Category: thrash punk

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Psychedelic Visuals for Plague Vendor’s Punchy and Anthemic “ISUA”

Much like the material on Free to Eat, the material off their latest effort Blooddsweat is comprised of material that had been written, revised, road-tested, further revised and re-imagined before the members of the quarter went into the studio. Produced and engineered by Stuart Sikes, best known for his work with The Walkman, Cat Power and Modest Mouse, Sikes encouraged the band to embrace a minimalist production with each member aiming to capture each track, each note in as a few takes as humanly possible and with little to no overdubs. Ultimately, the intent was to have their recorded sound hew as closely as possible to their live sound. Interestingly, Bloodsweat thematically is inspired by the last couple of years of each bandmember’s life, and the dedication and sacrifices being a serious artist must make and how that’s influenced them as a band as people. And when you listen to tracks on the album, it’s evident that their sound has grown, it’s also evident that their sound is still subtly influenced by At the Drive-In, Liars, The Cramps and others.

The album’s first single “ISUA (I Stay Up Anyway)” is an anthemic and punchy bit of punk rock with a furiously insistent bass line and a forceful stomp — and it’s the sort of single you can practically picture concertgoers in a small, dark and sweaty room yelling aloud to with upraised beers.

The recently released video features footage of the band playing a live gig but set in wild, psychedelic negatives — that almost makes it seem like going to a Plague Vendor show would be a trippy experience.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Furious Visuals and Sounds of Dangers’ “Kiss with Spit”

Interestingly, Dangers’ blistering and snarling latest single “Kiss With Spit” has the band pairing layers of scuzzy and acidic guitar chords, thundering drumming, a persistent bass line and howled vocals in a way that sounds reminiscent of Melvins, Metz and Nirvana — in particular, think of “Dive,” “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” and “Breed,” complete with a tense, mosh pit worthy fury. And recently after playing the song after the strangeness of a President-elect Donald Trump, the song conveyed the blind and confused fury that many of us feel.

The recently released music video follows a vicious, disjointed, sweaty mosh pit in a dark, tiny little shithole of a club — and in some way it also looks like a fucked up orgy with a band leading it on.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Now, if you’ve been frequenting site over the past few years, you’ve likely been made intimately familiar with JOVM mainstay act  Thee Oh Sees. Led by  Castle Face Records co-founder John Dwyer and featuring a rotating cast of collaborators and friends, the band has long-held reputation for being both incredibly prolific and for a relentless touring schedule. And this year, further cemented that established reputation as the band released two albums — a live album with DVD footage, aptly titled Live in San Francisco, which was recorded over three nights of shows The Chapel and featured live versions of material off the band’s also recently released full-length Weird Exit, the first entry of a planned series of albums.

Earlier this year, I wrote about “Plastic Plant,” the first single off Weird Exit, a single that continues the band’s renowned guitar pyrotechnics but filtered through dreamy psych rock, gritty garage rock, prog rock with tons of effects pedals paired with propulsive and forceful drumming and Dwyer’s falsetto. And of course, in typical Thee Oh Sees fashion it’s a thrashing, ass-kicking, sweaty mosh pit worthy song with an atypical, almost jam-like song structure. “Dead Man’s Gun,” Weird Exit’s second single seamlessly meshed garage rock, psych rock, surfer rock and punk as Dwyer’s falsetto and howls are paired with alternating sections of scorching power chords, shimmering reverb and delay pedaled surfer rock and psych rock chords in the song’s quieter sections — with the whole thing being held together by a propulsive rhythm section featuring a throbbing and insistent bass line and a rolling drum pattern.  Interestingly, Weird Exit‘s third and latest single “You Will Find It Here” may arguably be one of the more contemplative and dreamier singles that the band has released to date, as the song begins with a trippy introduction full of shimmering feedback before turning into a slow-burning dirge of sorts in which layers of buzzing and angular guitar chords, twisting and turning organ chords, propulsive cymbal-led drumming and a driving bass line are paired with Dwyer’s equally dreaming falsetto floating over the instrumentation before gently fading out. And in some way, the song evokes a pleasant reverie in which the song’s narrator has spent contemplating their inner self and their place in the universe. Yes, it’s that trippy.

