‘The voice is a spell, from a dying book, every day for 50 years, building fences, building walls, smothering flames, with the spit of historians, myths from the past, forms in the present’ (What Will Happen If We Stop?)

Olympia’s Fugitive Bubble return with their follow-up to last year’s Delusion.  Their agitated, high-octane punk feels even more fully realised on this their second album, as artfully chaotic as it is insidiously catchy.  The base elements of energetically layered dual vocalists, tautly jagged guitars, and swinging bass lines remain firmly in place, with the new drummer – Typhoid Mary of fellow Olympians Physique – injecting an inventively careering anarchic propulsion.

The album acerbically dissects the economic commodification of our lives, the criminalisation of poverty, and climatic catastrophe.  The convulsing opener, Parade Of Pissants, embodies this infectious blend of writhing musical contortion and vitriolic lyrical precision, setting a tone that rarely relents from the ferociously sinuous Failed Experiment to the bass fuelled Ego Drip, by way of the swaggering fervour of the title track.  There are also moments of meditative reflection amid the otherwise frenetic commotion, including the skeletal piano of Demodex In Situ (Parts I & II) and the shimmering instrumental closer Your Loyalty To The Flag Lies Beneath My Boot.

‘I’ve never felt that I’ve ever quite got it right, not even once, not at all’ (Columbo)

If ever a single line captured the emotional heart of an album, it is this.  The first full-length from Hubert Selby Junior Infants is an album bathed in a darkly fermenting realisation that the lifelong belief that if you do the right things, it pays off in the end, doesn’t necessarily hold true.  You may be more at ease with yourself, but life’s outcomes don’t change.  It is expressed not as disappointment as such, but rather a world-weary resignation that life isn’t, well, all that fair.

This follow-up to the Dublin band’s excellent 2024 debut EP, Have You Ever Seen A Crow…Or An Eel, sees their propulsive, grunge-tinged post-hardcore provide a muscular counterpoint to this dawning realisation – driving guitars and a notably limber rhythm section readily shift from locked-in grooves to more abrasive ruptures with fluid dexterity.  A blend that is compellingly captured on the swelling, oscillating Columbo and Build Me A Monster.

However, the defining energy is arguably courtesy of the bleakly evocative melodicism that shrouds the album and infuses the downhearted but by no means defeated vocals.  They emerge as a fractured, melodically poetic flow that is, perhaps, a nod to the writing of the novelist after who the band are named.  The result is a hypnotically powerful one yet also one in which the nagging thought that ‘Everyone loves a good bad decision ’til it’s time to clean the mess up’ (Dumb As An Ox) is rarely far from the surface.

‘Too numb to be ashamed, Too weak for exchange, Too much to find the start, Beginning at nowhere with no one to ask’ (Endxiety)

I still vividly remember first dropping the needle on Svffer’s 2014 debut album, Lies We Live, and being sent absolutely reeling by the intensity of its sonic violence.  It was a truly visceral braiding of emotional hardcore and powerviolence and one that ignited an equally devastating onslaught on their follow-up, Empathist, a year later.  Having toured that album extensively, including a savage performance at the now defunct The Unicorn in Camden, things went rather quiet from the Műnster band.  But Svffer are now back with a final EP, before they take their leave with a farewell run of shows in Germany this autumn.

Fiercely metallic riffage is laced with darkly dissonant melody, and while the rhythm section is rooted in blistering speed, it is also equally adept at segueing into swaggering breakdowns and brutal blast eruptions.  The vocals are, as always, rabidly harrowing as they challenge misogyny in a music scene that professes to enlightened and wider themes of self-doubt and anxiety in a society heavily conditioned to a particular view of what is ‘normal’ and what is not.  From the unhinged climatic fury of the opener In Harm(ony) to the discordantly melodic escalation of the closer Fear Of Missing, Eternity Moment serves as a fittingly venomous sign-off.

