JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates The Clash drummer Topper Headon’s 71st birthday.
Category: punk rock
New Video: Dead Pioneers Team Up with Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson on Brooding, Post Punk-Inspired “The Worst Among Us”
Denver-based punk outfit Dead Pioneers — Josh Rivera (guitar), Abe Brennan (guitar), Shane Zweygardt (drums), Algiers’ Lee Tesche (bass) and acclaimed indigenous visual and performance artist and activist Gregg Deal (vocals) — will be releasing their third album Wagon Burner on June 26, 2026 through Hassle Records.
Wagon Burner as the band’s Gregg Deal says is “more collaborative,” while being heavier, harder and much more accessible with a focus on mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses. The album features guest spots Cheap Perfume, The Interrupters and Sleaford Mods. The album’s material acknowledges that things are bleak but the band rises up to our miserable occasion, casting an empowering light deep into the gloom.
The Denver-based outfit’s third album will include, the previously released “No Kings” and the album’s latest single “The Worst Among Us,” which features a guest spot from Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson. Arguably one of the most post-punk leaning songs of the album so far, “The Worst Among Us” is anchored around a brooding and shimmering krautrock pulse as Deal and Williamson trade spoken word-like vocal turns detailing the rot, brutality, theft, exploitation and evil of colonialism, racism, classism and more, rooted in bitter, lived-in personal experience. Resembling The Jim Carroll Band’s classic 1980 self-titled album, “The Worse Among Us” is a bold step in a new sonic direction while retaining elements of the Denver-based outfit’s sound and creative approach.
“While it’s easy for me to say I’m proud of every song on Wagon Burner, I’d be remiss by not admitting this one is one of my favorites,” admits frontman Gregg Deal. “The way it came together with (bassist) Lee at the helm of this one. This song feels like a level up for us, a piece that brings together elements that are 100% Dead Pioneers with some other elements that are new. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, but we really are about the art of this work. ‘The Worst Among Us’ is in this camp, recognizing that we sometimes will find lightening in a bottle more than once while on the Dead Pioneers path.”
“I wish I could express how excited I am to have Jason on this track with us,” Deal continues. “Lee introduced me to Sleaford Mods in 2021 when we met and pulled together ‘Bad Indian.’ In the space of the original idea of Dead Pioneers being ‘spoken word with punk riffs,’ Lee pointed me to Sleaford Mods and their then new album Spare Rib. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I’ve been proper obsessed with Sleaford Mods since. This feels like another full circle moment for Wagon Burner, and I am sincerely humbled to share space with the likes of Jason Williamson.
“Colonialism, imperialism, theft, murdering, oppressing and death? All the things a song needs, capped off by the unmistakable cadence and voice of Jason Williamson. This song was an important one lyrically, in presenting some personal experiences while acknowledging the more general grievances of colonialism and imperialism. This moment in the world’s history is more poignant than most for a song like this. Saying the things that need to be said on a political, social and cultural level is wildly important right now,” Deal says.
“’Nabbing lands, traditions or symbols with cunning chicanery or beady eyed brute force.’ How could I not be on a tune with lyrics like these?” Sleaford Mods’ John Williamson says. ” ‘The Worst Among Us’ is the kind of song that revitalises the idea of Punk within the listener. Wrapped up in some weird Cure/Sisters Of Mercy vibe to boot. Very honoured to be included.”
Directed by Lee Tesche, the accompanying video for “The Worst Among Us” is a remarkably cinematic visual that features Nouveau Vague-styled split screens, brooding silhouettes, and footage of Dead Pioneers’ Deal in his art studio and with some indigenous friends and family, as well as Sleaford Mods’ Williamson in abandoned, damp tunnels and abandoned train tracks.
New Audio: Index Shares a Bruising and Forceful Ripper
Formed last year, and currently split between Los Angeles and Philadelphia, Index — Alan Creedon (he/him) and Alex Lichtenauer (they/them) — is a subversive, electronics-influenced hardcore punk band featuring two close friends, who are also former members of Control Top, an act that I’ve covered here on this site. When Creedon and Lichtanauer started the band, it quickly became clear that their band’s sound would grow out of their friendship. Stripping away the dense orchestration of their previous band, Index sees the duo leaning into sweaty, visceral physicality with Creedon’s guitar intuitively locked into Lichtanauer’s drums, navigating complex rhythms. The result is music that feels as immediate as it does immediate — with the two longtime collaborators and friends reinvigorated by the act of creating something altogether new together.
