‘This brittle lace obscures my sight, In my palms bleeding since last night, My limbs disjointing – won’t you stay? Love Still Unknown, drink decay’ (In The Sepulchre)

In many respects, death rock and doom metal could be said to share the same emotional orbits.  Yet musically, those emotions typically manifest themselves rather differently, propulsive melancholy versus monolithic resolve.  This probably accounts for why few have sought to directly meld these influences.  Sin Offering, on the other hand, are more than happy to take up the challenge and do so with an impressively inventive economy.

Drawing members from Altar Of Eden and Lifeless Dark among many others, Guilty is the trio’s debut full-length, assuredly building on their 2023 demo, Charnel House.  It is an album that revels in space, allowing momentum to inexorably develop, before choosing just the right moment to flex a more assertive dynamic.  The hefty fuzz of the rhythm guitar and limber percussion bring to mind Cathedral when they would give rein to their rockier impulses, while infectiously mournful melodies and chunkily resonant bass lines bathe proceedings in a rather more shimmering post-punk hue.

Conceptually, Guilty draws on the writings of two authors whose own writing was long held subservient to that of their husbands, namely Mary Shelley and Colette, contextualised through with the work of French philosopher, Georges Bataille.  The drawled, languidly restrained vocals deploy these writings to evocatively explore themes of guilt and self-worth, innocence and self-abasement.  From the languorous grooves of Without Sanctuary to the darkly urgent Perfect Hem, by way of the surging Ingenue, it conjures a bleakly seductive embrace that you won’t want to resist.

‘Remember always know your place, And you must never win the race, Keep yourself clouded in confusion, Keep buying into the illusion of choice’ (Hierarchy)

Where The Dregs Dwell is the debut album from Crazy Clue.  They are an Anglo-Canadian collaboration featuring Bobby Cole (Pleasure, Total Con) alongside two parts of Fucked Up, Jonah Falco and Mike Haliechuk.  This is 1980s’ inspired hardcore that draws with equal relish from both the US and Scandinavian traditions.

Cole and Falco deliver exactly what you would hope and expect with vicious intent.  The former spits and snarls his vocals as he lyrically deconstructs a society enslaved to the self-serving, all enveloping logic of the free market.  Meanwhile, Falco delivers a pummelling rhythmic battery that is relentlessly unforgiving.  Haliechuk’s blistering riffage is equally compelling and that alone would be enough to deliver the invigorating statement intended.

But it is arguably the dissonant melodicism that Haliechuk laces through the onslaught, which introduces an enticingly unexpected dimension.  The discordantly fuzzed chimes prime the frenetic opener, Social Pressure, then flare like a demonic organ during Slavedriver, before fuelling the searingly unhinged Ambivalence and infusing Control with a squalling psychedelia.  There is a slight change a gear for the finale with Broken Spirit, a raucously anthemic call to shed lethargic despondency and to fight back.

‘In questa stagione son florià nulla, La prossima macirà tutto, Verde, Contagio, Raccolto putrido, Gli animali sotto un cielo velenoso e statico’ (Raccolto Putrido) / ‘This season, nothing will bloom, In the next, all will rot, Green, Contagion, Putrid Harvest, The animals beneath a sky, poisoned and still’ (Putrid Harvest)

New Yorks’s Mirage return with their second full-length, following up 2024’s Legato Alla Rovina (Bound To Ruin) and their 2022 debut 7-inch, Immagini Postume (Posthumous Images).  It sees the band continue to forge their savage reimagining of fiercely agitated 1980s’ Italian hardcore, one that is dexterously braided through with darkly discordant, manically off-kilter flashes of post-punk inclined melodicism and barbarously psychedelic smears.

The base delivery is as frantically writhing as ever.  Yet, the band continue to give space for a crystalline melancholy to unfurl – including two palate cleansing interludes – and to bring a burly groove to bear as and when the occasion demands.  Meanwhile, the Italian vocals segue from rasping snarls to ominously semi-spoken tirades as they confront the seemingly remorseless cycle of oligarchical exploitation, climatic catastrophe, and militarised violence.

The sinewy convulsions of Sole Spento (Extinguished Sun). The choppily assertive Portatore Dellultimo Dono (Bearer Of The Last Gift).  The jaggedly melodic Sono Un Abominio (I Am An Abomination).  The metallic tinged, dissonance flecked muscularity of Raccolto Putrido (Putrid Harvest).  The highlights slam home with an unflinching, satisfyingly serpentine regularity.

‘Surrender to technology, Abandon the burden of thought, Endless content to lull you, To sleep a dreamless sleep, That’s what they call progress’ (Unholy Creation)

There is still something distinctively powerful in how the dynamics and aesthetics of 1980s’ UK anarcho-punk continue to speak to our current social condition.  Perhaps, a reflection of how so many of the seeds of destruction were rooted in the neoliberal rationalities that insidiously embedded themselves during that era.

The self-titled debut album from Richmond Virginia’s Dream World takes these inspirations and reignites them with a fury very much of this time and this place.  Urgent, semi-shouted vocals and pounding martial rhythms lock into a rat-a-tat synchronicity amid the surging riffage.  The themes of entrenched economic inequality, worker exploitation, and surveillance capitalism can be traced back with a sobering singularity to the warnings first exhorted some forty years ago.

