SHOWER BOYS

Nasty fukkn UK hardcore....dissonant guitars and a terrifying vocal attack set to break neck start/stop shits that takes the power of the mid tempo stomp to dizzying new heights. Six tracks, eight minutes and twenty one seconds of your life. Thank me later. 

THE SECOND DISPATCH

B!67

It shouldn't really be a secret that sometimes I think that content and context are more important than presentation. That's to say that even though I realize that this cassette, in it's presented form, is borderline unlistenable, I think that there is value in a Russian DIY hardcore release that draws influenced from under the radar West Coast SXE (live xCHORUSx cover included here) and new millennium positive fastcore, even if that release is on a cassette that has been brutalized by years of mistreatment and troublesome transatlantic journey. But even a poorly recorded live version of "Transitional Liar" has value....right? Exactly. Late '90s Russian Straight Edge: ACTIVATE!

OLD SKOOL KIDS

OBEDIENCE

Second plastic shell from this Austin whirlwind (thankfully there's now a wax platter in the ether also), and I dare say that OBEDIENCE have only gotten more fierce. The bass is hollow and punchy, reminds me of early '00s København, while Dave's bark has apparently gotten more adolescent and snotty with age. Cram all of that into a abrasive '80s Euro hardcore package and strap in....or just listen to punk and set yourself free. 

OBEDIENCE

AREA FRIENDS

I think many Escape visitors will find Area Friends to be an excellent casual springtime weekend listen. A few catchy garage tracks, an ultra infectious driving dark wave number, some alt throwbacks reminiscent of the '70s indie/rock influenced '80s college radio fodder....and it's all just: good. Like every track holds you. LEONARD THE BAND, who probably deliver my least favorite track in "Observation Tower Headache," offer up some pure STEELY DAN-esque sounds that land somewhere in between yacht rock and '70s Mojave greats....and even though it's my "least favorite" track I totally love it. There's something (and something positive) to be said about a compilation filled with artists you've never heard, playing music that outside of your go-to comfort zone, that resonates this well. Featured acts include: KENTUCKY VULTURES, DEATH BRIGADE, HAPPY FOREVER, COCOONITUDE, JOAINE, QUAILBONES, SECULAR PETS, JACKSON PURCHASE and a few others from Ghost Orchard Records, who seem to have left us a few years ago based on (lack of) internet activity but have kindly left us with a soundtrack for a weekend. If not this weekend, then just stick it in your back pocket for another time, time to be spent with a few of beverages and the people of your choosing. 

GHOST ORCHARD: AREA FRIENDS COMPILATION

SLANT

Anyone else want to move to Seoul? It's not just that more bands keep cropping up from that megalopolis...it's that they all seem to be insanely fukkn good. Enter: SLANT.  Meaty hardcore that makes me want to break...well, break everything. Check the extra snare taps in "How Did It Feel?" and the ever present buzzsaw of guitars that fill every crevice of the recording and the brilliantly erratic, mosh defying construction of "Culprit" and the damn vocals that are even more vicious than everything else put together. And check it all loudly. Get this band to the USA, now. Preferably to the West Coast. Or someone offer Karoline and me a year long sublet in Seoul? Either option is fine. Please and thank you. 

SLANT

CAPITAL GAIN

Received a perfectly timed email yesterday as I was cleaning up some old audio files (sadly, there are days when this has become the present day equivalent of reorganizing a record collection), a reminder of a 1987 scorcher that I posted almost eight years ago. CAPITAL GAIN became LIFE CYCLE and dropped a small handful of vinyl releases - available for cheap if you keep your eyes open, I guess because there's a weird perception that all post-'85 UK punk is crap or something? - but I've seen nothing about this four (and a half?) song recording. Like lumbering anarcho punks trying to make the leap into hi-charged metal punk and almost succeeding, CAPITAL GAIN are a brilliant example of the effort trumping the output. The output is great, SACRILEGE-esque vocals over mid-tempo bangers with tasty leads, but it's the level of sincerity that makes these tracks indispensable. So thanks for the email...

CAPITAL GAIN

J CHURCH

I think about Lance a lot. Always supportive, upbeat even if a little subtly dour, and made me want to do my thing earnestly. A friendly acquaintance more than a friend, it's not as if we were especially close, but from the first interaction in 1994 at a show we played together with CHRISTIE FRONT DRIVE (that sunburn on the drummer's feet still makes me cringe - pun intended) to sitting in John and Patsy's living room on Achilles in the mid-'00s with the last (and fiercest) J CHURCH line up, listening to Lance go off about how much he hated being around other people's farts ("It's like microscopic particles of YOUR SHIT, in MY NOSE" he yelled, before we realized he wasn't joking) which made us all wonder how he had endured nearly 20 years of touring. I was talking to my pal Chris the other day about their legacy, a conversation started by me blurting out that J CHURCH > JAWBREAKER, and Chris surmised that they "suffered" from Lance's steadfast DIY punk-ness. Tons of releases, heaps of EPs and splits, recording quality all over the map, always playing tons of shows that maybe people cared about or maybe they didn't, nothing calculated....just doing the damn thing. As a result, there's gonna be a bit of chud in the catalog, and there will be countless forgettable shows - but man I fukkn love that band, and they get even better in retrospect not in spite of that "don't give a fukk" approach...but because of it. I wish J CHURCH had made another record, I wish that Lance had finished his anarcho-punk book, I wish that we had gotten to hang out with him again, even once. So I hold my breath, thinking what we've lost just in the last month. Thinking about the life of Emma. And I keep that breath in, thinking about the last time I talked to Shawn and how he seemed so blissfully upbeat even in the face of struggles that I can't even comprehend. And I think about hanging out with Erik in the same living room where we all sat with Lance...drinking and laughing and sharing and LIVING, and I'm scared to exhale. 

PEEL SESSION + ROB HAMMER SESSION

The first two tracks are almost hopelessly warped, THE SMITHS cover is a novelty at best, but "Lines" is a perfect-HÜSKER DÜ piece of magic and I feel it's important to celebrate every damn minute of life you can get your hands on. Not an easy task, by any means.