Dwyer and company are finishing a rather lengthy world tour with a full slate of Fall/Winter Stateside shows with Amplified Heat, Straight Arrows, Alex Cameron, Magnetix and my personal favorites The Blind Shake opening for Dwyer and company during various dates — and it includes three NYC area dates: 11/11/16 and 11/12/16 at the Bowery Ballroom and 11/13/16 at Warsaw. Check out tour dates below.

Fall/Winter Tour Dates.

11-01 Tucson, AZ – Rialto Theatre
11-02 El Paso, TX – Lowbrow Palace
11-04 McDade/Austin TX – Sherwood Forest Faire @ Sound on Sound F
11-05 New Orleans, LA – One Eyed Jack’s #
11-06 Memphis, TN – The Hi Tone Cafe #
11-07 Nashville, TN – Mercury Lounge #
11-09 Asheville, NC – Grey Eagle Tavern & Music Hall #
11-10 Philadelphia, PA – Underground Arts ^
11-11 New York, Ny – Bowery Ballroom
11-12 New York Ny @ Bowery Ballroom w/ Straight Arrows
11-13 Brooklyn, NY – Warsaw ^
11-15 Providence, RI – Aurora ^
11-16 Montreal, Quebec – La Tulipe
11-17 Toronto, Ontario – Danforth Theater
11-18 Cleveland, OH – Beachland Ballroom
11-19 Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall
11-20 2016 Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle w/ The Blind Shake, Torture Love
11-23 Missoula, MT – Stage 112
11-25 Seattle, WA – Neumos %
11-27 Portland OR @ Aladdin Theater %
11-26 Vancouver, BC – Rickshaw Theatre %
11-29 San Francisco, CA – The Chapel %
11-30 San Francisco, CA – The Chapel %

# Amplified Heat
^ Straight Arrows
% Alex Cameron
* Magnetix
! Blind Shake

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Zig Zags Returns with Another Blistering, Face-Melting, Anthemic and 80s Metal Inspired New Single and Video

Running Out of Red’s third and latest single “They Came For Us” continue on the same vein as its preceding two singles — enormous, face-melting power chords, thundering drumming and rousingly anthemic hooks paired with lyrics that focus on horror movie themes. And every time I’ve heard this song, I can envision the metalheads at Clem’s, (un-iroinically) headbanging and shouting along with upraised beers and fists.

The recently released music video employs the use of suicidal cult imagery — and in some way, it reveals the dangers of blind obedience and conformity, while also pointing at the lunacy of following an ignorant, narcissistic, power hungry, greedy, authoritarian blowhard like Donald Trump.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of founding members Kristian Bell (vocals) and Gianni Honey (drums) and featuring Daniel Rumsey (bass), along with newest member Mark Breed (keyboards, guitar), the now Brighton, UK-based quartet The Wytches can actually trace its origins to Bell’s and Honey’s previous band together, The Crooked Canes, a Peterborough, UK-based band that the duo have publicly dismissed as being “really adolescent and embarrassing.” After the founding duo played n a few other locally based bands, they moved to Brighton for school and posted an ad for a bassist. Daniel Rumsey, a Dorsey, UK-born singer/songwriter and frontman of Dan Rumsey and The Bitter End, Fall Victim and The Voyage Andromeda was the only person to respond to the ad.

Initially formed as The Witches, the trio changed their name to The Wytches to make the band more searchable on Google. The then trio’s 2014 debut effort Annabel Dream Record was release to critical praise across the blogosphere, and as a result the then trio embarked on a wild, whirlwind period of national and international touring, which helped influenced the newly constituted quartet’s highly-anticipated and recently released follow up, All Your Happy Life.

Reportedly, All Your Happy Life draws from the experiences the band had while touring — including reading a ton of Tolstoy on the tour bus, listening to Elliott Smith, tons of live, underground metal sets and observation small-town English life with completely new eyes. And as you’ll hear on the album’s second and latest single “Crest of Death,” is a furious, bilious and scathing track that’s split into two distinct parts — a screamo/hardcore intro in which Bell’s vocal are paired with dirge-like guitar chords and the song’s anthemic, shout to the rafters chorus and a down-tempo, fucked psychedelia. While evoking a desperate howl into an cold, indifferent void, the song manages to express a bored, nihilistic shrug.