Dream World’s stirring reimagining is delivered with a precise economy and a deftly understated flair that also calls back to the experimental energies that fuelled those initial pioneers.  Unholy Creation and New Hell fulminate with a classic anarcho-punk velocity.  Then, the searing Submission lets the riffage rip, while Yes Man erupts with a more frenzied immediacy.  Before, haunting melodies and solemn spoken word see the band poignantly rework Sara Teasdale’s 1918 anti-war poem, Soft Rains.

Virginia’s Destruct and Toronto’s Absolut finally realise a longstanding aspiration to join forces, contributing three new tracks each to this split EP.

‘They deliberate, And feed your dreams, With their desire, For mass corruption’ (Truth In The Lie)

Destruct have been on impressively prolific form since the release of their second full-length, 2023’s Cries The Mocking Mother Nature.  With admirable consistency, they have since released a series of excellent splits – Screaming Death (a four-way split album with Dissekerad, Rat Cage, and Scarecrow), To Stop The Conflict (a split 12-inch with Life), and a split 7-inch with Svaveldioxid, before this latest collaboration with Absolut.

It will come as no surprise that the band’s trademark onslaught is fully present and correct, brutally fusing their metallic crust and raw punk inspirations.  The relentless waves of discordant riffage and barrage of d-beat rhythms form a seething backdrop to the roared denunciations of a political system rooted inextricably in militarised violence and economic greed.  My personal highlight is Non-P.N.W.  The midway point when they lock into a fierce cymbal awash groove is particularly killer.

‘Burning light, Stains the eyes, Tanks roll through, Innocence buried under, A new home, You saw it happen’ (S.I.H.)

Absolut have been unleashing their battery of d-beat fuelled raw punk for over a decade now, previously collaborating with the likes Paranoid and Svaveldioxid.  Their contributions are a savage blend of barked, echo drenched vocals and brightly flamboyant metallic solos amid the surging distortion as they confront the willingness of many to turn a blind eye to the horrors that surround us.  It is an uncompromising blend that lands with a particular velocity on the bludgeoning intensity of Otherside.

‘Brutal occupation, violent competition, Power at all costs, silence opposition, No peace in our time, no peace on our minds, No final conflict, war rages until the end of time’ (Brutal Occupation)

Hot on the heels of last year’s debut full-length, Meat Locker, Portland’s Alienator are back with a new four track EP.  And as you would expect, each of the staples that make them such an uncompromising treat are firmly in place.  Bruising breakdowns, shrieking divebombs, fleeting solos, and burly backing vocals are all welded together with a brutal ferocity.  If anything, the gutturally roared vocals have taken an even more nihilistic turn – the glimmers of hope that previously flickered seemed to have been lost, submerged by an all-pervasive contempt.

The Truth, with its cascading metallic leads, and the galloping Eaten Alive get things underway in no uncertain terms.  However, the intensity manages to step up another gear on the flip side.  Never Enough seethes around a venomous central riff before barrelling towards its stomping finale, while the title track burns with a choppy fury and Middle Eastern tinged solos.

‘Wake up cold as ice, Beathing, not alive, Deprived of sensation, Never could be trusted, They know what’s best for me’ (Best For Me)

Stilted 1950s’ educational voice overs.  Savagely whiplash stop-start rhythms.  Powerviolence fuelled hardcore that promotes bludgeoning velocity over speed alone and yet draws on a rich tapestry of influences.  Brain Tourniquet are back with second full-length and follow-up to 2023’s …An Expression In Pain.

Sinking Deeper Into Madness tells the story of a lobotomy – the regret, the fear, the pain.  Despite widespread opposition among neurosurgeons, this now discredited practise (whereby mental illness is treated by severing brain connections) became widely popularised between the 1940s and 1970s.  Its rise was a function of a preoccupation with productivity rather than patient welfare and is now subject to severe legal restrictions.

It is an album that is defined by the tensions that shape it.  Blast beat eruptions wrestle with monolithic industrial rhythms, shimmering cymbals deftly dancing amid the brutality.  The ominously lumbering bass jousts with cleaner, tautly lean guitar, which itself segues from jazz-tinged wah-wah to thrashing ferocity.  The vocals a guttural growl but one that is readily legible as it guides us through the horror.

The trio are deeply rooted in the Washington DC hardcore scene.  The breadth of this experience – Laughing Corpse and Red Death by way of Genocide Pact and Truth Cult to name but a few – vividly colours the onslaught.   The clanking intensity and whispered menace of Concentrate contrasts with the swaggering bass lines and blast beats of Eyes Wide Open and the jagged melodicism of This Is Forever with the funky grooves of Can You Call This A Life?

And then after being pummelled into submission by nine, venomously crafted 60 second eruptions, the album ends of with a cover of The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows – a languidly spaced out, six-minute psychedelia fuelled wig out as a human mind finally dissolves.

‘Let’s kill the mundane, Let’s stop the wasting, Let’s go to war against the bankruptcy of beauty’ (Let’s Go To War)

Consensus Madness derive their name from an interview with essayist John Dolan, where he described the collective delusion that fed the narrative around weapons of mass destruction in the run up to the invasion of Iraq.  How hegemonic ideas continue to grip our lives is at the heart of Endeavors.  How the market knows best.  Health, housing, the environment reduced to mere units of profit.  All of which breeds an insecurity and a listlessness that inhibits our ability to meaningfully resist.