‘The words rolling about your head for years, The clay of your face withering, The well of your sorrow is untapped, Hearts are heavy barricades exploding’ (An Ode To Heavy Water)

Cinder Well is the musical incarnation of California-based multi-instrumentalist, Amelia Baker.  Her songwriting fuses together two contrasting yet interlinked musical traditions – DIY folk-punk and traditional Celtic folk music.  The former influence stems from Baker’s membership of the anarcho-punk folk collective, Black Raum.  The latter emerged from that band’s collaborations with Lankum, which sparked her to move to County Clare and immerse herself in the Irish folk community.

The result of these experimentations is a mournfully elemental, eerily atmospheric dark folk that deftly infuses traditional folk arrangements with a momentum and resonance more akin to the more melancholic expressions of hardcore punk in the vein of say Dawn Ray’d or Morrow.  I first came across Cinder Well through her third full-length, 2020’s No Summer, an album that inspired Contraszt Records to reissue both of her earlier albums on vinyl for the first time – initially, her second album, 2018’s The Unconscious Echo, and now, on its 10^th anniversary, her self-titled debut.

As you might anticipate, this debut is tightly stripped back.  The sombrely brittle acoustic guitar forms a lockstep partnership with Baker’s captivating vocals, as they segue from spectral whispers to more stridently melodic assertions.  Further texture is added by the roiling piano of the title track, while the fiddle raucously fires The Hyde Mansion / Lonesome John, before imbuing a rather more melancholic accent to Fallen.  It is, perhaps, though the hauntingly beautiful The Little Box, The Colour Of Heartache, that best captures the very essence of Cinder Well as it escalates to its fiercely emotional climax.

‘Angry when questioned, The status quo examined, It worked for them, Not you and I’ (Time Is Up)

Deny The Future is the debut four-track 7-inch from Minneapolis’ Shatter.  Their sound is one that is coloured by both Japanese hardcore and metallic crust inspirations.  Yet it primarily draws on the, perhaps, less favoured aspects of those influences, before the band add a few deft twists of their own.  The riffage is lean, tightly inventive and underpinned by a d-beat inclined rhythm section that in partnership creates an impressive, surging velocity.

This fierce battery is largely devoid of all but melodic flares, such as the explosive opening to Time Is Up. However, the urgent, rhythmically rasping vocals are prepared to carry a melody with a relish more akin to the anthemic power of NWOBHM.  This is particularly evident on the contagiously soaring opener, Up To You, as it tackles the thin veneer of corporate greenwashing. But it is also notably evident across the balance of the tracks as they focus on the entrenched entitlement and social conservatism that still distort society to the concerns and whims of prejudice.  A thoroughly distinctive EP.

‘Force fed dirt, Hollow agenda, Grinding your spirit, Until you surrender, Thrive on dependency, Cash in on tyranny, Stand on our backs, To perpetuate their oligarchy’ (World Order)

Headsplitters return with their second full-length, Curse Of Life, and follow-up to 2021’s EP, End Uniform Terror.  The New York trio continue to hone their hardcore punk in a way that is not overly indebted to any specific style but rather draws on 1980s’ US hardcore, raw punk, and d-beat influences, before refashioning them through a more metallic sensibility.

Given the band’s moniker, the primordial edge that propels the band should come as little surprise.  But this burliness can’t disguise the craft with which the album is constructed.  There is a lean muscularity to the thrash inclined riffage and a dissonant melodicism is subtly interwoven throughout.  The pounding rhythm section delivers a spry bounce to the battery, while the howling solos verge on the unhinged.

Meanwhile, the sneering, rasping vocals share the same thrash accent as the guitars as they acerbically deconstruct the sobering realities of modern-day America – oligarchal power, miltarised policing, entrenched economic inequality – while never losing sight of the need to resist and to shake free from the defeatism of perpetual exhaustion. From the surging Horrific Truth to the stomping Game Of Suffering, by way of the discordantly infectious Borrowed Time and the choppy fury of World Order, Headsplitters unleash a sound that is singularly their own.

Nisemono (Imposter) is the self-titled debut LP from a New York duo with a rich hardcore pedigree spanning Dollhouse, L.O.T.I.O.N, and Warthog among others.

