Чëрная Речка

Sometimes something is so well done, so on point, so....perfect, that you just listen with your mouth half open and wonder how simple human persons could have possibly done something exactly as things are supposed to be done. That's what happened when I started the Черная Речка (BLACK RIVER) tape. You can file it alongside your goth/dark/new wave/80s rock reincarnated as new millennium punk bands, and you won't be wrong, but I'm telling you that this band is doing something special. Two demos, both from 2014, are contained on my cassette, so you get ten songs....and every fukkn one of them is perfect. Listen to "Снег," and then listen to "Пропасть" and you will know that I am right. This band just turned my world on end, and I can't thank them enough.

A & Б

Find the band and even more brilliant sounds here.

KURRAKÄ

I missed these Texas punks in SF last weekend, battling the one-two punch of jet lag and eviction made leaving the house seem all but impossible (even though it would have been the best thing for me, of course). And, as usual: my loss. KURRAKÄ deliver brilliant space age pogo punk with nods towards '80s Spain and distant shrieks echoing straight into your skull - as good as this 2012 demo is, their vinyl releases are even better and the live presentation is transcendent. Most TE visitors are already familiar, but this is for the uninitiated. Pay special attention to "Hermanas de la Obscuridad," so simple and so damn good. 

KURRAKÄ

DEAD FISH

DEAD FISH would have found themselves at home on the Fat or Epitaph rosters in the early '90s had they been from California, but instead they became one of the biggest melodic punk bands in Brazil. If you still have a soft spot for FACE TO FACE, or perhaps are able to admit (when your cool friends aren't looking) that the first couple of LAGWAGON records have a few bangers hiding under the slick veneer, then you will want to quietly dig into this 1993 demo, DEAD FISH's first. People say they are like the Brazilian BAD RELIGION, and when I saw them in Natal in 2001 I would have had a hard time arguing that stance - ultra high energy, tight as any band I've seen, and feeding off the audience's energy as much as they were feeding the audience energy. The monkeys at Läjä Records slapped this and the '95 demo onto a disc sometime in the '00s, so a physical copy awaits you...

DEAD FISH

VX GAS ATTACK

Some people may have thought that the resurgence of metalcrust in the early '00s was some kind of passing fad. I can assure you that if more bands of that ilk were this good (or, dare I say if any of them had ever been this good) then the genre would never have viewed as passé. A juggernaut of dual vocal mania with screaming leads and a relentless pace. There are people in this band who are (or have been) in other bands that are also important, but such comparisons would only serve to cheapen VX GAS ATTACK. These sounds just makes me shake my head...rarely will your ears come across a thing done this right. Don't snooze, you're worth it.

POLITICAL SUBTERFUGE

CHRIST APPEARING AS SUN

Those of you who paid attention to the Sounds For Wax Museum cassette from a while back will want to sit up and take note here, and for those who let that gem slip past instead of through your grey matter, I urge you right your wrong as quickly as possible. Born from the same barren Canadian plains, CRIST APPEARING AS SUN offer one hour (as the title suggests) of lurid avant garde outsider sounds on a cassette that practically defies description. Lurid, suggestive, disturbing and impossibly engaging loops and manipulations come together as a brilliant composition instead of an aural dumpster diving expedition....the second side could be inserted anonymously into the Cazazza catalog and no one would suspect a thing. This is new millennium sound, my friends...and honestly this is probably a better listen if you aren't quite ready. Turn down the lights if you are at home, and settle in for a weird day if you are in your cubicle.

THE LOVE HOUR SERIES: VOLUME ONE

RUSH IxDx

On the recent CONQUEST FOR DEATH tour, I was lucky enough to not only spend time with heaps of old friends and acquaintances, but meet a long list of new punks, metalheads and ragers and see a pile of bands I had never heard of before our trip. That's the point for me, and it's the main reason most of us keep doing this shit...I want to get floored by LAI SEE in Beijing, and I want to have brief heart-to-hearts that will stay with me for years, even if our paths don't cross again. These punks from the Philippines provided me with similar experiences in 2008, even though RUSH IxDx was a side project on hiatus when we were there. We played with members' other bands in Lucena, and got floored like we wanted and had the heart-to-hearts like we hoped...and the encounters are still with me years later. This outfit reassembled in 2009 to make this recording (A-side is their studio output, live versions and some extra covers on the flip), and fans of The Fast Shit will lament that this handful of tracks is all you're gonna get. Good times, kids...but good times with a point. That is what this thing is all about. 

RUSH IxDx

PLUTO!

If you thought I was going to start back up with some crucial piece of Asian hardcore history that I unearthed on my recent journey, then I'm sorry to disappoint you. Unfortunately I wasn't able to hit Flower Records in Nakano (a hotbed of weird demos, I snagged the SEX one song banger there in '09), I passed on the handful of rare Japanese tapes I came across (wisely deciding that my Yen would be better spent on records), and cassette culture was a thing of the past before punk culture took hold China or South Korea. I did scoop a couple of Mongolian tapes that will intrigue the open minded and bum out punk purists, but those are for another day. Today you get noisy, raw, disjointed and irreverent Brasilian hardcore dished out by a crew of teenage punks and weirdos in the late '90s. The attitude here can be found in a lot of current Midwest HC rehash, the 6th unnamed track in particular would sit quite nicely amongst the pile of gold currently plopping out of Northwest Indiana's backside. Sharp, smart, and unabashedly filthy hardcore punk. Welcome back.

PLUTO!