This is the band’s debut album and follow-up to their self-titled debut 7-inch.  They first came together through a shared yearning for a project that took things back to basics.  And their rich pedigree playing across Chicago’s hardcore punk community – with everyone from Canal Irreal to Earth Girls – ensures that their aim is not only fulfilled but is executed with a notably assured verve.

First wave punk hooks and early 1980s’ USHC bristle form the base.  This is then injected with a more contemporary garage punk fizz that sees the sharply clean guitar lock in tight with the deeply resonant bass lines and fiercely propulsive drums.  Meanwhile, the nasal, playfully acidic vocals unpick our malaise with a wryly unforgiving eye and an intriguing call back to the lyrical stylings of 1980s’ UK anarcho-punk.  The sardonic snap of Superfund and the taut agitation of Living & Dying capture the spirit perfectly, before the more languidly melancholic close of Everyday.

‘It’s easy to think like the crowd. It’s easy to live like the crowd. It’s easy to be a part of the queue. It’s easy to stand in line. It’s easy to repeat what others say to you. It must be easy, cos that’s all you do.’ (Live Like The Crowd)

Alien Nosejob is the nom de guerre of one Jake Robertson, a staple of the Australian DIY punk community.  A solo endeavour for recording purposes, this is the project’s eighth album in as many years.  However, what always surprises is the sheer gamut of influences and styles that these albums have explored since the project’s earliest hardcore iterations – KBD punk, garage rock, indie pop, and synth fuelled new wave have all benefited from Robertson’s inventively anarchic touch.

Anti-Fade has been the long-term Australian home to Alien Nosejob, along with collaborative international sojourns for each individual release with the likes of Drunken Sailor, Feel It, and Total Punk.  So, the fact that How A Mosquito Operates sees a return to Iron Lung gives a clear hint that this latest instalment is a bracing return to the twitching, whiplash hardcore origins of the project.

This proves a well-placed expectation as we career back to those original 1980s’ USHC influences, which are then filtered through Robertson’s ever distinctive lens.  It imbues the seventeen tracks with both a fierce immediacy and a still untamed virtuosity, as the rasping vocals caustically dissect the pressures and confinements of everyday life.  It sees the snarling hardcore eruptions of Born Loyal and Neo, together with the bruising stomp of Westside Story, nestle seamlessly alongside rather more off kilter turns, such as the full-on rock strut of The Executioner and the woozy organ of Stupid Smiles.

‘As I drown in unforgiving daylight, I keep myself afloat on a melody, I jam it in a bottle and screw the lid on, And send the future some positive energy’ (Nausea)

Berlin centred Diät have never been the most prolific of touring bands.  Mind you, anyone who had the pleasure of catching their blistering set at 2016’s Static Shock Weekend IV will testify that this has certainly not dampened their live prowess.  This sparing appetite has dictated that shows have tended to be at weekenders and festivals rather than smaller clubs, making this recording all the more unique, capturing as it does the band in action at S.O.36 in September 2022.

As you would anticipate, the eleven-track set draws heavily on the band’s two full-lengths, 2015’s Positive Energy and 2019’s Positive Disintegration.  But it also includes a couple of rarer cuts never previously put to vinyl, namely opener Youth Of Neukölln and Dead Body.

Punk live recordings are inherently difficult propositions to nail.  They need to find a way to convey the sheer energy of the performance and the intimacy of the band-crowd interaction, while still producing a snapshot that stands on its own two feet.  This is a balance that is deftly struck here.

There is a rawness to the delivery, one that evokes that night’s atmosphere without overwhelming the identity of the individual tracks.  Indeed, it introduces some intriguing new textures and shades to familiar friends such as We, Hurricane, and Young & Successful.  The plaintive guitars chime with the band’s soaring trademark melancholy and the rhythm section isn’t afraid to assert itself in the mix.  Meanwhile, the disdainfully detached vocals conjure a darkly poetical narrative of crushed hopes, evaporating time, and a world slowly consuming itself through economic self-interest.

‘I can’t see the skyline anymore, there is no concept of rise and fall, I am totally eclipsed by your unmoving vision, blurry’ (Horse Eating An Apple)

Somebody’s Gotta Do It is the debut album from Team Work, a duo spanning Berlin (Lise Sutter) and Baton Rouge (Ronni What).  The chunkily elastic bass lines and crisply syncopated rhythms will immediately put at ease anyone who has had the pleasure of encountering Sutter’s other band Maraudeur.  However, they are deployed to underpin a sonic tapestry that evolves in some otherwise decidedly unexpected directions.

What emerges is an intriguing fusion of motorik post-punk that is infused with languid, dub fringed alt-folk, say in the vein of Porta D’oro, and with an equal penchant for leaning eagerly into flourishes of off-kilter discordance that bring to mind Puppet Wipes at their most abrasively obtuse.  Horse Eating An Apple emphatically captures this dynamic.  The gently murmured vocals entwine with the restrained martial drums and an ethereal melancholy, luring you into the track’s hypnotic embrace, before it sharply ruptures into dissonance, and then slips equally abruptly back into its original reverie.

