‘In the age of our self-made, Lying heads of fallen state, No one mentioning the change of season, Or the killing floor of latter days’ (Outsider)

As acoustic guitar swells beneath the skeletal, sombre riff that defines opener Chains, and the hoarsely melodic vocals kick-in, strident yet flecked with hints of fragility, you can’t help but be lured into its Southern Gothic tinged embrace.  And what follows is an album that melds folk and 1970s’ rock influences to striking effect, as flourishes of brass, string, and mouth organ flare through the darkly melancholic guitars and propulsively limber rhythm section.

The overarching atmosphere is one of gloomy pragmatism that is forged of a certain world weariness, yet still resolute in its belief that all is not yet lost.  This creates a dynamic that is imbued with a notable sense of drama as it seamlessly swings from the rollicking Stone Love to the melancholy drenched Land Of The Blind with its plaintive, haunting closing mantra of ‘Somebody help me please’.  Similarly, the bleakly jaunty Dawning feeds into the powerfully surging Outsider, with the impetus never sagging for even a moment, before the ambitiously expansive Never Ending builds slowly but relentlessly, before unleashing its psychedelia fuelled, choral embellished, crescendo.

This is my first encounter with The Ar-Kaics, who intriguingly feature members of pageninetynine and City of Caterpillar, but it is actually their fourth full-length since the band took their recording bow in 2013.  Diving into the Virginia band’s discography, their earlier records were rooted much more firmly in sixties-inspired garage punk, and whilst shadows of this heritage can still be traced, See The World On Fire feels very much like a band striding assuredly in tantalising new directions.

‘I choose where I live, I choose when I die, When I pay my interest, Everything is mine, My office is big and my wallet is fat, Tell my wife I don’t want to chat’ (Opportunity Cost)

Hailing from Cincinnati, 20X Multiplier is Choncy’s debut vinyl release following on from last year’s cassette-only Community Chest.  Taut, angular guitars are underpinned by a relentlessly precise rhythm section, as the band animate a thoroughly abrasive yet undeniably infectious blend of bristling hardcore propelled post-punk.  Writhing solos and occasional electronic flare-ups fashion an air of juddering, jolting unease.

Semi-shouted, rhythmically repetitive vocals further intensify this anxious, off-kilter energy.  Themes of economic exploitation, modern day workplace culture, the financialisation of healthcare, and the wider neoliberal hollowing out of society are sardonically skewered on tracks such as the fiercely serpentine Opportunity Cost, the surging Dead Meat, and the frenzied, organ fuelled Default.

‘Head strong people get the first foot in the door, Set the pace and say we’re all too slow, Mundane evil seems less rotten at its core, All just one less thing I’ll never know’ (I Idled)

Permanent Present Tense is the debut full-length from New York’s The Follies and is an exploration of shimmering, melodically charged power pop. When scanning the past projects of The Follies’ members, spanning as they do, amongst others, The Rival Mob (Evan Radigan, guitar and vocals), Anasazi (Jess Poplawski, bass and vocals), Ajax (Chris Bowman, drums) and Vexx (Mike Liebman, guitar), this may come as something of a surprise.  But immerse yourself a little deeper and the outlines of this rich New York hardcore punk heritage begin to reveal themselves in the tensile strength around which of each of these tightly crafted, dynamically structured ten tracks are honed.

Bright, jangly guitars and an energetically lissom rhythm section are entwined with alternating dual vocalists and waves of backing harmonies as accents of Britpop and country twang flare-up.  An intriguing contradiction lies at the heart of the band’s sound that is simultaneously imbued with an unhurried, languid pacing and a heartily robust groove.  This blend is also reflected in their thoughtful lyrical reflections on everyday life, which walk a line of positive yet guarded pragmatism, neither darkly resigned nor overly optimistic.  The result is an album that swells organically through its discreet changes in tempo, from the vibrant opener I Idled to the sombrely strident You’d Have To Ask Them, and from the assertive Brick By Brick to the jauntily layered Whatever Happened.

Olympia’s Lysol are back strutting their rock’n’roll infused hardcore punk and Down The Street is their follow-up EP to 2021’s full-length, Soup For The Family.

