Category: punk rock

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Lucy Jowett (vocals), Joe Clarke (guitar) and Jacob Marston (drums), the up-and-coming Leeds, UK-based art punk trio Dead Naked Hippies formed back in 2016 and since their formation they’ve received praise from BBC Introducing, KCRW, DIY, Clash, DORK Magazine, Metro and PRS Magazine for a face melting take on art rock and art punk centered. Adding to a growing profile, the Leeds-based trio have shared stages with Dream Wife, IDLES, Queen Zee and DZ Deathrays, and have played at Live at Leeds and last year’s Leeds Festival.

The trio’s latest single “Rare” will further cement their growing reputation for crafting blistering and furious punk rock centered around a pummeling and angular guitar line, thumping and forceful four-on-the-floor drumming, and a shout along in a sweaty mosh pit worthy hook; but at the core of the song is a rebellious and cathartic rallying yell. As the band’s Jowett explains in press notes, “It is a song about self love. I think we’re quick to judge the term & deem it laughable or irrelevant in fear of being arrogant, or weird. But if you take a hard look at the society we live in, it’s clear to see why so many people struggle to feel content in their own minds and their own bodies. I’ve always struggled with myself and it sickens me to think that so many other people feel the same. It needs to change.

“We’re used by advertising companies, so they can make money out of our discontentment. Bombarded with images of fake realities, only to make us feel like ours isn’t enough. We’re made to feel like our creativity and passion will never be as important as serving a functional purpose in society. It’s dull, boring and I’m fucking mad about it. Most importantly, I want people to know that they’re not alone.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Comprised of founding members Wes Salton (guitar, vocals) and Jason Chiarella (bass, synths) with Adam Reeve (drums, vocals) and Jack Faulkner (guitar, synths), the Nashville, TN-based post-punk quartet Telefones can trace their origins to when its founding members started the band while they were both high schoolers in Atlanta. Later, Salton and Chiarella relocated to Nashville, where they met Faulker and Reeve, who joined the band to flesh out its sound and complete its lineup.  Sonically, the band draws influence from the likes of Fugazi, The Modern Lovers and Buzzcocks — and from “Castle Factory,” the A-side single off their forthcoming “Castle Factory”/”Vitamins”  7 inch, the band specializes in a blistering and raw, garage punk that would make John Dwyer proud while recalling The Stooges and others.

 

 

 

 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Timo Ellis, who has recorded and played with the likes of Yoko Ono, Cibo Matto, John Zorn, Melvins, Gibby Haynes, Ween, Joan As Police Woman, Spacehog, White Hills and others, and has released over 25 wildly varied solo albums as TE and other pseudonyms; Ava Farber (synthbass), Joel “Moon Daddy” Willis (drums) and Chealsea “Thee Chuq” Wierbonski (synthbass) the New York-based act NETHERLANDS since their formation back in 2008 have developed a firmly-held reputation for a maximalist approach that follows Ellis’ personal mission statement of making music that can be equally light-hearted, brutal and ecstatic centered around power chord led shredding, pummeling drumming, soaring vocals and madding hooks.

And while generally possessing a difficult to describe sound, the band which draws from heavy metal, arena rock, post-hardcore and math rock, the members of the New York-based act have played with a number of renowned acts across a variety of genres and styles including Napalm Death, Melt Banana, Mutoid Man, Yob, Black Flag, EYEHATEGOD, Candiria, Valient Thorr, Child Abuse, Mutilation Rites, Primitive Weapons, Freshkills, Vaz, Naam, Martin Rev, The Giraffes, The Death Set, BANGLADEAFY! DN’T, Unstoppable Death Machines, Mouth of the Architect, White Hills, Gull, Godmaker, Spacehog, The Austerity Program, No Way, Moon Tooth and Radkey.

​The New York-based act’s Black Gaia is slated for release this Friday through Records and Tapes Records, and from the album’s latest single “Army!,” the album will further cement the band’s reputation for crafting pummeling and furious material centered around equally enormous power chords and arena rock friendly hooks, distorted synthbass and Ellis’s shouting politically charged lyrics, lambasting rampant commercialism and greed — all while drawing from math rock, psych rock and thrash metal in a way that reminds me of Cinemechanica. Arguably, this song may be one for the most explosive and forceful rippers I’ve heard all year, and it’s so fucking necessary.