 

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Cinemechanica’s Abrasive, Insistent Sounds and Visuals for “Hang Up The Spurs”

The album’s second single “Hang Up The Spurs” will further cement the trio’s reputation for crafting incredibly abrasive and punishing barn burners consisting of spastic tempo changes, dense layers of slashing, angular guitar chords, rapid fire, staccato drumming that evokes machine guns and furiously howled vocals. It’s frenetic, angry, insistent and full of spastic, whiplash-inducing tempo changes that evoke a furious and pain-filled how into an uncaring, indifferent universe.

Comprised of South Park-like construction paper animation by Travis Betz, the recently released video for “Hang Up The Spurs” possess a surreally nightmarish and grimly violet dream-like logic, in which killer robots roam the Earth and stab everything in their sight, including the soldiers tasked to destroy those killer robots and ends with the moon turned into an angry Medusa that turns everything on the planet into stone.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: JEFF The Brotherhood Performing “Roachin”

Over the summer, I had written quite a bit about Nashville, TN-based sibling duo JEFF The Brotherhood and the first three singles off their latest effort, Zone, an experimental rock album that is the third and final part of a spiritual trilogy of albums that includes 2009’s Heavy Days and 2011’s critically applauded We Are The Champions. The most recent single I wrote about “Roachin” featured Bully‘s Alicia Bognano on vocals in a scorching, power-chord heavy dirge that sounds deeply indebted to 90s alt rock — in particular, the Melvins — as the song structurally consists of alternating quiet and loud sections, and an anthemic hook that you can picture kids moshing out to in a sweaty club. And much like “Punishment” and “Idiot” the single will cement the sibling duo’s reputation for crafting trippy, weed and beer inspired anthems full of enormous power chords and rousing anthemic hooks.
Just as the Nashville, TN-based sibling duo are about to embark on an East Coast tour, which will include a September 27 stop at the Market Hotel, they released live footage of themselves performing “Roachin” — without Bognano — and it should give everyone a sense of their incredible live show.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the past couple years, Memphis, TN-based punk band Ex-Cult emerged into the national scene and became a JOVM mainstay with the release of their sophomore effort 2014’s Midnight Passenger and its follow-up, 2015’s Cigarette Machine EP, two efforts which cemented the act’s reputation for a furious, bruising sound — and an equally intense, bruising live show. 2016 may arguably be the biggest years to date in the band’s history as Famous Class Records released the “Summer of Fear”/”1906” 7 inch last month and the band’s highly-anticipated third full-length Negative Growth is slated for a September 23, 2016 release through  In The Red Records.

As the band’s frontman Chris Shaw explains in press notes, “In the year of the snitch, there are forces beyond your control that keep you up at night. Ghost notions that swirl around your room while you sleep. Your own pillow laughing right in your face while you fight for an hour of rest. There are voices that whisper from the corner, telling you everything you never wanted to hear. Negative Growth, our third album , is dedicated to fear and deception.

“This collection of songs were conceived in Memphis and finalized in Los Angeles with the help of our family doctor, Ty Segall. It was created in February 2016, when we traded Memphis misery for a week of California sunshine. Negative Growth is a nine-track nightmare, a death trip in the crystal ship.” Now, if you were frequenting this site last month you may recall that I wrote about Negative Growth‘s first single “Attention Ritual,” a tense, bilious and abrasively paranoid song that evokes the narrator’s desperate, self-flagellating, self-doubting and fucked up psyche, and the inner voices that fuel one’s anxious nightmares — and on another level, it evokes the absolutely mad times we live in.  The album’s second and latest single “Let You In” is a urgent, desperate howl into an unceasing, cold and uncaring void with all the fury and anger within every sinew and figure of your body.