Lysol have now been active for nearly a decade with two full-lengths, and now this third EP under their belt.  The fact that these releases span labels ranging from Deranged to Feel It, by way of Total Punk and Neck Chop, speaks to the band’s genre-straddling sound.  And while the emphasis may shift from release to release, the core fundamentals remain unchanged as they wed a fierce hardcore intensity to their garage rock sensibilities – a touch ragged around the edges, more muscular than you might anticipate.  As ever, the four tracks of Down The Street are fuelled by a raucous, nihilistic energy that, perhaps, reaches its zenith on the rampaging opener Sonic Thrill and the utterly rollicking, groove-laden 15MG.

‘The pain of nostalgia is too much sometimes, It rears its head on these lonely nights, When my mind starts to wander and reminisce, About the goals we had and things we did.  Too naïve to appreciate what we held in our fingertips’ (Living In The Meantime)

This album transported me back to what was a rather fertile period for US hardcore in the early to mid-2000s.  A wave of bands from Stay Gold to Have Heart, and from Modern Life Is War to Verse, emerged to wrestle the genre back from at what at the time felt like the suffocating grip of metalcore.  A leaner metallic edge was retained but with a healthy reinjection of melodicism, and a return to lyrics with an avowed social awareness that spanned both the political and personal.  By the time this renaissance began to take on new forms at the end of the decade, it felt like an important reconnection with hardcore’s roots had been forged.

Ever since, attempts to resurrect this particular tradition have largely proven unsuccessful.  It was almost as if it took the context of that specific time to ignite just the right blend of aggression and reflection.  But, have no doubt that Winnipeg’s Meantime have nailed it where many have failed.  You sense that they have absorbed their influences so instinctually that they are able to reimagine them with an unbridled honesty.

Living In The Meantime is the band’s debut full-length.  It bristles with intensity as heartfelt vocals explore largely introspective themes of frustration and anxiety, while underpinned by thoroughly well-crafted, high energy hardcore laced with flourishes of dark melody and gang vocals that are organically entwined throughout.  The result is an album that skilfully fuses the burly aggression of Blue Monday with the mournful sensibilities of Sinking Ships and Go It Alone’s sense of sonic drama.  Stand-out moments include the melancholy saturated Lacerate (featuring guest vocals from Home Front’s Graeme MacKinnon) and Immured as well the fierce Direction and the rampaging title track that brings proceedings to an exuberant close.

‘Stealing more of our rights, They’ve stifled us once again, You have no rights, We must stand up for all humankind, The courts…are marching…into our bodies’ (No Rights)

Washington DC’s Revolution Summer era of hardcore has been a rich source of inspiration for many bands, but some contemporary interpretations struggle to match the underlying intensity that originally fuelled this sound in the mid to late 1980s.  Thankfully, there are no such misgivings with Chula Vista’s Crashing Forward.

Silent All These Years, the band’s debut release, displays an innate understanding of its influences, but also has its own distinctive take on them and one that burns with positive urgency.  Energetically impassioned vocals interlace with cleanly melodic yet muscular guitars and a tight, punchy rhythm section.  The strident opener No Rights and surging Surveillance, with a memorable guest vocal appearance courtesy of Rob Moran (Unbroken / Narrows), prove particular highlights.

Lyrically, the band focuses on the political on Side A – abortion rights (No Rights), technocracy (Digital Death), the surveillance state (Surveillance), and the politics of division (Dissemble) – and more personal themes of connection and forging bonds on the flipside.  Think, perhaps, of fusing Dag Nasty with Swiz, adding a touch of Verbal Assault and giving it a hearty rejuvenating shake, and you’ll be heading in the right direction.

Hailing from Fullerton, California, Intent represents the debut full-length release from Major Pain following their 2022 debut EP, Demo ’22.

Slab-like metallic riffage, plentifully laced with flourishes of sombre melody, are anchored by a powerfully supple rhythm section.  Meanwhile, venomously rhythmic, growled vocals explore themes of fighting through life’s hardships on M.P.S (‘Life losts it shine throughout the years, Found no relief yet I’m still here’), surviving our exploitative economic system on Short Change II (‘Short on time, money, and health, Too hard not to neglect myself’), and channelling grief on Intent (‘No easy way to live and cope, Living not for me but for us both’).