NETHERLANDS will be touring with Mastodon and Dinosaur Jr. throughout September. Check out the tour dates below.

Mastodon, Dinosaur Jr, Netherlands – 2018 tour:
Sep 1 – Edmonton, AB @ Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium
Sep 2 – Calgary, AB @ Grey Eagle Resort & Casino
Sep 4 – Saskatoon, SK @ O’Brian’s Event Centre
Sep 6 – Winnipeg, MB @ Burton Cummings Theatre
Sep 7 – Duluth, MN @ Duluth Heritage Center
Sep 8 – Sioux City, IA @ Anthem @ Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Sep 11 – Milwaukee, WI @ Eagles Ballroom
Sep 12 – Cleveland, OH @ Agora Theatre
Sep 14 – Fort Wayne, IN @ Clyde Theatre
Sep 15 – Grand Rapids, MI @ 20 Monroe Live
Sep 16 – London, ON @ London Concert Theatre
Sep 17 – Kitchener, ON @ Elements
Sep 19 – Hamilton, ON @ FirstOntario Concert Hall
Sep 20 – Port Chester, NY @ Capitol Theatre
Sep 21 – Silver Spring, MD @ The Fillmore

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Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Comprised of Jeff Houle, best known as the creative master mind of Strange Attractor; Jeff’s brother Mitch, with whom he’s played in power pop act STATUES; and frontman Tommy Commy, the Sudbury, Ontario, Canada-based punk act Tommy and the Commies can trace their origins to when Commy dragged Jeff Houle into a punk rock venue bathroom stall to play an inaudible demo on his phone. And as the story goes. the Houles decided to collaborate with Commy, after being impressed by his vocals.

The trio’s full-length debut, Here Come .  .  . is slated for a September 28, 2018 release through Slovenly Records, and the album’s first and latest single “Devices” reveals a band that specializes in furious and blistering mod punk centered around angular power chords, a propulsive backbreat and an infectious,  pop-like, shout worthy hook that brings to mind both power pop and The Ramones on speed; but underneath is an incisive criticism of how people are constantly attached to their electronic devices, to the detriment of getting to know someone next to them or to even enjoy the moment.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Acclaimed Act Thrice Releases An Anthemic Prog Rock-like Single

Comprised of founding members Dustin Kensrue (vocals, guitar) and Teppei Teranishi (guitar) with siblings Eddie Breckenridge (bass) and Riley Breckenridge (drums), the Irvine, CA-based rock band Thrice can trace their origins to its founding members meeting in high school and playing in a local band Chapter 11. When it came to starting their own project, Kensrue and Teranishi recruited Teranishi’s skate park buddy Eddie Breckenridge to play bass, and Breckenridge then brought his brother Riley to play drums, completing the band’s lineup. As the story goes, before their first show they realized that they needed name, and hard-pressed, they decided on going with Thrice, an inside joke between the bandmembers out of desperation. Although they had intended the name to be a temporary one, they began to gain fans and people started to associate them with it, so they were forced to stay with it.

In 1999, the band released the First Impressions EP, which was recorded during a twos-day session at A-Room Studios with Brian Tochilin. Only 1,000 copies were made and the individual bandmembers sold them out of their cars. Working with Death by Stereo’s Paul Miner, the Irvine, CA-based quartet recorded 12 tracks, which eventually became their 2000 full-length debut Identity Crisis, which was released through Greenflag Records. A portion of the album’s proceeds were donated to Crittenton Services for Children and Family, and with growing local buzz, the quartet caught the interest of Hopeless/Sub City’s Louis Posen, who eventually signed the band, and reissued Identity Crisis. To support the album the band toured with the likes of Samiam, Midtown and Hot Rod Circuit.

February 2002 saw the release of the band’s Brian McTernan-produced Hopeless/Sub City debut, The Illusion of Safety. Much like its predecessor, the band donated a portion of the album’s proceeds to a non-profit youth shelter in South Central Los Angeles, A Place Called Home, with the label matching all donations. The album received generally positive reviews and after tours opening for Further Seems Forever and Face to Face, followed by their first headlining tour, Thrice won the attention of several major labels, including Island Records, who signed the band, after agreeing to match the band’s charitable donations in the same fashion as Hopeless/Sub City. After signing with Island Records, the band toured with Hot Water Music and Coheed and Cambria before returning to the studio.