In the guise of Nisemono, they savagely mould Japanese and Scandinavian hardcore influences into a punishing, groove fuelled onslaught.  There is a delicious clarity and fullness to the riffage as it is unleashed in wave upon relentless wave, before morphing into scorchingly melodic solos.  The cymbal awash drumming injects both a fierce propulsion, but also a satisfying suppleness, to the barrage.  The result is an intriguing balancing act between power, precision, and fluidity.

Meanwhile, the powerfully guttural vocals conjure images of a demon questioning their life choices after a particularly gruelling, and if they were honest, unfulfilling day of meting out torment and punishment.  This sense of tortured self-reflection is mirrored in the lyrical themes of frustration, exhaustion, and anxiety.  Personal highlights include the ferociously swaggering 酷い思い出 (Hidoi Omoide / Bad Memories) and the merciless intensity of 憎しみ (Nikushimi / Hatred).  The album also includes a rather natty silk-screened poster of the card playing skeleton from the cover art.

‘Ratings matter more than health, Sensationalism always sells, Career long mission to exploit, Will push her past the boiling point’ (Blood And Guts)

Drawing as they do on members from both the hardcore (Reversal Of Man, Warthog) and thrash metal (Cannibal Corpse, Municipal Waste) communities, it is, perhaps, little surprise that Heaven’s Gate deal in crossover thrash.  What does make you sit bolt upright though, is the sheer sledgehammer velocity of the execution.  Their sound is one that is rooted in a hardcore intensity that is then amplified with a commanding metallic velocity.  And as good as their 2023 self-titled debut EP was, Tales From A Blistering Paradise is the sound of a band assuredly hitting their stride.

From the searing opener Frail Mary (Full Of Glass), with its absolutely crushing climatic breakdown, to the sludge mired fury of the closer Freedom Square, there is not even a hint of respite.  Contagiously buzzsaw riffage, swinging rhythms, and brutal blast beat eruptions are blended into a visceral yet fiercely taut maelstrom.  The rhythmically roared vocals, meanwhile, draw on the rich and frequently bizarre history of their home state of Florida.  These real-life stories are used to animate themes of corruption, violence, and environmental degradation, conjuring images of the novels of Carl Hiaasen darkly mutating into life to their very own hardcore soundtrack.

‘Artificial freedom, Numb like never before, Got your programmed mindset, No free will anymore’ (Deserted Centuries)

During the course of 2022, 偏執症者 Paranoid released a series of four two-track 7-inch EPs, to celebrate the band’s 10^th anniversary and to reflect the Swedish trio’s desire at the time to release their music more spontaneously, without the more rigorous demands of entering the studio to record a full-length album.  Beach Impediment have now done everyone the tremendous service of collating these EPs into a single full-length album.

Paranoid have always been a band to draw on influences from across the hardcore punk spectrum, before sculpting them into their own abrasively distinctive sound.  The constant threads are the thrash fuelled guitars, pounding d-beat rhythms, and galloping crust propulsion that are then imbued in equal measure, with a fiercely combative punk attitude and a notable NWOBHM sense of melodic drama.

The fact that the original EPs were each recorded in close proximity to one another ensures a real sense of cohesion across the album, aided by a pitch perfect production that skilfully walks a tightrope of maximising the velocity without in any way diluting the band’s intrinsic rawness.  This balance is embodied particularly vividly by the venomous Kill The Light and the slab-like ferocity of Deserted Centuries.

Lyrically, the coarsely rasping vocals evoke bleakly allusive, apocalyptic imagery to explore an increasingly dystopian future shaped by authoritarian oligarchs (Deserted Centuries), economic exploitation (Vanished Resilience), surveillance capitalism (False Control), political polarisation (Cycle Of Contention), and accelerating environmental catastrophe (The Great Reset).  So, choose your poison – banging head or pumping fist – and prepare to confront your darkest nightmares.

‘Different thoughts, different minds, And all you do is assume, You don’t want to think, Just be the loudest in the room’ (It’s On You)

Washington DC’s Grand Scheme return with their second 7-inch and follow-up to 2023’s excellent Numbers Game.  The band continue to hone a stripped back hardcore that deftly blends influences that span early 1980s’ US hardcore, the heavier end of 1990s’ youth crew, and 2000s’ melodic hardcore.

