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Chain Whip

Call of the Knife
Neon Taste (2023)

It’s hard to keep the classic genre styles sounding fresh, which is what makes a band like Chain Whip so vibrant. The Vancouver hardcore band play tough-sounding, angry, loud, and fast punk – the type that makes yoo want to punch things. Heck, they named the band Chain Whip and the record is called Call Of The Knife. It’s aurally … Read more

The Immortal Samsara Travellers

Hanging Gardens In Glacial Apocha
Utech (2023)

Drone music is a deceptively difficult genre to get right. Sure, anyone can play very slow and heavy, letting the feedback carry them into obscurity. But in truth, it is all about what happens in the space in between, and the feeling that the artists can transmit. The Immortal Samsara Travellers are more than capable of delivering exactly that with … Read more

Meteor Police

New Type Destroyer
Independent (2023)

Ocean County, New Jersey four piece, Meteor Police, mean business and have gone above and beyond to ensure their debut album New Type Destroyer gets the attention it deserves. This ten track album showcases their talent not just as musicians but the whole package, from recording quality to the artwork and marketing of the finished product. New Type Destroyer arrived … Read more

Billy Liar

Crisis Actor
Pirates Press (2023)

I really liked Some Legacy when it released, listening a lot in 2019-2020. Then it kind of slipped off my radar, as records tend to do as somebody who gets a ton of new music. Now, Billy Liar is back with new record and this one is equally vibrant. Billy Liar is a Scottish musician, sometimes playing solo and sometimes … Read more

Lambrini Girls

You're Welcome
Big Scary Monsters (2023)

Red Hot Chili Peppers, Cake, Iron & Wine, Meat Puppets, Blind Melon, Peaches, Neutral Milk Hotel, Lemon Demon and The Sugarcubes. While stylistically these bands are essentially alien to one another they do have one unifying quality. Bands named after food and drink have a long lineage. As a side note, I have a major beef with online lists of … Read more

Hanoi Rocks

Oriental Beat (40th Anniversary)
Svart Records (2023)

Hanoi Rocks has always been pigeonholed as a hair metal band along the lines of bands like Faster Pussycat, Poison, LA Guns, Ratt, Warrant etc.. However, their allegiance has always been more so with forefathers in the skin of the New York Dolls. Drawing from the Doll's panache for wearing women's attire, high heels and carefully fixated palate of pancake … Read more

Ogives

La M​é​moire des Orages
Sub Rosa (2023)

Ogives are led by ambition. That is the easiest way to describe the newly formed, nine-piece from Belgium. Featuring members of the criminally underrated, and equally ambitious Helium Horse Fly, Ogives make a start to their discography with the 75-minute long opus, La M​é​moire des Orages (roughly translated to The Memory of Storms.) And it is very much a storm … Read more

Pack Sounds

Real Gusto
Friend Club Records (2023)

“Keep it simple / It’s not that hard / Just play three chords / On the chorus part” That lyric comes from “Paper Bag Palpitations, “the final song on Real Gusto, but it covers the whole record quite well. Pack Sounds are an emo-tinged punk band that plays driving and energetic music that moves forward rather than looking back. It’s … Read more

Nobro

Set Your Pussy Free
Dine Alone (2023)

Last year I discovered Nobro through their EP Live Your Truth, Shred Some Gnar. I cheated a bit and included this EP on my (albums only) yearlist. I still return to that EP (and the one before that) often. So you can imagine, my expectations were sky high. And that made me afraid: was I expecting too much from this … Read more

The Shits

You’re A Mess
Rocket Recordings (2023)

With their origin dating to the late ‘10s, I was quite amazed to find in Discogs that this is only the fifth instance of a band named The Shits. However, I am not taking into account the many out there who feel the need to adorn the famous noun with an adjective. The Sniveling Shits, The Tough Shits, the list … Read more

The Telescopes

Experimental Health
Weisskalt (2023)

There has been a lot of excitement about The Telescopes’ latest record, Of Tomorrow, and rightly so. Yet earlier in the year, the historic act from England put out another record through the small, independent Aussie record label Weisskalt. Experimental Health is the ying to Of Tomorrow’s yang, tilting much more towards the experimental side of the band, but without … Read more

Rebuilder

Local Support
Iodine (2023)

In an era of searching for nostalgia, Boston natives Rebuilder have managed to remind us that living in the present isn’t so bad after all —and if it is, there’s always support. With their sophomore album Local Support, Rebuilder has captured what it means to persist as a local, gnarly punk band in the ever-changing world both in and outside … Read more

Merger

Second To Last
Impetus (2023)

Merger was a short lived band that was active between 2017 and 2019. In that time the band recorded one EP. Now, years after the band quit, this single is the first of two planned releases. This EP is my introduction to the band. It was not an easy introduction. In fact, it took me a lot of time to … Read more

Anton Ponomarev / Guillaume Cazelet

Pyrocene
Utech (2023)

Another one for Guillaume Cazelet, the prolific artist from avant-garde icons Neptunian Maximalism and his solo black metal project Ôros Kaù. This time around Cazelet collaborates with Anton Ponomarev, a fellow maniac from free improvisational fiends P/O Massacre. With their new work, Pyrocene, the duo lets go completely of any form or notion and drives straight into the abstract domain … Read more

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