particular brand of weed meets rage. Rib shaking lows that suit the grooves as much as the knuckle dragging molasses mosh intros (sometimes, as in "No Abras Los Ojos," these two exist at the same time), and the power only increases with the speed. There's a lot to unpack in this demo, and when you get finished you'll probably just look at the shit strewn about your room and wonder what happened. Get weird. 

XHENDRIX

WHO CARES

All hail the trading scene of the 1980s, and gratitude for the gifts its legacy that it continues to to bestow upon the people wise enough to keep opening them. The Who Cares comp was completely unknown before I dug this TDK MA-C 90 out of a forgotten box of live recordings with track listings scrawled on scraps of paper inside each case. But now I know (and so do you), and this is a collection that you simply cannot here. Most of the bands were mere blips on the US hardcore timeline, SHATTERED FAITH probably made the most permanent mark and they fly way under most people's radar. The other acts were mostly new to me: CHEIFS (I thought the Blues EP was the entirety of their output, but these songs easily rival that bonzer), AKA, CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE and a pre-walking garbage ghost Duane Peters fronting POLITICAL CRAP and the absolute winner on this tape: SUSPECTS - all the hooks of the absolute best Midwest punk delivered with an unmistakeable California snarl, SUSPECTS drop four tracks on this comp that are, as far as I can tell, the entirety of their recorded output. Check "Make Me" in particular, a perfect (and timeless) dose of frustrated, early US hardcore punk. The songs on this tape are grouped by band, a completely different sequence from the vinyl release, which makes me wonder if this was compiled by folks involved with the comp itself, but these are questions that I will never answer...it's just a serious collection of bangers. No art included - but theres another ripper compilation on the flip side that will appear here eventually. A retroactive thank you to the punk/s who put this together and put it in the mail, and an even more sincere thanks to the punk who received it, partied on it, and then didn't throw it away when they grew up and moved on.

WHO CARES

WHITE DWARF SPIRAL

A subdued but casually transfixing collection of sounds and trances make up Counting Stars. Italian multimedia wizard Antonio Gallucci dropped the WHITE DWARF SPIRAL moniker shortly after this release (his second) - perhaps after listening with intent (and at volume) and realizing that there was really nowhere else to go once this journey through space and sound had been completed. Four compositions, electronic sunrise ragas pulsing out of a modular reality, elements patched together with intent. Just under 40 minutes in total, this release is at once all consuming and a base at which to start an aural journey - some true Other Worlds shit, and I look forward to the night when I can listen in silence, under the stars...and count. 

COUNTING STARS

SLURS

As much as my missives might fly in the face of the following statement: You don't always need an in depth analysis, sometimes something just hits you and it just sounds good, and that's enough. Winnipeg's SLURS just sound good. Lots of open chords reminiscent of mid-'80s Mould, killer walking bass lines that seem to carry you with them, and a general urgency throughout. It's addictive more than catchy, and when the tempo bumps up from "Dead Friend" to "Burnt" you're straight jamming....and you don't stop. One last thing: SLURS swing. And swinging is very important. 

SLURS

VAIAPRAIA E AS RAINHAS DO BAILE

Rarely am I rendered as speechless as I was when I first listened to Amor Duro. The songs are simply crafted, reminiscent of the more interesting early '90s college/alt greats, particularly on "Sem Armas" (I'm talking Rid Of Me-era PJ HARVEY, maybe TEENAGE FANCLUB). But here's the thing that really grabbed me: Amor Duro listens like a complete and completely formed release, but "Sem Armas" is kinda the only song. There's the title track that opens the tape, but it comes off more like an introduction...an ominous sounding three note repetition with wailing vocals that border on BIRTHDAY PARTY caliber magnetism, and then after "Sem Armas" comes "Fantasmas Sem Armas," an mystical re-imagination of the previous number that turns what was, as its roots, essentially a laid back indie/grunge number into a fully engrossing ambient journey. Portugal's VAIAPRAIA take the elements that feel and sound familiar and twist them into something completely different...but still completely familiar. The internet offers a deep hole that only makes VAIAPRAIA E AS RAINHAS DO BAILE more intriguing....so happy digging. 

AMOR DURO