This album was such a pleasant surprise at the start of the year. After eight years of silence I thought they had disbanded. Sometimes it is good to be wrong, right? Youth Avoiders pick up right where they left 8 years ago and play that sweet fast yet very melodic style of hardcore punk. What sets them apart is their guitar tone, that is not as thick and distorted as you might expect from the style and their superb songwriting. Ten tracks, just over twenty minutes, loads of excellent riffs and a perfect production, this is a recipe for goosebumps. This is on regular rotation and deserves to be on the top of this list.

Prisonnier Du Temps is the solo project of Jacky Cadiou who has already made waves with other bands he is involved in. Syndrome 81 may be the best known of the bunch, but you might also have heard of Fine Equipe or Grisaille just to name a couple. This is the second album under the Prisonnier Du Temps moniker. Where the debut (Comme Un Lion) was more straightforward OI! this new album tries out a couple of new things, creating new possibilities for OI! It is wild, anthemic and very melodic. An incredible album and a huge step forward compared to (the already good) debut. I hope to see other bands following their lead and be just a little bit more adventurous.

Third Ego strikes again. The title of the record, More Ego, says it all. If you like their debut, you'll like this one as well, as you get a second serving. I like that they kept things the same: great production, great songwriting, great artwork, great performances allround. What do they do? Lazily I'll quote what I wrote in my column about their debut as it also applies to this record: Third Ego must have decided it was time to upgrade the sound of The Wipers to this century, hell, to this decade. And they more than succeeded. This record is brilliant in its catchy songwriting. This is not an overly aggressive record, this is a mature band that knows their worth and delivers their music with a certain swag. The end result is a very addictive record that will get a lot of spins.

Adult Oriented D-beat? Uhhhh.... Well, if that's what they want to call themselves, I'm okay with it. What it is? It is D-beat actually. What sets them apart are the vocals. Emilie sang in Bombardement, but had to leave that band due to vocal cord issues, yet here she is again, fronting another D-beat band. This time singing clean, and it works like a charm, opening up new opportunities. There's so much melody on this album, which combined with the aggression and urgency of D-beat gives this band a unique twist on the genre.

I got to know this band through the first single they released on Wap Shoo Wap Records (Tomorrow (Might Never Come) / Used To Be A Tiger) which I liked so much I kept an eye out for new material. I was hooked before intro-track "Street Boogie Confidential" was finished. In fact, when the air raid siren and drums kick in around forty seconds in, that was it. That beat... just savage (pun intended)! What follows is a little over half an hour of unadultered rock n roll fun. There's plenty of late seventies punk and early OI! influences to be found sprinkeled throughout the record. In the end, this is just such a fun record you can spin it again and again.