They prove consummately at ease with fusing these inspirations into fierce 90-second eruptions, frenzied blast beats and swinging two-step breakdowns proving instinctively natural bedfellows in their hands.  As a result, each of the seven tracks takes on its own distinctive character as the balance between these inspirations subtly shifts in emphasis, the furiously rhythmic punch of Click Buy Consume and Marketing Budget being personal stand outs.

The lyrical positivity of their debut though has taken on a notably darker hue.  The burly vocals drip with disdain for shallow gesture politics and bristle with contempt for our willingness to subjugate ourselves mindlessly to the relentless financialisation of culture and music.  A no nonsense EP certainly, but one brimming with ideas and passionate delivery.

‘They sneer with disgust, we hang in their nooses they lined with poisoned threads, trapped in their manmade hell so they can be gods’ (Manmade Hell)

Now this is an intense one.  From the absolutely blistering opener Starving Dogs, this debut four-track EP from Axon hits home with an almost overwhelming force.  Yet, as you immerse yourself in its seemingly remorseless ferocity, it also reveals a satisfyingly rich level of detailing.  Drawing on members of multiple East Coast bands – including Bato, Mutant Strain, Reckoning Force, and Thought Control – Axon take a Japanese hardcore base and force it through the viciously distorting lens of these more avowedly US influenced projects.

This spawns a brutal hybrid that refuses to settle into the archetypal Burning Spirits groove, preferring instead to propel the powerful riffage forward at a truly frenetic speed, the savagely intricate rhythms only relenting for the bulldozer breakdown of Industry and the scorching solos of Separate and Manmade Hell.  The fiendishly feral vocals, meanwhile, excoriate the ‘cult of capital’ that saturates every aspect of our lives, cultivating a delusional, all enveloping dogma that distorts and commoditises society to serve its insatiable demands.

‘No place is made without a struggle, No place can be our salvation, No place will be built from the rubble, Of the existing enclosures, Of the structures that confine our lives’ (Utopia)

Hailing from New York, Kaleidoscope were initially pretty prolific, firing off a fiercely inventive slew of EPs and the searing After The Futures… full-length between 2016 and 2020.  The band then went into hibernation as members focused on other projects, including Straw Man Army and Tower 7.  But the slumbering beast has been awoken, and its fury has only been peaked by the world’s subsequent trajectory.

Certain parallels can be drawn with Straw Man Army in terms of the sardonic, poetically rhythmic vocals and the fact that both bands are rooted in reimagining their respective 1980s’ anarcho-punk inspirations.  However, Kaleidoscope are, perhaps, best understood as that band’s burlier, angrier, more impulsive sibling.  Their sound has always been defined by an intuitive, organic quality, each member playing off the other in a way that instils a liberating sense of improvisation, yet one honed through the overarching disciplines of an explicitly hardcore punk lens.

Similarly, the band’s political convictions remain utterly undimmed. Lyrically, the album knits together a tightly drawn narrative of human exploitation (‘There’s an engine of greed to the squalor you see’), natural extraction (‘To save capital from its own crisis, to turn life into things’), and social segregation (‘Walled paradise mocks the slum, taking what it wants and leaving crumbs’) that is fashioned to feed the ravenous appetite of capital.  How this entrenched rationality works to breed complicity (‘Toiling in the fantasy’) and to suffocate resistance (‘Only seek the aesthetics of resistance’) is also deftly dissected.

The result is an album of visceral intensity that braids together both a muscular velocity and political vehemence with an intrinsic catchiness, from the bruising Blood Minerals to the darkly infectious White Idol, and from the swaggering stomp of Controlled Opposition to the cathartic escalation of the title track, before the fulminating fury of Utopia.  The album ends on the loosely swirling eddies of the instrumental Dirge For The Disappeared, a brief respite to catch your breath and contemplate the barbarity of the world we have built.