This beguiling invention is matched by the psychedelic oscillations of (Bring More This Time) and the haunting closer, Would We Have A Would-Workshop?.  The latter is laced with mournfully agitated violin and clicking clock percussion to utterly mesmerising effect.  Instrumental tracks are woven throughout the album and their nimble blending of field recordings, noisescapes, and acoustic instrumentation, most notably on Crickets Speaking, further heighten the atmosphere of languorous experimentation.

‘Done up in a suit and tie, never asking the what or why, crunching numbers at my desk, turned my back to all my friends’ (Fate Worse Than Death)

Originally formed in Bloomington, Indiana back in 2012, The Cowboys are now spread far and wide across the Americas.  But they return here in fine style, on this their seventh full-length, and follow-up to 2023’s Sultan Of Squat.  They continue to craft a rich melding of garage punk and alt-country, all imbued with a healthy slug of pop psychedelia.

Brightly shimmering guitars, bold yet fleeting solos, and a crisply upbeat rhythm section create a jauntily invigorating energy, one that the chiming vocals and harmonized backing are only too happy to match.  These elements are reworked and layered with an admirable fluidity as The Cowboys hone nineteen, tautly constructed two-minute nuggets that fizz with quiet invention and subtle textural shifts.

This breezy melodicism though belies a rather more melancholic lyrical inclination as the band weave together a series of colourful vignettes from the trials, disappointments, and small betrayals of everyday life.  Personal highlights are the choppily catchy Fate Worse Than Death and the rollicking Penascola, not to mention the febrile exultations of Sisters Of Correction.

The latest slab from Brain Tourniquet, Sinking Deeper Into Madness, is now available for pre-order.  Our estimated shipping date is Friday 16th October.  I’ve not yet had a chance to dive into the album fully myself, but here is what Iron Lung Records have to say…

Iron Lung Records has long been fans of the concept album, especially in the punk context. When you have something to say and you take your time to say it, the message sinks in a lot deeper. BRAIN TOURNIQUET has made a crushing and harshly heavy example of this ethos with serious mental health commentary. While powerviolence/hardcore/punk influence of Crossed Out, Man Is The Bastard, and Mind Eraser are at its core, ‘Sinking Deeper Into Madness’, the band’s second album, also incorporates heavy doses of Swans’ bleakness, personal actualizations from outdated self-help tapes, and boundary pushing sonics from 70’s prog.

‘Sinking Deeper Into Madness’ tells the story of an unnamed protagonist whose family urges him to get a lobotomy after experiencing a manic episode. The protagonist ultimately decides to go through with the procedure and experiences extreme bouts of joy, fear, regret, and remorse until his mind ultimately disintegrates into total emptiness.

200 copies on opaque yellow, 500 copies on black 140gr vinyl housed in a 24pt reverse board jacket with insert included. Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Matthew Michel with additional tracking by Louis Hardy. Art by M.B.

FFO: Crossed Out, Mind Eraser, Swans, Man Is The Bastard

‘What does it feel like, to look into your soul, so curdled you’ve forgotten, anything other than the bottom line, that you’ve gotta be out for yourself, a better world is possible’ (Grievance Process)

The opening track, Glamour Shocks, erupts with a riff of unbridled, neanderthal velocity.  As it venomously slams your body side to side, the utterly bludgeoning drums lay into you with a similarly uncompromising intensity.  Before, the lead guitar sparks into life with a serpentine tautness that seems designed solely to taunt and tease its burlier counterparts.

Chicago’s Daddy’s Boy had gone a little quiet since their 2022 debut, Great News!  However, they now return in utterly rampant fashion.  The key lies in the searing tension they conjure between the deft and the destructive.  The muscular heft of the rhythm guitar jousts with melodic leads of savagely angular dexterity.  At times, the rhythm section seems interested in delivering nothing but a battering of sledgehammer brutality, yet then intertwines just shy of blast beat volleys with deliciously fluid, jazz-tinged excursions.

The semi-spoken, semi-shouted vocals are riven with a fierce tension all of their own.  They balance a desperate urgency with a sardonic detachment, a bleak despair with an innate sense of optimism that all hope is not yet lost as they confront a society being suffocated by the totalising logic of the market that feeds on relentlessly turning us against one another.

The helter-skelter intensity is remorseless.  Divorce is bruising and skittering in equal measure.  The darkly sombre tirade of Free Speech Zone.  The contorting twists and blistering turns of Someone Else’s Home.  Meanwhile, the combative exhortations of the violently juddering Polite tell us in no uncertain terms that our silence will not save us.  But Daddy’s Boy just might.

‘Someone’s knocking at your door, Knocking every thirty seconds, Arrows strapped across his back, Just another violent peasant’ (Violent Peasant)

We live in an age that valorises speed over all else and where patience is in terminally short supply in every facet of life.  Everything must happen now.  No, right now.  No Fun At All is living proof of the value of taking things rather slower.  The benefits of properly laying the groundwork, honing your craft, and putting in the hard yards on the road.  Philadelphia’s Mesh formed back in 2019 and released their first self-titled cassette two years later.  And now, they are ready to put their best foot forward on their debut album.  This is punk slow cooked for maximum flavour.

The quartet are rooted the traditions of 1980s’ UK post-punk, which they have then laced with a healthy dash of more contemporary indie punk, and perhaps a touch more rhythmic muscle than this blend might at first imply.  Yet, what stands out above all else is the sheer quality of the songcraft, which is riven through with both a tensile economy and a spry energy.  The rhythm section locks in with a limber bounce, while the guitars, both six- and twelve-string, weave a brightly interweaving web of melodies that are worked and reworked to the point where they simply cannot be shaken.