Stand-out tracks include the stomping Crazy Horse, Burning Spirit and its fierce solo-led breakdown, the brutally staccato Fate’s Hand, and the crushing closer of a title track.  Thoroughly well-executed metallic hardcore then, with a satisfyingly fluid dynamic and a passing nod to the New York scene of the late 1980s, in particular, perhaps, Killing Time and Outburst.

‘Come on and let’s settle down and settle in, To the warmth of Armageddon, And the song of endless grinding gears, Bled bone dry, automized, docile, feckless, and numb’ (Futurability?)

Pop-punk always seems like one of those things that should be easy to do, having almost a throwaway quality to it.  But as with most things that seem thrown together, there is rather a lot more going on than first meets the eye and to do it really well is no easy task.  However, Southern California’s No Plan prove themselves more than up for the challenge.

The band’s pedigree is actually one rooted very much in the hardcore scene featuring as they do, Eva Hall (Gather / Power Alone), Matt Ants (Headcount), Dave Itow (Berthold City), Whitney Marshall (Ursula), and Eagle Barber (Stay Gold).  Their debut 2022 self-titled EP felt very much like the band was trying on their new sound for size, not necessarily tentatively, but not yet fully confident in their new surrounds.

Such inhibitions are now assuredly thrown to one side and their new full-length Lotsa Potential sees the band deliver a fully realised, catchily melodic slice of pop-punk.  Tightly honed songs, lean guitars, and a crisply punchy rhythm section provide the perfect backdrop for the rasping vocal delivery.  And all the while the band’s hardcore roots ensure that they imbue proceedings with a robust aggression.  Similarly, socially aware lyrics tackle themes of economic exploitation (Futurability?), finding hope in amongst the social carnage (No Planthem), abortion rights (Doesn’t Matter Why) as well as more introspective reflections on Law Of Motion and Wrong.  Highlights include the raucous No Planthem and blistering Rich Kids On Anarchy, before closing with a rousing cover of Big Mouth by 1990s’ Californian pop-punk band, The Muffs.

‘Who’s to blame? No one but myself, I’m burning in this private hell, Fall to my knees, Faced with defeat, A slave to this feeling, I’ll never be free’ (State of Regression)

When starting up a distro, one of the disciplines you soon teach yourself is to focus on newer releases rather than being lured into older ones, even if you absolutely loved them.  I rather broke that rule when I couldn’t resist picking up Constructing A War Against You, the 2022 debut vinyl release from San Jose’s Field Of Flames.  But trust me, this is a rather fine slab of metallic hardcore.

The album is a compilation of the same-titled 2022 EP on side A with 2021’s cassette-only Remnants Of A Collapsed Existence on the flipside.  As the menacing opening riff to The Decision builds, you sense that things are going to get very intense indeed.  What follows is as unrelenting as it is thoroughly well-crafted – raw, impassioned vocals and darkly sinister metallic riffage interlaced with swells of bleakly melancholic melody and passages of ominous spoken word.

Echoes of the early 1990’s pioneers of the genre, such as Undertow and Unbroken (the album actually closes with a fierce cover of the latter’s Blanket), are elicited but clearly stamped with Field Of Flames’ own very distinctive take.  Personal highlights are, perhaps, the searing Besiege, and the brutally ferocious Burn Your World.  You can quite literally feel the stage divers whistling over your head.

‘My carried weight is everything, Am I not enough for who I am today? Why do I feel myself wearing thin (wearing thin)? Everyday I’m like a stranger in my own skin’ (Leave)

Orange County’s Whirlwind take their bow on their debut full-length, Lasting Peace.  A robustly resonant rhythm section provides the groundwork, while waves of surging, muscular metallic riffage are unfurled, accented throughout by flares of sombre melody.  Rhythmically roared vocals frequently display an urgent, almost fraught dimension that perfectly reflects the band’s lyrical concerns of self-doubt, frustration, and regret.

The song writing is thoughtfully structured, ensuring that while monolithically heavy, the onslaught retains a satisfyingly fluid dynamic with echoes of Foundation and Chokehold.  Stand-out moments are, perhaps, the rampaging Empty Hopes (including some fiercely infectious bass work) and the title track that brings the album to an absolutely crushing finale.