‘Your cross for me to bear, Your burden for me to wear, This violence has been ordained, I won’t be forced to live in shame’ (Sadistic)

Chicago’s Stress Positions are back, and their latest album is very much one of two sides, both vividly intense, yet very distinctly textured.  Side One is Stress Positions doing exactly what we expect Stress Positions to do and, if anything, their already unbridled intensity has been dialled up another vicious notch.  The band continue to unleash politically charged hardcore that revels in blistering speed and bruising stomp in equal measure.  They also continue to subtly integrate a more experimental edge, with flares of jazz-tinged psychedelia adroitly laced throughout their unforgiving fusillade.

From the harrowing roar that opens the album, the utterly rabid vocals unleash another level of sonic violence as they tackle themes of abortion rights (Sadistic), the systemic dehumanisation of migrants (Human Zoo), the violent horrors unfolding in Palestine (Nakba), and the poisoned fruits of militarised capitalism (Blood Money).  The searing title track and Blood Money perfectly embody the album’s uncompromising virtues.

Then things take a different turn on the flip side.  It opens with the instrumental track Kaddish, which braids together mournful chanting with reportage from Palestine.  The microphone is then passed to three remixes, two from Planet B (Justin Pearson’s and Luke Henshaw’s electronic project), and the other from Made By Human Hands.  Each brings intriguing new perspectives to bear, but Planet B’s reinterpretation of Human Zoo is the stand-out – the darkly ominous electronics and industrial beats add a ferocious new dynamic, and the moment when everything drops out bar the percussion as the words ‘Watch how they can read and write, Just like you and I’ is absolutely killer.

‘Sirenes, Blaves, Rodes, Punxades, Finestres, Trencades, La Caixa, Cremant’ (Ckaos Total) / ‘Sirens, Blue, Wheels, Punctures, Windows, Broken, The Box, Burning’ (Total Chaos)

Tàrrega is a small town in Catalonia that holds an annual theatre fair each September.  During the 1991 fair, skirmishes with the police escalated into a full scale pitched battle, which very nearly resulted in the burning down of the town hall.  The aftermath of the violence was defined by arbitrary arrests and the illegal detentions of 86 people.  The cases took over a decade to bring to court and resulted in nominal fines due to the lack of evidence.

As you will have gathered, Tàrrega 91 take their name from these events in their hometown and, as with their 2023 debut EP, Ckaos Total continues to mine the injustices that were inflicted by the authorities.  The crackling intensity of their onslaught transports you back to the unfolding night of violence, while their bristling anger compels you to confront the structural inequality that shapes our legal systems.

The emphasis is on stripped back, tightly honed, rampantly fast d-beat in the classic vein of the early 1980s’ originators.  The flaring dissonant melody of opener No Es Casa Teva (It’s Not Your House), the surging eruptions of Ossos Ets I Ossos Seras (You Are Bones And You will Be Bones), and the more expansive groove of I Ara Que Fars? (And Now What Will You Do?) compellingly capture the album’s anarchic spirit.

‘National illusion of equality work, Praise as heroes, with nothing in return, Just a polished blank surface for the elite, Mask it as inclusion in order to build the new underclass’ (Servants)

Stockholm’s Xiao, who feature former members of The Long Haul and No Omega, return with their debut full-length, Control, following up two previous EPs, 2021’s Pain and 2023’s Burn.  The band continue to stride the murky edgelands of where hardcore and powerviolence interwine and mutate.

The latter influence is delivered courtesy of the gratifyingly robust riffage, sludge-mired breakdowns, and fierce blast beat eruptions.  Meanwhile, the feral, rasping vocals and, when not embroiled in the blast beat mayhem, spryly bouncing rhythm section inject an undeniable hardcore urgency that is captured particularly vividly on the venomous Wrong and the seething Karoshi.  Guest vocalists, including Hanna Stjernlöf of Socialstyrelsen and Sara Gregory of Entry, add further fervour to the battery.

The barrelling, groove-laden barrage is fuelled by a coruscating analysis of a socio-economic system that relentlessly privileges financial objectives over social concerns and reshapes society to serve the rapacious needs of rentier capital – everything is for sale (Control), individual wealth is valorised over the common good (Who Pays The Real Price?), and work has become increasingly precarious and unfulfilling (Karoshi).  The resultant atomisation and exploitation (Servants) have then proven the ideal breeding ground for right wing extremism (End Of Times).  A spiral that enriches the few and degrades us all.