This melodic layering is adroitly partnered with the nasally drawled vocals and their harmonised backing as they wryly tussle with a lived reality of exploitative landlords, stultifying work, and rigged economics – feudalism resurrected.  Hold On To and Violent Peasant kick things off with a tight, vivid urgency, while the shimmering jangle of Atrophy and Sign inject a notably more pop inclined shimmy.  Before, the solemn, cello braided dual vocals of Weapon Of Peace and the agitated stomp of 5G ensure expectations continue to be subtly subverted to the very end.

‘Fear is the mind killer, do not fear, Spread passion, like fire in the field, Spread ideas, like fire in the bush, Spread dreams, like fire in the trees’ (Ishmael)

Hailing from the Pacific Northwest, Odor Eater are a duo comprising of Hayley Moore (also of Fugitive Bubble) on vocals and Logan Devlin on electronics.  Their debut album is one deeply immersed in the aesthetic of 1980s’ new wave, a decidedly contagious love letter that they then deftly enrich with a more contemporary post-punk sensibility.

The pulsing bass lines are drenched in a comforting analogue warmth.  In contrast, the synth leads glisten with an altogether icier demeanour and one that matches the skittering fusillade of bleeps and squalls that lend a futuristic sheen to this evocation of a past era.  A more leftfield dynamic is introduced by Moore’s clarinet, which is deployed to sparing yet dramatic effect, woozily haunting in striking contrast to the angular electronics (not least on the instrumental track, Tunnels).

Moore’s vocals also provide a vibrant counterpoint, marrying gothic tinged power with a playful pop sensibility that is aided and abetted by Devlin’s rather more deadpan backing.  However, this innate playfulness does not detract from the lyrical sharpness as the duo grapple with themes of genocide, democratic disenfranchisement, and the ways in which insecurity is fermented to stifle resistance.

The richness of this palette ensures an album that never lulls into repetitive patterns.  From the infectiously jagged 85 Decibels to the stridently melodic title track, and then from the jauntily understated Defunct to the dance fuelled fervency of Ishmael, Odor Eater work their way under your skin with an insidious inevitability.

‘They keep reducing our reality so we breakdown on command.  They keep reducing our reality so we will never understand.  They tell us that we’re weak and to stay afraid.’ (Reduced Reality)

Mason City’s Why Bother? may not play live but they do put the time saved to great effect.  Beyond Step One is the band’s ninth album since their 2021 debut, all nine being released on Feel It.  As admirable as such productivity is, it would mean little if there was a diminishing creative return.  However, nothing could be further from the truth as Why Bother? continue to flex in intriguing new directions.

In many respects, Beyond Step One sees the band show increased restraint and more ambition in equal measure across its sixteen tracks.  The structural innovation manifests itself in the spoken word tracks that alternate throughout the album.  These fractured, bleakly poetic passages are intertwined with unsettling, noise infused electronica.  Each was composed and narrated by the band’s fifth member who is currently incarcerated in Anamosa State Prison, and they provoke a sense of eerie unease that has come to define the band’s most recent recordings.

These passages intersperse the band’s more classically constructed tracks.  Here, there is a real sense of a more stripped back simplicity being in play as the languidly drawled vocals tease out a quietly surreal social satire spanning agricultural pollution to a society willingly subsuming itself to AI.  Ragged, lo-fi garage punk remains at the heart of their sound and is laced with a distinctly off-kilter pop sensibility, a partnership perfectly embodied by the choppily languorous Farm Pollution and the hazy surge of The Final Ride

These tracks are largely shorn of the electronic leaning elements that we have come to expect.  Instead, these are confined to accompanying the spoken word interludes, a separation that serves to provide a crisp clarity between the two elements.  This is a distinction that is maintained throughout until the rousing Proceed, which draws everything together into a fevered climatic reverie.

‘Five eyes watching, Our every move, Our privacy abused, No more security, When you have nothing to prove’ (State Surveillance)

Heady times in Wakefield. The town’s rugby league side is flying high for the first time in many years.  A wobble in recent weeks though may see those dreams end in tatters. But at least they have the perfect soundtrack to capture this pain with the debut 7-inch from their very own Face Off.

Now, while Face Off hail from West Yorkshire, their sound is one very much rooted in the pioneering West Coast USHC of the early 1980s.  After the atmosphere priming intro, the first three tracks are tightly coiled sixty second eruptions.  All taut guitars and tightly frenetic rhythms, while the breathlessly snarled vocals take aim at the corporate-military nexus and the panopticon gaze that increasingly shapes our lives.

Face Off then become altogether more expansive on the searing closer, Pull The Pin (I Will Explode).  The first half careers along, before locking into a crushing mid-paced groove at the mid-point and then accelerating all over again as it hurtles towards its frenzied, melody flecked climax.  Pull The Pin? I don’t mind if I do.

‘Trapped in my conscience, And all the promises unkept, The pain is real, Had all that I can take, Can’t compensate the way that you feel’ (Admission Of Guilt)

Repeat Offender draw their members from across Southern California’s Oi (Castillo, Combat Zone) and hardcore punk (Enemy, S.O.H.) communities.  While their debut 7-inch, 2021’s Summary Execution, reflected those pedigrees quite evenly, their first full-length sees the latter influences begin to win the arm wrestle as Weapon Fetish uncompromisingly barrels through our speakers.