Interestingly with the release of 2002’s Illusion of Safety and 2003’s The Artist in the Ambulance, the band developed a reputation for a fast and punishing math rock-like sound centered around heavily distorted power chords, rapid time signature changes; however, with 2005’s Vheissu, the members of Thrice began incorporating synths, electronic beats and a much more experimental approach to their songwriting that continued through 2007 and 2008 with the release of The Alchemy Index, two albums that actually consisted of a 4-part, 24 song cycle, with each of the four 6-song EPs featuring significantly different styles based on the classical elements of fire, water, air and earth both lyrically and musically. 2009’s Beggars and 2011’s Major/Minor found the band continuing to refine their experimentation and exploration of their sound; but after the release of Major/Minor, Thrice announced a final tour and a hiatus.

In 2015, Kensrue and Teranishi decided to reform the band, and by the following year, they released their first album in four years, 2016’s To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere.  Slated for a September 14, 2018 release through Epitaph Records, the band’s tenth full-length album Palms is their second post-reunion album, and the album which was co-produced by the band and Eric Palmquist reportedly finds the band’s sound encompassing everything from post-hardcore to piano-driven ballads, making it arguably the most sonically expansive album of their careers to date. Interestingly, the album’s latest single, the prog rock-like mid-tempo “Only Us” is centered around pulsating synths, enormous power chord-led guitar riffs, an arena rock friendly hook and Kensrue’s plaintive and earnest vocals. As the band’s Dusin Kensrue explains in press notes. “‘Only Us’ came from thinking about how easily we’re so divided into ‘us’ and ‘them’ when really we have an inherent ability to care for those in our group, and the parameters for who falls into that group are extremely flexible. It’s about how the things that we think separate us are actually inconsequential, and if we could broaden the idea of ‘us’ to include all people, it would help us build a more loving and civil society. “

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Earlier this summer,  I wrote about the Stockholm, Sweden-based garage punk outfit Sudakistan, and as you may recall, the band has a unique backstory: Comprised of Michell Serrano (vocals), Maikel Gonzalez (bass), Carlos Amigo (percussion) Juan Jose Espindola (drums) and Arvid Sjöö (guitar), the band features one native Swede — Sjöö — while the the other members emigrated from South America. And with the the release of their furious and incendiary full-length debut Caballo Negro, the Stockholm-based quartet quickly received attention for a sound that meshes Latin music — in particular, Latin rhythm, percussion and groove that’s part of the musical and cultural heritage of Serrano, Gonzalez, Amigo and Espiondola — with the blistering garage rock and punk of Thee Oh Sees, At the Drive-In and Death from Above 1979.

Swedish Cobra, the band’s forthcoming Daniel Bengtson-produced sophomore album is slated for a September 7, 2018 release, and the album reportedly finds the band capturing their raw and raucous live sound on record — with the five bandmembers recording in the same room, live to tape at Bengtson’s Studio Rymden, and with minimal takes and overdubs. As the band’s Michell Serrano says in press notes, “You can hear that on the album. it’s quite raw and very intense.” Interestingly, the material balances blistering fury with an experimental sensibility with the band expanding upon their sound — partially as a result of each individual band member’s role becoming more fluid, and partially through the employment of instrumentation beyond the usual punk rock/garage rock arrangements. “It was much more of a collaboration between the five of us,” Serrano explains. “Things flowed differently. Carlos sings on two or three songs, and Mikael sings on one. We swapped instruments quite a lot, and because we had access to everything in the studio, we were able to use some piano, some acoustic guitar and some mandolin, too.”

Lyrically speaking, the album is purportedly the most personal they’ve written to date — and although it’s not overtly political charged, the material does focus on their day-to-day reality, from partying excessively to moments of deep introspection, with each individual member contributing idea. “Our first album was made over five years, rather than five months, so the themes on it weren’t as heavy as this. Now, we’re talking about a lot of the things that we’ve gone through together since we started the band, as well as personal things – like, why do I keep repeating the same mistakes. We talk about pursuing our own Swedish reality, but that’s just because we’re living in Sweden – it’s relatable in any other country, I think,” Maikel Gonzalez says in press notes.