‘Heal my pain before you fade away, Bury my shame deep before you fade away’ (Serenity)

Tokyo’s Kriegshög are back with their first full-length since their self-titled debut some 14 years ago, and their first release since 2019’s steamroller of a 7-inch, Paint It Black.  And Love & Revenge very much continues to build on the transition heralded by the latter.  So, gone is the wall of noise discordance that defined their earliest releases.  The emphasis is now on unfurling a crushingly heavy groove – the unrelenting, almost hypnotic rhythm section locks in the bottom end while the guitars unleash waves of muscular, galloping riffage as well as occasional flourishes of dark melody, most notably the fiercely raucous finale to Grey Agony.  The largely Japanese vocals retain their growled intensity as they explore a mind plunged into a maze of anxiety, shame, and frustration.

The key though is the band’s success in imbuing this groove not only with a monolithic heaviness, but with a dynamic fluidity that ensures that you can’t help but move.  The rhythmically visceral P.S.M (Pure Slave Mind) and the infectiously, fist pumping Grey Agony perfectly capture this potent blend as does the fiercely staccato 眠らない身体 (The Body That Never Sleeps) and the utterly rollicking, bass-driven title track.  Album closer 冷たい人間 (Cold Person) brings matters to a fitting climax, melding a surging, strident central riff with a swinging bass line to pulverising effect.

Hailing from Fredericksburg, Virginia, Infant Island return with their fourth full-length, Obsidian Wreath, and continue to forge a sonically dramatic fusion of emotional hardcore and black metal.

Raw, impassioned vocals partner with tremolo-heavy guitars that segue seamlessly from the harshly metallic to passages of warmly contemplative beauty, while underpinned by a rhythm section that is equal parts utter fury and lithe subtlety.  This aural battery is further complemented by ambient programming, most notably on the noise infused Found Hand, and orchestral flourishes that are used sparingly but astutely to inject further emotional heft.

The band prove equally adept at sweeping from the muscular eruptions of ferocious opener Another Cycle, the blast beat fuelled Fulfilled, and the blistering Unrelenting to more expansive, at times, almost baroque explorations.  The anthemic gang vocals that bring Veil to a soaringly cathartic crescendo and the haunting, whispered vocal opening to Kindling, courtesy of Greet Death, are both passages of striking impact.

Lyrically, the band examine through often darkly allusive imagery our distorted socio-economic priorities on Fulfilled (‘How could you spare to inconvenience your comfort?’) and a sense of bleak inevitability regarding the world’s environmental fate on Kindling (‘Kindling our lonely fires, we nurture our frozen dreams’).  But this is not a tale of resigned defeat but rather one of fierce defiance on Unrelenting (‘Our burning embers raging against you’) and hope that all is not yet lost on Veil (‘All darkness, all blood, all cynics: for what? The world is enough’).

‘Por mi puedes seguir llorando, La verdad, esto es aburrido, Ese lament sordo me incordia, Ese payaso nunca volverá, El disfruta de tu dolor’ (El Mundo Sigue) ‘For me, you can continue crying, The truth is, this is boring, That dull lament bothers me, That clown will never return, He enjoys your pain’ (The World Goes On)

Barcelona’s Fuera De Sektor, featuring members of Barrera and Algara, make their vinyl debut on Juegos Prohibidos (Forbidden Games).   Bright, clear guitars, with a touch of wah wah distortion, unfurl waves of surf-infused, angular post-punk and soaring solos that will have those so inclined soon dusting off their air guitars, all underpinned by a crisply punchy rhythm section.  Centre stage though is, perhaps, the clean sung Spanish vocals – strident yet nuanced, melodic yet fierce, they inject a vibrant emotional individuality to each track.

The end result is a languidly shimmering, yet furiously energised dynamic.  From the bristling Lejos De Casa (Far From Home) to the more darkly sombre Ser Una Más (Be One More), and from the swinging Sábanas Viejas (Old Sheets) to the seething Peligroso Animal (Dangerous Animal), the band hone a series of leanly crafted eruptions.  And beneath the luminous, uplifting veneer lie darkly poetical tales of heartbreak and rejection, compulsion and desire.