From the outset, there is a swaggering velocity in play.  The bass sits resonantly front and centre of the battery as the drums lock in with a burly synchronicity.  The guitars see a healthy interplay between a rhythmic heft, pit sparking breakdowns, and flares of more melodic inclination, not to mention the squalling solos.  The demonically bellowed vocals examine the challenges of staying true to your values and retaining a sense of self amid the anxiety and insecurity of a society whose moral compass is increasingly fractured.

Admission Of Guilt kicks off proceedings in absolutely rollicking style.  It is a momentum that never dips from the searing title track (which includes a venomous vocal turn from S.O.H.’s Kristine Nevrose) to the bruising Death Contemplation, by way of the more languid swing of Shit Disturber.

‘I got question, you got lies, We don’t need you, Sitting by the broken clock, To show when it’s right, Like good neighbours, They don’t need good neighbours, In a police state’ (Community)

Yambag are back doing what they do best, on this follow-up to their second full-length, 2024’s Mindfuck Ultra.  And what exactly is that, for the uninitiated?  Hardcore that is frantically fast, seething with whiplash tempo changes, convulsing with unexpected turns, and a sheer velocity that never fails to send you reeling.  And just when you don’t think that they can go any faster…well, you get the picture.

The drums remain at the very heart of the vortex, hurtling as they do from fast, to very fast, to unbridled blast beat fury when the intensity threatens to boil over.  A safety valve that punishes as much as it relieves.  The Cleveland band refuse to take refuge in breakdowns.  Instead, texture is provided by ever so fleeting passages of mid-paced groove and those rare moments when the drums duck from view to allow the blistering guitars or rumbling bass to briefly steal the limelight.

As always, the sneeringly rapid-fire vocals match this rampage blow for blow, ripping through a series of venomously irreverent tirades to dissect a society devouring itself in self-delusion and self-interest.  Eight tracks are served up in less than eight minutes and as Yambag hurtle from the jolting fury of Cult-ure to the frenetically dense No Hay Razón (There Is No Reason), not one second goes to waste.

‘Slumlord in training, ready for some gaining, capital sustaining, empathy waning’ (Monopoly)

Idolatry is a tale of modern England.  Where soaring homelessness and entrenched poverty are viewed as necessary collateral for ‘fiscal discipline’.  Where housing built for working class communities has been sold off to feckless rentiers, where our public services are being hollowed out by speculator greed.  And we’re told to blame those who are already at the bottom of the pile, rather than those who have gorged themselves on these distorted priorities.

For studio purposes, Total Con is the one-person manifestation of Bobby Cole (The Annihilated, Pleasure).  This is his fourth release and second 7-inch, following up last year’s Who Needs The Peace Corps?.  The intent remains absolutely the same – hardcore distilled to its very combative essence as we career through ten tracks in as many minutes.  What emerges is a heartfelt diatribe against a world without compassion and for hardcore to retain its integrity as a refuge from this morass.

The most striking feature is Total Con’s ability to bring a real sense of texture, of light and shade, to a maelstrom that is so unrelentingly frenetic.  Tracks bleed indiscriminately into one another yet never lose a sense of their own identity.  The spiralling frenzy of Patriots.  The stomping oscillations of Mindless Bloodshed.  The bass fuelled bounce of Crust Fund Idiots.  The swaggering groove of Lapdog.  Each hits home with an uncompromising slap to the face.

‘Singular power, invests in the game, Corrupt all involved to placate the dream, The history of need, conquer and greed, The power of plight, the power of need’ (The Power Of Plight)

‘We must work on something together’ is a phrase that must regularly punctuate a musician’s life – the ‘we must grab a beer soon’ of the creative life.  Just occasionally though, it gets acted upon.  In this instance, it was sparked by Andy Lefton (War//Plague) falling into conversation with Charlie Claeson (Anti Cimex) around the Anti-Cimex documentary, Jawbreaker.  Kelly Halliburton (Detestation) soon completed the instrumental ranks.

The result is a brutal, densely layered fusillade of metallic crust, buzzsaw guitars and a thunderous rhythm section in absolute lockstep.  Then, it was a question of who should take on the vocal duties.  The answer was not one but two vocalists, with Napalm Death’s Barney Greenway and Skitsystem’s Frederik Wallenberg being charged with dissection of a world at the mercy of oligarchical greed and political complicity.

Greenway takes on the duties for side one and is in truly imperious form.  After all these years, the sheer physicality of his delivery is hard to rationalise.  It sounds as if every sinew of his being is being channelled into his vitriolic roar.  The sheer velocity put me rather in mind of Mass Appeal Madness-era Naplam Death, with Dead Legacy arguably the stand-out of ‘Side Barney’.

Wallenberg takes up the vocal reins on the flipside and brings his own rabid stamp to proceedings – less densely layered yet brimming with ferocity.  Totalis, however, still have one trick up their sleeve as Hanna Stjernlöf (Dishumanitär) brings an utterly barbarous dimension to the highlight of ‘Side Freddie’, Control The Narrative.