Swedish Cobra‘s first two singles, the furious and swirling psych punk/surf punk “Whiplash” and the mid-tempo, 90s grunge rock-inspired “Two Steps Back,” were urgent and passionate — but to me there was something sobering about the material, especially in light of a heightened age of nationalism, racism and xenophobia. Cultural exchange has inspired new takes on the familiar, new modes of thinking, new foods, new words — and more importantly, deeper empathy and understanding of our neighbors, of those men women and others from far away.  Interestingly, “Last Love Supreme,” Swedish Cobra‘s latest single is a swooning mid-tempo ballad with soaring hooks and explosive blasts of feedback that sounds — to my ears at least — as though it drew from mariachi, psych rock and garage rock simultaneously, thanks in part to a classic quiet, loud, quiet song structure.

Certainly, from the album’s first three singles, Swedish Cobra may arguably be one of the year’s most unique, passionate and downright interesting albums, and possibly one of the most necessary of any genre, because it affirms what can happen when diverse people and ideas intermingle and influence each other, and perhaps more important that we should protect and honor the immigrant and what they bring.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the past month, I’ve managed to write a bit about the Austin, TX-based trio Exhalants, and as you may recall the band which features Steve (guitar, vocals), Bill (bass) and Tommy (drums), a member of Body Pressure, can trace its origins to the breakup of Steve and Bill’s previous band  Carl Sagan’s Skate Shoes. With the inevitable downtime that happens when a band breaks up, Steve spent his free time further honing his guitar playing before recruiting his former CSSS bandmate and Tommy to complete the project’s lineup.

Exhalants’ selff-titled debut is slated for release next week, and the soon-to-be released album is largely inspired by Shellac, Unwound and Cherubs, while nodding at the work of contemporaries like Melkbelly, Kal Marks and A Dear A Horse — or in other words, the album’s material finds the band balancing pummeling heaviness with an infectious melodicism; however, the album’s third and latest single “If Only” is a slow-burning grunge-era inspired dirge, centered around pummeling drumming, distortion-fed power chords, howled vocals and an alternating quiet-loud-quiet song structure. Sonically, the new single seems to recall Melvins, Soundgarden, Nirvana and Alice in Chains while maintaining their uncanny sense of melody.  And from the album’s first three singles, Exhalants may be releasing one of the hardest hitting albums of the year.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms
Over the course of last year, I wrote about the  Los Angeles, CA-based post-punk act Sextile and since its formation back in 2015, the band has earned a devout following thanks to a reputation for an explosive live show and non-stop touring as either a headliner or opener with the likes of A Place to Bury Strangers, Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees, The Soft Moon, Ought, ADULT., The Chameleons, Modern English and others — and they’ve played sets at Bersekertown, Cloak & Dagger and Levitation Festivals.
Now, since I’ve last written about them, the act has gone through a massive lineup change that finds the act as a duo featuring Brady Keehn and Melissa Scaduto. And as a result of the lineup changes, the project has shifted towards a decidedly minimalist approach with the duo of Kehn and Scaduto favoring the use of synths over guitars — although with their forthcoming self-recorded, forthcoming EP3 the duo employ the use of a KORG MS-10, a sequencer, a Fender Stratocaster, a LinnDrum and various other percussion-based instruments. The duo also cite futurist Luigi Russolo’s The Art of Noises as an influence on their approach, as their sound and songwriting is meant to evoke and mirror the chaos and brutality of the industrial era; in fact, the EP’s latest single “Spun” is centered around explosive squealing bursts of guitar, scorching synths, thumping beats, industrial clang and clatter and a motorik-ike groove, and it some way the song finds the band meshing the aesthetics of Gang of Four and classic DFA Records (i.e., LCD Soundsystem and The Rapture) — although the song subtly hits at Bay City Rollers‘ “Saturday Night,” thanks to its punchily delivered vocals.  Sonically, the song manages to evoke a civilization gone absolutely mad, inching itself closer to apocalypse — but dancing on its way to the end.

 

The duo of Kehn and Scaduto will be on a lengthy tour to support their new EP. Check out the tour dates below. .