‘The promise of life, the promise of good, What you’ve done and what you should, It’s better than most, it’s one not both’ (Pig Dream)

Joke In The Shadow is an album of intrinsic, intriguing contrasts.  On the one hand, it surges with an arresting sense of gothic drama and, on the other, its musical palette is defined by a stripped back austerity.  The drama is courtesy of the powerfully compelling, plaintively evocative vocals that are shrouded in a sense of unyielding dread.  These are then interwoven with the sparsely assembled tableau of warmly swelling synths, shards of lean guitar, flares of saxophone, and understated loops of electronic percussion.

This is the Ohio band’s second album and follows an extended hiatus after the release of their 2018 debut, Channels.  They deliver their deftly constructed blend of post-punk melancholy and the more uplifting swing of 1980s’ new wave to darkly mesmerising effect.  This juxta posing is similarly reflected in the lyrical expressions of grief at our current malaise of late-stage capitalist exploitation and extraction, with a tentative, speculative hope that the future that we fear is not yet inevitable.  The shimmering enticement of opener Pig Dream is pitch perfect, with the bleakly contagious Serve The End and the hauntingly hypnotic Reverser ensuring that the spell never relents.

‘I never really thought, That I would end up on my own, Now I’m sitting here, And I’m feeling so alone, And you’re never coming home’ (On My Own)

Montreal’s Private Lives return with their second full-length, Salt Of The Earth, and follow-up to 2023’s excellent debut, Hit Record.  The band’s sonic keystone remains an ineffably catchy fusion of garage punk and power pop.  Sharply taut guitars (the title track’s core riff is a particularly entrancing) and a crisply punchy rhythm continue to work in vibrant, high octane tandem.  They prove the ideal complement to the nasally melodic vocals and layers of supporting harmonies as they explore themes of hyperactive emotions, fragile self-confidence, and doomed relationships.

Yet at the same time, Salt Of The Earth, also feels like a notably confident step forward.  There is a real assurance, even swagger, to the songwriting.  The fundamentals can appear deceptively straight forward.  Yet the band weave them together with such an irresistible zest, fired in equal measure by invention and economy.  From the ‘tick tock’ fuelled finale of Time to the outrageously infectious On My Own, by way of the strident chorus of I Get Around this is an album that brims with an unquenchable verve.

Earth Ball are an improvisational collective, hailing from Vancouver Island, whose experimental, noise fuelled maelstroms are all enveloping.

Actual Earth Music: Volume 1 & 2 is the follow-up to the band’s debut studio album from 2024, It’s Yours, and comprises two live sets – the first in Vancouver in 2023 and the other last year at Cafe Oto in Dalston.  The latter features guest appearances from pianist Steve Beresford and free jazz percussionist Chris Corsano.

Both sets capture the band at their frenzied, inventive best.  Waves of instrumentation are incrementally layered upon one another, the intensity relentlessly ratcheted up.  The rhythm section’s propulsion is often rooted initially in jazz, before locking into passages of more methodical, mechanical vehemence.  Meanwhile, the saxophone and guitar weave their serpentine individual patterns, squalling, skronking, dissonant, and yet somehow organically intertwined, while semi-shouted, almost disembodied, vocals occasionally emerge from the sonic barrage.

The disparate strands inexorably converge as one to an ecstatic crescendo, before then steadily deconstructing again to end on a haunting whisper.  Those eruptions, when each element of the band locks into a single overriding groove, land with a fierce potency that would be the envy of many hardcore bands.  I had the good fortune to catch the London show and this album vividly captures the unique marriage of fervour and precision that defined that utterly immersive performance.

‘It’s a lovely day for a hurricane, so now go float with the debris through halls, a diplomat in boots has once pulled up your roots, now it’s a rodeo so go float’ (Cold Sweat)

Hailing from Cincinnati and sharing members with Crime Of Passing and The Drin, Motorbike return with their second full-length, Kick It Over.  The raucous, 1970s’ tinged punk rock of their 2023 self-titled debut remains in full effect, all surging guitars, shout-along choruses, and rock’n’roll strut.  Yet the band’s sound feels more fully realised now, dextrously harnessed to ensure that none of its raw-edged vitality is in any way diluted.