‘No tak mi dej, všechno co jsi měl rád, tak mi dej, to poslední co máš, nad tvou nictou, se budu smát’ / ‘So give it to me, everything you ever loved, just give it to me, the last thing you’ve got, I will laugh at your insignificance’ (Inferno)

We live in a world that increasingly has little respect for individual autonomy, human dignity, or even survival of the planet itself.  We, and our environment, are merely resources for extraction.  And that extraction won’t end until there is nothing left to give – a process of systematic Morde (Murder) for profit.

With three members emerging from the ashes of Baestien, it comes as little surprise to find that Morde drink from a similar well creatively.  This is rhythmically heavy, fiercely metallic crust that is shrouded in a mournful melodicism, which seeps into every crevice of the monolithic onslaught.

The key is the Czech band’s deft handling of both the propulsive drive and the tension ratcheting melancholy.  They forge these two dynamics into a singular, cohesive force as the bestial, roared vocals contemplate our fate, hopeful defiance and engrained despair wrestling for supremacy.

The bleakly foreboding instrumental opener dissolves into the surging fury of Nasciturus (The Unborn Child), a momentum that the cathartic escalation of Vpřed Do Minulosti (Forward To The Past) and the darkly soaring Doba (Time) serve only to amplify.  Before, the hauntingly layered vocals and skeletal piano of Terra (Earth) sow an ominous sense of dread ahead of the crushing climax, Zbytečná Válka (Needless War).

‘Hollow hysteria, Unfair at heart, No meaning, Lies and slander, acting like, A mass consumption’ (Them And Us)

Hailing from Belgium, Plague Thirteen are purveyors of d-beat fuelled melodic crust, building on the legacy of their predecessor incarnation Link.  Eroded is the band’s third full-length, following on from 2023’s Healing Ground.   What first strikes is the sheer rawness of their delivery, one that teeters on the blown out.  Yet even amid this almost oppressive intensity, the band dexterously manage to retain a sense of epic grandeur and the defiant optimism that all is not yet lost – even if the sorrow charged melodic peaks have a more frayed, urgent aesthetic.

This tension matches the primordial growl of the vocals as they build connections between the echo chambers and webs of misinformation that fuel an age of distrust and isolation.  Stupidity On Demand provides an utterly coruscating opening that the seething Layers Of Lies – which includes a savage contribution from former Link vocalist Inge – does not allow to go to waste.  Retaliate convulses as thunderous rhythms and elegiac melodicism viscerally intertwine, before the haunting majesty of the cello braided A Storm Within.

‘And carried by the wind, Forgotten screams, None are sovereign or reigned, All lost like a dream’ (The Moon)

Waves crashing against the cliff face.  The wind howling as if nature itself has been betrayed.  Banks of fog rolling relentlessly into shore, swamping the isolated abbey that stands upon the headland. Regrettably, I’ve never had the chance to visit Whitby, where Bram Stoker’s Dracula first comes to shore in North East England. But, if you were looking for a soundtrack to that most unsettling passage, Altar Of Eden would absolutely nail it for you.

This is the Austin trio’s third album, 2021’s Chimeras lurking in the shadows between Volumes I and II of The Grotto Screams.  Many contemporary interpretations of post-punk come with a bombastic sheen that is increasingly distant from the DIY origins from which they were born.  There are no such reservations with the Altar Of Eden, who feature members of Hologram, Institute, and latter day …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead amid their ranks.

They continue to strip their death rock fuelled sound down to its very essence.  The supple, elastic bass lines sit resonantly front and centre, interplaying with the crisply resolute percussion.  The guitar weaves its own mournful tapestry, brittle and skeletal yet insidiously catchy.  Meanwhile, the gothic drawls and sombre murmurs conjure themes of decay and rebirth, light and shadow into a deeply atmospheric lament.

Subtle shifts in texture carry all the more weight due to the austere restraint of the wider palette.  As you are embraced by the serpentine drive of Nocturno, the spartan solemnity of The Erasure (I love the drama of the climatic change of pace), and the ominous fervour of Eternal, you can’t help but sense the darkness descending.

‘Vendo il mio tempo, non ho scelta, giorni che spariscono, sogni che svaniscono, nulla mi emoziona più, il capitalismo uccide, ti mangia l’anima’ (Vendo Il Mio Tempo) / ‘I sell my time, I have no choice, days that disappear, dreams that vanish, nothing excites me anymore, capitalism kills, it eats your soul’ (I’m Selling My Time)

Until Every Flag Is Burned is the debut album from Hemiptera, following on from their 2024 demo.  It sees the Brighton band continue to hone their rampaging, cello fuelled melodic crust.  The core is built around the darkly metallic heft of the guitar and the galloping intensity of the rhythm section. This scaffolding is then draped in the swirling, mournfully evocative melodicism of the cello.  It elicits in equal measure a melancholic despair at where we find ourselves and a fiercely defiant hope that all is not yet lost.

The vocals, alternating between English and primarily Italian, seamlessly segue between guttural roars and solemn spoken word.  The second track, Tragedy of The Ego, represents the albums lyrical fulcrum, drawing on the work of Errico Malatesta, a leading Italian anarchist activist and thinker at the turn of the 20^th century.  It frames the wider album as it confronts the ravages of a political system that valorises capital over human dignity.