Tour Dates
09.13 Glasgow, UK @ Broadcast
09.14 Newcastle, UK @ Underground
09.15 Manchester, UK @ Soup Kitchen
09.16 Birmingham, UK @ The Cuban Embassy
09.18 London, UK @ Electrowerkz
09.19 Brighton, UK @ The Hope & Ruin
09.20 Portsmouth, UK @ The Edge Of The Wedge
09.21 Le Havre, FR @ Mc Daids
09.22 Angers, FR @ Levitation Festival
09.23 Lyon, FR @ Le Farmer
09.24 Limoges, FR @ El doggo
09.25 Landgraaf, NL @ Oefenbunker
09.26 Antwerp, BE @ TRIX
09.27 Paris, FR @ La Station
09.28 Hamburg, DE @ Karatekeller
09.29 Berlin, DE @ Urban Spree
10.02 San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall ~
10.03 San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall ~
10.12 – 14 Moreno Valley, CA @ Desert Daze

 

 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

OBJECT AS SUBJECT is a Los Angeles, CA-based art punk band initially formed as a solo project by Tucson, AZ-born, Los Angeles-based, classically trained violinist, turned punk rocker Paris Hurley (vocals, drums, dance, composition) responding to the rampant sexism and misogyny she experienced while on the road with Balkan punk/metal act Kultur Shock. Hurley is among a handful of incredibly accomplished musicians I’ve written about throughout the years — at 16 she made her Carnegie Hall debut; and shortly after relocating to Seattle in 2003, she found her way into formative decade long collaborations with acclaimed composer and arranged Jherek Bischoff and experimental dance theater collective Degenerative Art Ensemble.

After an 8 year stint with Kultur Shock, Hurley relocated to Los Angeles, where she began assembling OBJECT AS SUBJECT’S current lineup, which includes Emilia “Pony Sweat” Richeson (dance, drums, vocals), Sorority‘s Gina Young (bass, vocals), Tales Between Our Legs’ Megan Fowler-Hurst (dance, drums, vocals) and Hole‘s Patty Schemel (drums).  The band works collaboratively under Hurley’s direction, flushing out hyper-specific, detailed songwriting with the personality of each performer.

The Los Angeles-based art punk act’s full-length debut PERMISSION is slated for a release this Friday through Lost Future Records, and the album’s latest single “Pom Pom Moves” is a furious, blistering, feminist anthem that’s full of righteous outrage and indignation — and while being completely of the sociopolitical moment, the song which is influenced by Hurley’s experiences on the road was written several years before the #metoo and #timesup movements. As Hurley explains:

“I wrote this song in my late 20’s. It came out as a single flood of words written down one day in the tour van with Kultur Shock, before Trump even running for office was part of our collective reality, something like 7 years into an 8 year stint of spending months at a time on the road in Europe, completely inundated by sexism + misogyny. From dudes acting as if I were about to touch an open flame anytime I got near a piece of gear, “No, no, no, no! Don’t touch that! I’ll get it! I’ve got it! It’s not safe for you. Let me show you how it’s done,” to guys grabbing my body and handling me like property in attempts to take photos with me as I walked through a venue, to endless marriage proposals from complete strangers, to hyper-sexualized comments about me and my performances that ignored my role in the band as a fucking fierce musician, to the seething glares of hatred from men at the market, to the unrelenting assumption that I must be the girlfriend of the men I was traveling with, to not feeling safe walking by myself after shows, to inescapably boring and incessant talk about pussy – either getting some, having gotten some, or about how if you didn’t drink enough alcohol or lift heavy shit by yourself, you were one – I was surrounded.

One night after a show in Belgium, a guy asked to see my ‘pom pom moves.’ He felt entitled to his own private show, emboldened by the presence of a group of laughing friends surrounding me, miming the movements he wanted me to do in the air above his head, hips swinging. I think what he really wanted was to see my armpit hair up close. There was that guy at the outdoor festival in Croatia who chanted, ‘Show us your boobs,’ on repeat as I took the stage, the guy in the front row of that show in Serbia who stuck his camera up my skirt while I was on stage performing, oh and the Bosnian border patrol officer who looked through my entire suitcase thing by thing, handling my underwear and vibrator while we were locked in a room together with his gun.