Produced by Arthur Rizk, the duo’s debut single “Cellophane” was written across coasts, recorded at Show Me The Body‘s Corpus Studios and released through Lichtanaeur’s Get Better Records. The single is a bruising, eardrum shattering ripper that pairs snarling and roaring hardcore punk fury with pummeling rhythm and howled vocals. “Cellophane” captures someone barely holding it together in a brutal, absurdist hellscape. It’s the sort of song that would turn a room into a sweaty, moving mass of bodies.
“‘Cellophane’ is a song about self-deception and the rituals we perform to convince ourselves we’re holding it together,” the bicoastal based duo explain. “Musically, we wanted to move away from anything riff-based and write in a way that felt fluid and unstable. The two of us function as a single organism, threading through shifting time signatures rather than locking into them. We were interested in the physicality of electronic body music pushed through a hardcore framework. Something precise and controlled, but still capable of impact in a room.”
Throwback: Happy 75th Birthday, Joey Ramone!
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Live Footage: MHUD Performs “Ô Calypso” at Mastoid Studio
The mysterious Strasbourg-born, Paris–based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, publicly known as MHUD initially began his creative career as a painter before turning to music as a creative outlet relatively recently. And within a relatively short period of time, the Strasbourg-born, Paris-based artist quickly established a genre-defying approach to his music that thematically touches upon humankind’s spiritual, emotional and intellectual split from itself.
Released last year, the Strasbourg-born, Paris-based artist’s sophomore album was largely conceived in the morning and at home with co-writer Felipe Sierra (guitar, synth). The pair wrote with the album’s material with the common thread of giving all their musical influences a chance to shine. Thematically, the album touches on consciousness and the unconscious, the chaotic noise of information overload, the lack of nuance, the inability to find a quiet moment to think or to process anything, and how easy it is to lose the thin thread of time that seems to barely hold everything to together.
NONO features the previously released, bruising “Toucher le sol,” and its latest single “Ô Calypso.” “Ô Calypso” is a shuffling and furiously unhinged bit of Bossa Nova that simultaneously seems to draw from Osees, Population II and VICTIME, Thematically, the song asks a deeply existential question: Will the 21st century man attain happiness or merely a nauseating madness?
The accompanying live footage, filmed at Mastoïd Studio by Nicolas Giraldo sees MHUD with a backing band featuring Felipa Sierra, Pedro Barrios (percussion), Biscuit (saxophone), Thomas Chalindar (drums) and Paul Dussaux (bass, modular synth).
Throwback: Happy 74th Birthday, David Byrne!
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New Video: Body Type Shares Languid and Shimmering “Mulberry”
Body Type’s highly-anticipated third album, Tally is slated for a July 24, 2026 release through King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s p(doom) records. Recorded at Los Angeles-based Velveteen Laboratory Studios with producer Stella Mozgawa, Tally reportedly marks a deliberate evolution for the quartet. While 2023’s Expired Candy arrived on a wave of post-pandemic momentum, their third album takes long to breathe — the material’s ambitions are quieter, its craft more considered. ‘
The album cones as the band celebrates their tenth anniversary together. Featuring a blend of big, jagged riffs, moody post-punk and 60s pop, Tally may arguably be their most self-assured and expansive batch of material to date, capturing band maturing and taking stock but while wit and playfulness still are supreme. Thematically, the album chronicles mundanity’s mystical implications, the deformations of romance and love’s confounding elasticity and more.
Tally’s latest single “Mulberry” is a languid, sun-dappled tune, featuring shimmering guitars, a relentlessly driving rhythm paired with the Aussie outfit’s uncanny sense of melodicism and catchy hooks. Sonically resembling a mix of Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea-era PJ Harvey, The Breeders and a bit of Marquee Moon-era Television, “Mulberry” is anchored around a mediation on self-dissolution with the song’s lyrics a rollicking bit of free-association with a narrator, who bites into a piece of purple fruit and ruminates on similarly colored phenomenon, the heavens, the changing of the seasons, and more.