The sombre intro to the searing opener, Vendo Il Mio Tempo (I’m Selling My Time), sees cello braided through neo-classical guitar and primes the ensuing onslaught to perfection.  Highlights including the seething oscillations of Roaches, including the haunting mid-song chant, and the emotionally charged escalation of Notti Nere (Black Nights), while Materasso (Mattress) rather aptly sees a blistering vocal contribution from Morrow’s Alex CF.

‘With passion, I lead with what makes me bleed, With pleasure, I let my heart beat, And with pain, I sit with my comfort, Even if it hurts, It only gets worse’ (Pain)

Soastasphrenas is derived from the Greek for ‘peace of mind’.  Berlin’s Soastasphrenas aim to deliver anything but, on this their follow-up to 2023’s Moirae.  This is abrasive, densely textured emoviolence, precariously balancing all the competing dynamics that this entails.  Unhinged chaos versus technical precision, whiplash tempo changes versus muscular grooves, discordant immersion versus fleeting melodic reflection.

The frequently layered vocals add to this claustrophobic unease as they sweep from harsh screams to disembodied whispers, by way of almost clean sung incantations.  Equally central to this almost overwhelming intensity, is the poem that is braided throughout the album.  The recitals of 150 people were recorded, layered over one another, and then played at different volumes to create a thoroughly unsettling feeling of voices constantly crowding out your own thoughts.

Conceptually, Eris (referencing the Greek goddess of strife and discord) is built around the emotional intersection of passion, pleasure, and pain. This examination provokes a pervasive sense of dread that no matter how bad things have got, the worst is still to come.  It is one that insidiously permeates throughout the album as it unfurls.  From the savage convulsions of This Is Not to the cathartic dissonance of Even If It Hurts, tracks bleed indiscriminately into one another, ensuring that there is not a moment’s respite from the visceral saturation.

‘A incógnita, un pequeno brote nun esgallo leñoso, en días sen choiva e sen sol, Unha esperanza vana, pero unha esperanza polo menos, Un pequeno agarre en caída libre, pero un agarre polo menos’ (Letargo) / ‘The unknown, a small sprout on a woody branch, on days without rain and without sun. A vain hope but hope at least. A little grip in free fall, but a grip at least’ (Lethargy)

The Galicia region of Spain has long been a fertile region for experimental crust and Tenue (Faint) have been at the forefront of building on the early 2000s’ legacy of pioneers such as Ekkaia, Ictus, and Madame Germen.  Following on from 2021’s Territorios (which is, essentially, a single-track album), the band return with their third and most ambitious full-length yet, Arcos, Bóvedas, Pórticos (Arches, Vaults, Gateways).  Originally released in 2024, this is the recent second pressing.

Their sound is a fiercely crafted fusion of melodic crust and emoviolence, bound tightly together by shared blackened impulses and not entirely averse to leaning into a certain early 1990s’ emo melodicism.  Lyrically, the band continue to explore an everyday anarchism.  It is one that rejects ‘the politics of the ubiquitous enemy’ and recognises the value of what we can achieve through collective endeavour and community action.

From the outset, you know to leave any pre-conceived expectations at the door as a woozy late night jazz trumpet interplays with gently strummed acoustic guitar and harsh shrieks before Inquietude (Unease) erupts fully into view.  It unfurls in a majestic assemblage of frantic riffage, metallic heft, and trumpet laced introspection.  Distracción (Distraction) similarly embodies the band’s dexterity in marrying galloping velocity with flourishes of unexpected, beguiling reflection.  While the uplifting, rousing fervour of Enfoque (Focus) reaffirms the deep-seated sense of hope that permeates the album, the kernel of our resistance.

‘Killing myself, Just to get by, Buy a dream, Sold a scam, Work all day, Don’t give a damn’ (Fucked Life)

Now, this is a record that does exactly what it says on the tin.  New Jersey’s Direct Order ’82 are taking us back to the formative USHC of the early 1980s.   All scrappy speed, spit and snarl, without even a sniff of mosh.  And, you’ve guessed it, they’ve crammed twelve songs onto this debut release, which they rattle through in under 10 minutes.

Even more importantly, it is homage to hardcore’s roots that is delivered with a raw verve and passion.  This is, perhaps, unsurprising for a band featuring members of Ammo and Ensign.  The lyrical concerns are similarly straight for the jugular as they tackle right wing extremists, economic inequality, police brutality, and the dangers of letting life slip through your grasp.  The choppy Nuke Me and the frenetically melodic Leave Me Alone hit home with a particular snap.

‘Left right, one two, Marching at the same pace, All within one grave, We will find our place’ (Rzeź)

This is the self-titled debut 7-inch from Warsaw’s Klątwa (The Curse).  Featuring members of Contra La Contra and Government Flu, it sees them draw with an equal relish on mid-1980’s Polish hardcore and classic Scandinavian d-beat influences, before refashioning them through a subtly more metallic lens.  It proves a distinctly powerful blend.

The opener Sam (Alone) closes with a savagely choppy breakdown, while Rzeź (Slaughter) is defined by an absolute brute of a riff.  The flipside kicks off with the frenetic intensity of Zew (The Call), before closing with Symulacja (Simulation), which features guest vocals from Träume’s Dorka deftly woven through the bristling chorus.

Amid the searing riffage, fleetingly flaring solos, and breakneck rhythms, the snarled Polish vocals contemplate their sense of isolation in a world once again teetering on the edge of mass militarised bloodshed.