Pom Pom Moves is the telling of these stories – my stories – and the transformation from fear + shame to power that came with owning + voicing them.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of their highly praised debut EP Minority Girl, the attention-grabbing Brooklyn-based punk rock act Grim Streaker quickly made a name for themselves for an in- your- face-sound and approach that possesses elements of New Wave, noise rock, goth, skater punk, punk and No Wave while drawing comparisons to Twin Peaks, Perfect Pussy and White Lung. Adding to a growing profile, the members of the band, Amelia Bushell (vocals), Daniel Peskin (guitar), Micah Weisberg (guitar), Bill Dvorak (bass) and Piyal Basu (drums), have shared bills with JOVM mainstays METZ and A Place to Bury Strangers, as well as Thunderpussy and Jacuzzi Boys.

The up-and-coming Brooklyn-based punk rock outfit’s latest single “Mojito” will further cement their reputation for crafting snarling and feral punk rock that sounds explosive and unhinged — and evokes a wild night, spiraling out of control. Interestingly, as the band’s Amelia Bushell told Talkhouse, the band’s latest single was inspired by what she describes as an  “unforgettable and bizarre experience that would later influence the surreal lyrics to ‘Mojito.’” As she told Talkhouse:

“Not long after arriving in Cuba, my friends and I met a couple, Chelsea and Taylor, who were heading to Trinidad the same day as us. Chelsea had been before, and told us we absolutely could not miss the secret club hidden in a cave at the top of a hill: ‘Meet us at the cave bar! 10 PM. Just keep following the road up the hill. You’ll think you’ve gone too far but keep going. We’ll be there.’ It sounded unreal.

We arrived in Trinidad the next day, had a late dinner and began the long trek to the cave as the sun began to set. It was exactly as Chelsea had described it. For what seemed like an eternity, we wandered up a dark, twisting road, with nobody in sight.

Just as we began to worry we had taken a wrong turn, the distant sound of a cocktail shaker cut through the night, and a tiny light came into our vision. We stumbled closer over the rough cobblestones. There – in the middle of a pitch-black mountainside road – was a man with a tiny cart, making mojitos.

We each bought a mojito and continued up the steep hill, thinking we must be on the right track now. Just a few steps later, another mojito cart appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. We chugged the first round, ordered a second, and joked about how we should stop at every single cart we saw (we did).

When we finally made it to the top of the hill, we were surprised to see a small crowd standing outside the entrance to the cave. It was real! We couldn’t believe it. Chelsea and Taylor appeared moments later. After a suspenseful wait, the doors creaked open and we made our way down a long staircase into multiple chambers of cavernous glory. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. People were smoking, drinking and dancing in the dimly-lit subterranean club. There were disco lights, a full bar, music and even restrooms.

After we stumbled out of the cave at the end of the night, we decided to go on a mojito ‘pilgrimage’ down the mountain, once again stopping at every single mojito cart. After three or four more mojitos, we got take-away pizza at the bottom of the hill and headed back to our hostel.

I vaguely remember waking up the next day completely naked and feeling as hungover as ever. I figured some fresh air and a walk would do me good, and started up the street toward the town center. On the way I passed the remnants of the pizza I was eating the night before, now spewed all over the road, and laughed out loud.”

Grim Streaker’s new single comes as they announced a handful of dates this summer that includes a show tonight at Baby’s All Right and an August 18, 2018 stop at the Knitting Factory. Check out the tour dates below.

Grim Streaker on Tour:
7/29: Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right (w/ Bass Drum of Death)
8/18: Brooklyn, NY @ Knitting Factory (w/ Agent Orange)
8/20: Columbus, OH @ The Tree Bar
8/21: Chicago, IL @ Charm School
8/22: Detroit, MI @ Trixie’s
8/23: Toronto, ON @ Monarch Tavern
8/24: Montreal, QC @ L’Esco (w/ FRIGS)
8/25: Quebec City, QC @ Le Knock-Out

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Now, if you were frequenting this site back in 2016, you’d recall that I had written quite a bit about the Whittier, CA-based punk rock quartet Plague Vendor. Comprised of Brandon Blaine (vocals), Luke Perine (drums), Michael Perez (bass) and Jay Rogers (guitar) the band formed in 2009 and in a short period of time, they developed a reputation across Southern California for raucous and frenetic live shows. And through reputation, their live shows began stacking up and along with that their material. Unsurprisingly, those live shows led to their 2014 debut Free to Eat, an album that has largely been described as terse, dark and thrashing post-punk.

