MENORES POSEÍDOS

This one is an absolute screamer - feels the chills on the opening of "Diktadura" and listen to Chile's MENORES POSEÍDOS just unload on your ear holes. These owe a debt to the primitive fury of '80s Spanish punk to be sure, but from the gallop of "Determinacón Para Matar" to the lumbering intensity of "Lota," every moment on this tape is pure and wild. A little out of tune maybe, which is going to be the least of your concerns as soon as you feel that guitar slicing through your skin. There are only four tracks here, and I can't think of a time when listening to a band's demo made me feel thirsty when it was over. 

MENORES POSEÍDOS

HIGHWAY STACY

 

Covid-era mindfuckery from Chicago's HIGHWAY STACY.  Shit-fi drum machine mania crashes into experimental bedroom punk with full and relentless force...this is what happens when there's no one around to tell you you shouldn't do something. And this is why you should do things when there's no one around to tell you that you shouldn't. Because clearly you should. Listen to HIGHWAY STACY. 

IS THAT ALL?

THE EXSENADORS // ANINOKO

 

Earlier today I saw that the folks at Aklasan Records updated their distro with some essential releases from the Philippines, and figured it was an excellent time to remind myself (and you) how excellent this short split tape from 2016 sounds. Two absolute burners from ANINOKO - I've said before that they may be the might be the most important band in the Bay Area and I'll say it here again. And "Tanginamo Trump" may have been written at the beginning of the collapse, but it serves as a searing warning gone unheeded half a decade later - and 2018's Ugat was absolutely one of the best records I heard that year. Long running Filipino band THE EXSENADORS drop two killer bombs of their own, wildly catchy street punk that delivers the hooks of DEAD HERO with the churning fury of bands like MANKIND? or THE PIST with a nice noise piece at the end of their side. Not surprisingly, the new tape is one of the essentials I'm about to grab from Aklasan...one of many. Punk is important, and it's nice when something punches you in the face to remind you. 

THE EXSENADORS // ANINOKO 

BL'AST

 

1991 recording from Santa Cruz's best known export (until SIEZED UP, that is)....(I'm working on the assumption that TE visitors don't need a BL'AST primer). This was maybe the last shit they recorded with Cliff, and you can hear them venturing into territory that might have made them fucking huge in the 1990s when the general "heavy" music landscape started to shift. A version of these songs was given a more proper release after Clifford left, but this was the booking/promo copy sent to 924 Gilman. 

BL'AST DEMO 91

BABAJI

In under the wire. Breathe......breathe. One very primitive SRI HAIDAKHAN BABAJI field chant from 1979 followed by a slightly more complete mantra with a death march to peace vibe, appropriately recorded just before his death in 1984. The closer is a celebration, presented in full force. Take it all in and then, hopefully, let it all out. 

HAIDAKHANDI ARATI WITH SRI BABAJI SINGING MANTRAS 

DAMITOL

 

You've probably noticed that I don't really fuck with year end wrap ups or 'best of' nonsense. It's all subjective anyway, and unless you're a professional music critic then your "best" releases of the year are probably going to be the ones you listened to the most, not necessarily the ones that are objectively the best. What have I listened to a lot this month? This DAMITOL tape that Grant gave me a few weeks back. It's the four tracks from the second EP, which would have been they record they were slinging when they played my living room on DeBarr Avenue in Norman, Oklahoma. I don't know if anybody came to the show except my roommate, but I don't know if I told anyone that they were coming. But they played. And it was sweaty. And even though the style here is (really) dated and the vocals are so brutally out of tune, they were playing an advanced technical hardcore that I had never seen before...and they toured with a bag of TVP and we all made dinner in my kitchen and holy shit those are the things that stick with you. So yeah, the new RUDIMENTRY PENI record is monumental, the SLANT 12" is an absolute motherfucker, LINGUA IGNOTA's Sinner Get Ready gives me chills and the ANTIBODIES EP frustratingly titled LP 2021 is flawless....but I'm always going to keep coming back to the sounds that shaped me. While this doesn't mean that my "Best Of The Year" will be the same every year (that would be very boring), it might mean that the experiences in your past help give you the tools, and the context, to truly appreciate your present. 

DAMITOL

Good chance that the best sounds of 2022 are going to come from folks like Sewercide, Iron Lung, Warsaw Pact, HIDE, Hair Clinic, and Unlawful Assembly...safe to say I'll be listening to a lot of BORN AGAINST too. 

UNREAL THOUGHT

 

I'm going to keep talking about the music that's been coming from Canada's Atlantic Provinces, because it just keeps coming. Punks from the region were responsible for some of my favorite sounds of 2021, and still I dig into the past few years and keep finding more. UNREAL THOUGHT weren't a new discovery, and I wasn't surprised that these two songs were great (because all of the other ones were too). What if your entire discography was just four perfect cassettes and then you were like "nah, we're just gonna go make another perfect band now" and then....you did? That's what it would be like to be in UNREAL THOUGHT. 

MOROSE PARADISE // THE LOOK, THE TALK