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Thee Oh Sees Pair Strange, Disturbing Visuals with Their Blistering, Forceful Sound

Earlier this year, I wrote about “Plastic Plant,” the first single off Weird Exit, a single that continues the band’s renowned guitar pyrotechnics but filtered through dreamy psych rock, gritty garage rock, prog rock with tons of effects pedals paired with propulsive and forceful drumming and Dwyer’s falsetto. And of course, in typical Thee Oh Sees fashion it’s a thrashing, ass-kicking, sweaty mosh pit worthy song with an atypical, almost jam-like song structure. “Dead Man’s Gun,” Weird Exit’s second and latest single seamlessly meshes garage rock, psych rock, surfer rock and punk as Dwyer’s falsetto and howls are paired with alternating sections of scorching power chords, shimmering reverb and delay pedaled surfer rock and psych rock chords in the song’s quieter sections, and the whole thing is held together by a propulsive rhythm section featuring a throbbing and insistent bass line and a rolling drum pattern. Every time I hear the Bay Area-based band’s material I’m reminded of how much of a sonic debt they owe to the 60s — but with an underlying sense of menace.

The recently video follows a series of people, who clearly appear to be tweaking on crystal meth and freaking out/rocking out in almost exact rhythm to the song and it’s spliced with sequences of someone making the shit in their basement. In some way, the video evokes the perverse human tendency to be unable to stop looking at something particular gruesome — although we’ll almost always regret it later.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been frequenting JOVM over the past two years you’d be pretty well versed on  Memphis, TN-based synth punk/thrash punk/noise punk quartet Nots. Currently comprised of atalie Hoffman (vocals, guitar) and Charlotte Watson (drums), Madison Farmer (bass) and Alexandra Eastburn (synths), the quartet quickly came to national prominence with their 2014 full-length debut, We Are Nots, an effort that was heavily indebted to 60s garage rock, punk, thrash punk, no wave and new wave. Of course, since the release of their full-length debut, the Memphis-based punk band have been pretty busy as they’ve released a handful of singles that revealed an expansion of the sound that first caught the attention of the blogosphere, while lyrically focusing on deeper, sociopolitical concerns.

September 9, 2016 will mark the release of Nots highly-anticipated sophomore effort Cosmetic through Goner Records, and the album reportedly focuses on and attacks the rough edges between desire, deceit, appearances and reality. Now a couple of months ago I wrote about Cosmetic‘s first single “Entertain Me,” an expansive 7 minute song that found the members of Nots at arguably their noisiest, most frenetic and most sprawling as the song that structurally and sonically was reminscent of The Church‘s “Chaos” and Disappears‘ “Kone”  — but angrier and much more abrasive, as though capturing the frustration, powerlessness of its narrator, a narrator who is struggling to find some footing in a perverse, fucked up world. The album’s latest single “Cold Line,” which was recently released as a 7 inch single to build up buzz for the band’s sophomore effort continues along a similar vein, as the song is as equally tense and frenetic as its predecessor — but with a subtle nod to surfer punk; however, lyrically the song’s narrator focuses on several things — how a hateful world that emphasizes superficiality can create a distorted view of yourself and your own worth, the difficulty of real connection with so many hateful, stupid, bloviating idiots

The band will be embarking on a rather lengthy late summer and fall tour, which will include an October 11 stop at Baby’s All Right. Check out tour dates below.

 

TOUR DATES:
8/12: Helter Swelter Fest – New Orleans, LA
9/17: Riot Fest – Chicago, IL
9/23: Resident DTLA – Los Angeles, CA
9/24: Stinky’s al Fresco – San Francisco, CA
9/29: Gonerfest – Memphis, TN
10/1: Project Pabst Atlanta – Atlanta, GA
10/5: JJ’s Bohemia – Chattanooga, TN
10/6: Duke Coffeehouse – Durham, NC
10/7: Comet Ping Pong – Washington, D.C.
10/11: Baby’s All Right – Brooklyn, NY
10/12: Everybody Hits – Philadelphia, PA
10/13: TBA – Boston, MA
10/14: Casa Del Popolo – Montreal, QC
10/15: Not Dead Yet Fest – Toronto, ON
10/16: Now That’s Class – Cleveland, OH
10/18: Ace of Cups – Columbus, OH
10/19: Marble Bar – Detroit, MI
10/20: Empty Bottle – Chicago, IL
10/21: Riverwest Public House – Milwaukee, WI
10/22: The Eagles 34 Club – Minneapolis, MN
10/23: The Mill – Iowa City, IA
10/24: Off Broadway – St. Louis, MO
Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Hard rocking Denton, TX/Austin, TX-based trio Bad Sports first caught the attention of the blogosphere upon their formation back in 2007; however, it’s been some time since they’ve released any new material as each of their members have been busy with other successful projects — Orville Neely III (guitar and vocals) is also known as the frontman of renowned rock act OBN IIIs, an act that’s been pretty busy over the past two years, as they’ve released two albums over the past two years, while the rhythm section comprised of aniel Fried (drums) and Gregory Rutherford (bass) have been members of Video, an act that has not only recently received attention across the blogosphere, they signed with Jack White‘s Third Man Records, who released Video’s debut effort. Additionally, the duo of Fried and Rutherford are also half of Radioactivity, an act that released Silent Kill through Dirtnap Records last year.