Proceedings kick off in suitably vigorous style with the rollicking one-two of openers Scrap Heap and Currency.  The band then prove thoroughly adept at morphing their base elements into intriguing new forms as they sweep from the quietly infectious Cold Sweat to the languidly escalating Gears Never Dry, and then the bluegrass twang of Quite Nice.

Vivid flares of saxophone and tambourine fuel the atmosphere of bittersweet hedonism.  One that is further amplified by the gruffly rasping vocals as they paint a fractured, poetic picture of life’s daily struggles, where devil may care and urgent desperation are difficult to distinguish.

‘Dim the lights, The lights, The Life, Has gone out from their eyes, But they’ve still got their appetites’ (An Appetite)

Hunger For A Way Out is the 2020 debut album from post-punk duo Sweeping Promises and is remarkably now on to its 10^th press.  It is not hard to see why.  Strikingly spartan yet unerringly infectious riffs are underpinned by looping bass lines and spryly bouncing drums, which are in turn leavened by fleeting flourishes of electronic brass to create a soundtrack that is as deeply engaging as it is minimalist in execution.

Yet even then, it is, perhaps, the vocals that steal the show.  Stridently melodic, delightfully nuanced, and saturated in a rich pop sensibility, they deploy repetition to powerful effect.  They also inject a notable warmth and energy to proceedings as they grapple with society’s suffocating appetites.  There is also a satisfying spareness to the songwriting, the clear sense of a tightly defined lens inspiring the band to test those parameters to their very limits.

From the opening riff of the title track your attention is seized.  The vocalised motif to Cross Me Out is genuinely spine tingling, and the momentum never drops for even a moment from the starkly resonant bass line of Blue to the eerily enticing An Appetite.  Once you have immersed yourself in the album, the fact that it was recorded in its entirety using a single microphone in an abandoned concrete laboratory feels entirely fitting.

‘Preying on hate, exploiting their fear…Stoking blind anger, thriving on tragedy…Manufacture hate, to satisfy your greed’ (Mass Produced Hatred)

The band name and cover art give you a pretty good handle on what to expect as you drop the needle for the first time on For Progress….  What does immediately sharpen your attention, however, is just how venomously well executed it is.

Yes, this is Discharge-inspired d-beat, but with an unyielding focus on distilling these influences to their basest form.  Yes, this is raw punk, but force fed through a rigorously disciplined lens.  Even the solos are defined by a fierce precision.  So, while those initial instincts will have been pretty much spot on, the Richmond, Virginia trio hit home with an impressively fresh velocity.

The rhythm section locks in with methodical precision allowing the waves of relentless riffage to build an unstoppable momentum.  And, despite the intrinsic rawness, there is a surprising sense of space and clarity to the fusillade.  Meanwhile, the throaty, guttural vocals explore the forces and motives that cultivate the seemingly endless cycle of modern warfare and militarised oppression.  Stand out tracks include the groove fuelled What Right?, the searing title track, and the rhythmic fury of the closer, Hymn For A Burning World.

‘Each new variant, of innovation, Data driven pestilence, our ruination’ (Death To The Valley)

Oust return in fervently belligerent form on this their debut full-length, Rather Be A Fuck Up.  The band, whose members hail from The Netherlands and Italy, began life as a pretty straight-up d-beat band, but their sound began to evolve in a more distinctive direction on their 2021 EP, Never Trust A Politician.  It is a trend that is satisfyingly continued here.  This is not to suggest experimentalism, as this is hardcore distilled to its core essentials, but rather a willingness to draw upon influences from across the hardcore punk spectrum and to sharpen them into something savagely singular.

