Tag: Slovenly Recordings

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Crocodiles Side Project Psychic Pigs Share a Noisy and Gritty Ripper

San Diego-based singer/songwriter and musician Brandon Welchez is best known for being one-half of the grade psych pop duo Crocodiles. Over the past two decades, Welchez’s work has gravitated to the mid fi and melodic end of the sonic spectrum.

However, Welchez’s latest project Psychic Pigs shows a much different side of his work and sound, revealing that the raw and bleeding hardcore punk and power pop bands on the Killed by Death compilations have influenced his work as much as The Jesus and Mary Chain has been on him. The project can trace its origins to when Welchez started writing music he knew was too discordant for Crocodiles’ pop-leaning sound.

Slated for a May 23, 2025 release through Slovenly Recordings, Psychic Pigs’ self-titled, full-length debut was recorded last April in London over a breakneck four day recording session with Fucked Up‘s and Career Suicide‘s Jonah Falco handling production and drums. Once they were finished recording the album’s material, Welchez returned to the states with the goal of forming a live band that could replicate the aggressive, live-to-record sound capture on the recordings.

Connections made throughout Welchez’s two-plus decade music career proved fruitful with the band’s live lineup featuring members of Fake Fruits, Surfbort and Choir Boy, including Welchez (vocals, guitar), Bee Wright (lead guitar), Jeff Kleinman (bass) and John Hodge (drums).

The project will make its live debut on March 19, 2025 at Los Angeles‘ The Escondite and they’ll play their record release show at Permanent Records Roadhouse in late May. And from my understanding more live dates are to come. But in the meantime, the self-titled album’s first single and album title track “Psychic Pigs” is a breakneck and noisy ripper featuring scorching riffage, thunderous drumming paired with Welchez’s adopting an old school punk sneer. Of course, because Welchez has spent the past two decades as one-half of Crocodiles, “Psychic Pigs” will remind some fans of Crimes of Passion-era Crocodiles — think of a song like “Cockroach” — but with a gritty beer and sweat soaked vibe.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms
Priors is a Montreal, Quebec, Canada-based punk rock outfit that specializes in relentlessly pummeling garage punk with a dystopian attitude. The Canadian garage punk band’s soon-to-released sophomore album New Pleasure is slated for a release next Friday through Slovenly Records, and the album is reportedly a major step forward for the band — and as you’ll hear from album singles “Heart Strings” and “Provoked,” the band’s sound is centered around lacerating, fuzzy power chord-based riffs, rapid fire drums, skittering analog synths and punchily delivered shouts and howls — and interestingly, the album’s first two singles manage to evoke the creeping sense of anxious  fury that we’re all feeling on an increasing basis, as we live in a mad and delusional world in which our “leaders” have relativized commonly accepted fact, and accept all the things that will lead to our annihilation.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Perhaps best known as members of now-defunct New York-based punk rock act Livids, Daniel Kelley (guitar, vocals) and Gregory Collins (drums) decided to start a new project, Moral Panic, with which they intended to playing much more minimalist and raw punk. Kelley and Collins recruited Mark Brei (bass) to complete the lineup, before developing a reputation across punk rock circles for blistering, face-melting punk. And as you’ll hear on “Ripped Jeans,” the first single off their recently released self-titled, full-length debut through Slovenly Recordings is a band whose sound draws from Canadian facemelters METZ, old-school NYC hardcore, complete with punchily delivered lyrics, anthemic hooks and a scuzzy, sneering gutter punk air. It brings back memories of The Continental, Coney Island High, CBGBs, The Acme Underground and Brownies and catching punk shows with $5, $6 $8 covers.

 

 

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Fronted by brothers Jim Blaha (baritone guitar and vocals) and Mike Blaha (guitar and vocals) with their buddy Dave Roper (drums), the Minneapolis, MN-based trio The Blind Shake have been a vital part of Minneapolis’ […]