Directed by Jack Saltmiras, the accompanying video for “Mulberry” follows each of the band’s members as they walk around a very busy Sydney, encountering city life.
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Throwback: Happy 75th Birthday, Chris Frantz!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Talking Heads’ and Tom Tom Club’s Chris Frantz’s 75th
New Video: Die Spitz Shares Seething “American Porn”
Rising Austin-based outfit Die Spitz — Ava Schrobilgen, Chloe De St. Aubin, Ellie Livingston and Kate Halter — can trace some of their origins back to when Schrobilgen and Livingston met in preschool. They befriended Halter in middle school. And they brought De St. Aubin into their friend group when they started the band back in 2022.
Initially, the quartet was looking to find reasons to hang out more often, and decided they should start a band after a late-night viewing of the Mötley Crüe biopic The Dirt. They settled on the name Die Spitz over a “brown bag of Fireball,” opting for the feminine German definite article in place of the English. “It reminds me of the Grim Reaper spitting,” Livingstone jokes.
Their first live shows saw them pairing originals with covers from some of their early inspirations including Black Sabbath, Pixies, Mudhoney, PJ Harvey and Nirvana. Unsurprisingly, they express their ideas and themselves through a mischievously shameless blend of classic punk, hardcore metal, alt rock and more. They’ve also become known for riotous live show, where dueling cartwheels, members climbing rafters and solos while crowdsurfing could happen at just about any moment.
The Texan quartet’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, the Will Yip–produced Something to Consume was released last September through Third Man Records. The album sees the band combining their passion, friendship, identity and artistry to fight against the inescapable decay and chaos that surrounds modern life, “There’s a political side to it, but addiction and love can also be all-consuming,” the band’s Ellie Livingston says.
Something to Consume‘s 11 tracks contains multitudes and yet feels singular. It’s an expansive and expressive collection of songs, unified in its sense of deeply held camaraderie and freedom. “We depend on our freedom — freedom to do what we want, present the ideas we want, make the music we want,” Livingston says. “Whether it’s based in metal or something soft, no matter which of us wrote the song, we all contribute and work together. As a person, I don’t have a strong ego or voice, but within this band each one of us is capable of so much more.”
“Something to Consume is an album experience for everyone. Whether you’re craving a smack of lively metal or a melancholy wave of grungey violin, there’s a piece of all of us injected. Something to Consume is a call to the multitudes of ways we as humans allow consumption to enrapture our culture as well as ourselves.”
Though they’ve only been playing together for a few years, the album shows a maturity and technical prowess wielded and wed to the service of their deep and abiding friendship — and a hope to inspire change. “Some people aren’t interested in being political activists via music, but it weighs on me heavily and I feel misaligned with my calling if I don’t,” Chloe De St. Aubin says. “The four of us are free spirits with multiple interests, and there’s no limit or power dynamic that can derail us.”
The album features the previously released “Throw Yourself to the Sword,” a bruising mosh pit friendly synthesis of thrash metal, stoner rock and punk featuring some of the hardest and grimiest guitar riffs I’ve heard in some time. The album’s latest single “American Porn” comes as the quartet announces a lengthy list of summer and fall tour dates. The tour includes three New York City dates: November 13, 2026 and November 14, 2026 at Warsaw. Both of those shows are sold out. But don’t worry, they’ve got a February 19, 2027 stop at Brooklyn Steel. As always, all tour dates are below.
“American Porn” sees the rising Texans channeling a seething synthesis of grunge and riot grrl punk that calls out sexist record industry insiders and perverted older dudes, who come to their shows to leer and objectify them. “It’s a very angry song,” says the band’s Eleanor Livingston.” “And I want the people that come to our shows just because we’re pretty women or they want to sexualize or objectify us to listen to that song and tell us if they’re still a fan.”
Continuing an ongoing collaboration with director Emily Sanchez, the accompanying video for “American Porn” is a surreal fever dream of a visual that wouldn’t be out of place on 120 Minutes. The video calls out gender-roles, stereotypes and beauty standards with seething anger and a sense of mischief.
Throwback: Happy 79th Birthday, Iggy Pop!
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