The trio of Neely, Fried and Rutherford had recently reconvened to record a quick series of three songs; however, after the band had written and recorded 7 songs, the folks at Dirtnap Records and the members of the band realized that the songs fit so well together, that they should be released together — but on a 12 inch EP that the band titled Living With Secrets. Interestingly, the material on the Living With Secrets EP  finds the band at yet another change of sonic direction; whereas 2011’s Kings Of The Weekend consisted of punk and power pop-leaning material and and 2014’s Bras consisted of grimy punk, the material on on Living With Secrets will reportedly take on a much darker, bleaker and desperate tone and yet some of their catchiest material they’ve recorded yet.

Living With Secrets‘ first single “Done to Death” still manages to be full of the power chords and propulsive rhythm section that has won each member of Bad Sports attention both within Bad Sports and their individual projects; however, the song manages to have one of most infectious and anthemic hooks they’ve written and recorded while sonically the material sounds as though it owes a debt to the Ramones and to Cheap Trick but focusing on the absolutely hopeless and bleakest shit possible with a subtly weary air. And yet, it’s still a song you can listen to with your friends, raise a beer up to the sky un-ironically and rock the fuck out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Over the past few weeks, I’ve written quite a bit about Nashville, TN-based sibling duo JEFF The Brotherhood, as they’ve released two singles “Punishment,” and “Idiot” off their forthcoming full-length Zone, an experimental rock album that is the third and final part of a spiritual trilogy of albums that includes 2009’s Heavy Days and 2011’s critically applauded We Are The Champions.  The forthcoming album’s third and latest single “Roachin,” features Bully‘s Alicia Bognano on vocals in a scorching, power-chord heavy dirge that sounds deeply indebted to 90s alt rock — in particular, the Melvins —  as the song structurally consists of alternating quiet and loud sections, and an anthemic hook that you can picture kids moshing out to in a sweaty club. And much like “Punishment” and “Idiot,” the album’s latest single will cement the sibling duo’s reputation for crafting trippy, weed and beer inspired anthems full of enormous power chords, infectious and anthemic hooks.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms


Certainly, if you’ve been frequenting this site for some time, you may be familiar with Memphis, TN-based punk band Ex-Cult, a band that emerged into the national scene with the 2014 release of their sophomore effort Midnight Passenger and its follow-up, 2015’s Cigarette Machine EP — and simultaneously, the band became a JOVM mainstay for a raw, angry, bruising sound and live show. Interestingly, 2016 may arguably be one of the biggest years to date in the band’s history as Famous Class Records will be releasing the “Summer of Fear”/”1906” 7 inch on August 12, 2016 and September 23, 2016 will mark the highly-anticipated release of the Memphis, TN-based punk band’s third, full-length album Negative Growth through In The Red Records.

As the band’s frontman Chris Shaw explains in press notes,  “In the year of the snitch, there are forces beyond your control that keep you up at night. Ghost notions that swirl around your room while you sleep. Your own pillow laughing right in your face while you fight for an hour of rest. There are voices that whisper from the corner, telling you everything you never wanted to hear. Negative Growth, our third album , is dedicated to fear and deception.

“This collection of songs were conceived in Memphis and finalized in Los Angeles with the help of our family doctor, Ty Segall. It was created in February 2016, when we traded Memphis misery for a week of California sunshine. Negative Growth is a nine-track nightmare, a death trip in the crystal ship.” And as a result, the album’s first single “Attention Ritual” is a tense, bilious, caustic and paranoid song that evokes the narrator’s desperate, fucked up, self-doubting and self-flagellating inner voices that keeps him up at night, fraught with worry and hatred — and the tense, nightmarish times we live currently live in, in which everything seems  to have gone absolutely mad.