The Whittier, CA-based punk rock quartet’s 2016 Stuart Sikes-produced sophomore album Bloodsweat landed at #2 on this site’s Best of List that year, and from album singles like “ISUA (I Stay Up Anyway)“, “Jezebel” and “No Bounty,” was furious, frenetic and anthemic punk full of piss and vinegar and undeniable swagger. Two years have passed since the release of the impressive Bloodsweat and before joining renowned producer John Congleton to begin work on their untitled third album, the members of Plague Vendor, along with Brett Gurewitz and engineer Morgan Stratton entered Sunset Sound Studio 2, where they spent a furious two days writing, completing and recording two songs in two days — and the and and first single from that session is their first bit of new material since their sophomore album, the raw, volatile and stomping “I Only Speak in Friction.” Sonically, the song feels and sounds anxious, and to me at least, it evokes a desperation of men at the end of their rope.

As the band’s Luke Perine explains writing and recording “I Only Speak in Friction” helped to revitalized the band and restore their focus. “As a band, we grow anxious—often depressed to some degree—during our downtime,” says Perine. “Having these two days to get in the studio ahead of working on the next album released a lot of that tension. It became a more productive two days than we expected, as we were only planning on recording one song. I think we are reaching a higher level of focus together as we go into this next album.”

Plague Vendor has a handful of upcoming shows, including festival appearances at Ohana Fest and Aftershock. Check out the tour dates, below.
PLAGUE VENDOR TOUR DATES

Aug 14 Pomona, CA – The Glass House w/The Kills

Sep 29 Dana Point, CA – Ohana Fest

Oct 14 Sacramento, CA – Aftershock

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Earlier this month, I wrote about the Austin, TX-based trio Exhalants, and as you may recall the band which features Steve (guitar, vocals), Bill (bass) and Tommy (drums), a member of Body Pressure, the band can trace its origins to the break of Steve and Bill’s previous band  Carl Sagan’s Skate Shoes. With the inevitable downtime that happens when a band breaks up, Steve spent his free time further honing his guitar playing before recruiting his former CSSS bandmate and Tommy to complete the project’s lineup.

Recorded and mixed by Ghetto Ghouls‘ Ian Rundell and mastered by Yeesh’s Greg Obis, Exhalants’ forthcoming self-titled debut is largely inspired by the likes of Shellac, Unwound and Cherubs, while nodding at the work of contemporaries like Melkbelly, Kal Marks and A Dear A Horse — or in other words, the album’s material finds the band balancing pummeling heaviness; in fact, album single “Latex” was an an anthemic ripper with enormous “raise your beer in the air and shout along” hooks, arena rock-like power chords and deep low end. And while being deceptively simple, the song upon repeated listens reveals rapid tonal and tempo shifts that are barely held together by the explosiveness of the band’s playing. “Punishers,” Exhalants’ latest single is a furious and aptly punishing ripper, complete with angular guitar power chords, wild peals of feedback and forceful drumming. It may arguably be the most punk rock and mosh-pit friendly songs off the album so far — but they do so while nodding at 90s alt rock.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Initially formed back in 2010 as a trio, Cincinnati, OH-based punk rock act Vacation quickly released a slew of tapes, singles and albums through a number of DIY labels while playing pop-inspired punk shows throughout the Midwest and the rest of the country. Since their formation, the band has expanded into a quartet while managing to balance prolificacy with a relentless touring schedule that has had the Cincinnati-based punk rockers opening for the likes of The Breeders, JOVM mainstays Screaming Females, The Black Lips, and others.

Back in 2016 Vacation recorded a two-part album Southern Grass: The Continuation of Rock ‘n’ Roll, a miscellaneous collection of basement punk ephemera, and by the time of the album’s release that July, the members of the band had returned to the studio to write and record their latest album Mouth Sounds #2699 slated for a release through Bloomington, IN-based Let’s Pretend Records later this week. Engineered by The Afghan Whigs‘ John Curley at Ultraseude Studio, Mouth Sounds #2699 reportedly finds the band at their most experimental with songs that nod at Tom Petty, krautrock and punk rock; in fact, the album’s latest single “Deflector Head” is a prime example of what the band specializes in — ragged, gritty and rousingly anthemic punk with decidedly Cheap Trick-like power pop leanings. It’s the sort of song that you should raise your beer as high as possible and shout along lustily to the hook — as rock ‘n’ roll should make you do.