Each element of the band is intrinsic to this evolution.  The rhythm section delivers a bedrock of swaggering intensity, while the guitar unleashes wave upon wave of fiercely taut riffage.  The barrage is completed by utterly rabid, rasping vocals that drip with contempt for the distorted priorities of society as they tackle the rise of the far right (Rather Be A Fuck Up Than A Fascist), surveillance capitalism (Death To The Valley), worker exploitation (Die For The Economy), and the insidious myths of the ‘wellness’ industry (Körperkultur).

The feral ferocity comes to a visceral crescendo on the closer Our Anger Is Appropriate.  A reworking of a song by the Bahamian musician and artist Exuma (Tony McKay) that called for spiritual vengeance on the those who enslaved his ancestors, it brings proceedings to an uncompromising climax.

‘Podemos ser todo, Podemos ser nada, Sólo quiero vivir a mi manera, Ya no quiero morir mañana, Sabiendo que puedo ser libre’ / ‘We can be everything, We can be nothing, I just want to live my way, I don’t want to die tomorrow, Knowing I can be free’ (X-Gender)

Al Fin! El Demo! (Finally! The Demo!) is Bondage’s first vinyl release and arrives just as the Santiago band have announced that they are calling it a day.  But as sign offs go, it is an utterly bonkers one, in all the right ways.  The band take the raw fury of Latin America punk, add a generous dollop of off-kilter Japanese noise punk, and then fashion it into something that is very much their own.

The swinging bass and primitive drums are front and centre, while the rhythm guitar lays down a barrage of unrelenting white noise.   The raucously unhinged vocals are absolutely inspired as they explore themes of personal liberty – the freedom of personal expression, escaping the clutches of our technocratic society, and freeing ourselves from the constraints of our own personal histories.

The EP includes a hidden track plus, for the more creative among you, a cut-out insert of one of the band members.

‘Utan riktning, utan mål, Utan rimlig vett och sans, De lurar oss, de sviker oss, De leder oss till ingenstans’ (De Levanda Döda) / ‘Without direction, without goal, Without reasonable sense and common sense, They deceive us, they betray us, They lead us nowhere’ (The Living Dead)

Den Typ Som Överlever (The Type That Survives) is the debut album from Proteststorm, following on from two EPs.  The Swedish duo have a deep background in both grind and hardcore, having played in a myriad of bands, including Axis Of Despair, Livet Som Insats, Krighsot, and Nasum.  They draw on this rich experience to hone a ferociously stripped back fastcore onslaught.

Urgent Swedish vocals, lacerating guitars, and blast beat fuelled drumming form the basis as the band rip through twenty tracks in just a shade over twenty minutes.  The key as ever, with such an uncompromising emphasis on speed, are the subtle shifts – ephemeral melodic flourishes, briefly flaring solos, fleeting eruptions of groove – that lend the all-important texture.  The relatively clean guitar ensures that this detailing is vividly clear.

The tensely agitated battery is matched by the lyrical dissection of the fractured, distorted, anxiety-inducing priorities of contemporary society.  De Levanda Döda and Oskyldig (Innocent) perfectly capture the band’s blistering essence.

‘No, ya no encuentras consuelo en el tiempo, Es demasiado tarde para cambiar, No, ya no encuentras consuelo en el Viento, Y te quieres ir’ (La Muerte) / ‘No, you no longer find solace in time, It’s too late to change, No, you no longer find solace in the wind, And you want to leave’ (Death)

E.V.A’s members span Granada and Bristol and return with a follow-up to their self-titled 2020 debut EP.  On this new four track release, the band continue to hone a post-punk sound that is shrouded in equal measure with both bleakly gothic impulses and a rich pop sensibility.

Brightly shimmering guitars are underpinned by throbbingly resonant bass lines and crisply precise percussion.  The driving force though is the fiercely melodic Spanish vocals as they entice us into the hazy hinterland between the real and the mythical.

The darkly catchy EL Oro (Gold) gets us underway.  Then, the haunting chants that define El Fuego (The Wind) and La Lune (The Moon) transport us to that precipice where desolate beauty and danger interlace – the wind howls, the waves crash, and the swirling mist shrouds the cliff face.  Before, the powerfully compelling La Muerte brings proceedings to a rousing, if fittingly ambiguous, finale.