‘Ez a zaj megöli a fasizmust, Kikapcsolja a kapitalizmus, Felszámolja a hatalmat ez a zaj enni ad, Ez a zaj tisztítja a levegőt, Ez a zaj törli el a határokat, ez a zaj vágja át a korlátokat’ (This Noise) ‘This noise kills fascism, turns off capitalism, abolishes power, This noise feeds us, This noise cleans the air, This noise erases borders, This noise cuts through barriers’ (This Noise)

A little while back, I wrote about some of the ideas explored by Bill Peel in his book Tonight It’s A World We Bury (Heretical Distortions).  Principal among them was the idea of distortion and its function in music.  How aural antagonism can create a community for the exchange of ideas, one that continually regenerates by constructing difference through creativity.

And let’s be clear, Budapest’s Balta are the very definition of distortion.  On this their second EP, Mindenki Mindig Minden Ellen (Everyone Always against Everything) and follow-up to 2022’s Rendszerszintű Agybasz​á​s (Systemic Brainwashing), the duo launch an onslaught of unrelenting dissonance.  Frantic vocals that occasionally dissolve into raging cries of undiluted despair, and rabid, primitive drumming are enveloped in waves of discordant guitar, raw and blown-out.  Meanwhile, brief flares of melody and fleeting solos leaven the wall of noise as the band rampage through nine tracks in 10 minutes.

And this relentless distortion serves as the ideal medium for the band’s anti-authoritarian message as they tackle themes of creating personal autonomy (Nagyon Sajnálom / I’m So Sorry), how governing rationalites saturate our thinking (Minden Hiedelem / All Is A Belief), and capitalism’s hollowing out of society (Patkány Élet / Rat Life).

Montreal’s Collapsed and Linköping’s Adrestia are both bands who forge a brutal fusion of galloping d-beat crust punk with early 1990s’ death metal influences and they have come together for a new split full-length, Antitheism.

‘Sounds of sirens, The die is cast, New blood is shed, By ghosts from the past’ (The Ghosts Of Mariupol, Adrestia)

Side A is in the hands of Adrestia.  This is their sixth full-length / split album since their 2016 debut, The Art Of Modern Warfare, with many of their earlier releases having focused on highlighting the Kurdish pursuit of independence in Rojava.  There is an avowedly metallic edge to their crust onslaught.  The harsh rasping vocals, darkly bleak melodies, and fierce delivery conjure spectres of Extreme Aggression-era Kreator, not least on the blistering opener The Ghosts Of Mariupol, which focuses on the horrors of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  The primary lyrical concerns of the balance of their tracks, such as the stomping Nail In The Coffin and the slab-like God Should Pray For Your Forgiveness, are the threats from religious fundamentalism and the more insidious day-to-today repressions that can be inflicted by religious institutions.

‘Kept in crates and cages, A life born to be killed, Locked behind closed doors, Where they hide all the shame’ (Asunder, Collapsed)

The flipside sees Collapsed take centre stage, with this the follow-up to their 2020 self-debut full-length.  The band blend doom infused death metal rhythm guitars and growled, guttural vocals with a more d-beat accented rhythm section and flourishes of neo-crust melodicism, as perfectly captured by the ferocious opener Global Collapse, with its echoes of Spiritual Healing-era Death, and the melancholy riven Inherent Distrust.  Lyrically, the band explore themes of environmental catastrophe (Global Collapse), animal rights (Asunder), and social atomisation (Controlled Extinction).  Meanwhile, Blood On The Roots is a tribute to American songwriter Abel Meeropol and his renowned poem against racial injustice, Strange Fruit (1937), that was later set to music by Meeropol and recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939.

‘The respect earned, The time gone, The end in plain sight, Nothing so healing as the human touch, As I step off the edge of the world’ (The Big Guitar Jackoff In the Sky)

The Minneapolis Uranium Club Band are back with their fourth full-length, Infants Under The Bulb, and their first in six years since 2018’s The Cosmo Cleaners: The Higher Calling Of Business Provocateurs.  And as ever, we are treated to an exhilarating journey of precisely executed yet inherently experimental punk partnered with modern-day parables and a keen eye for the absurd.

The core of the band’s sounds remains consistent with sardonically semi-spoken vocals intertwined with tautly angular guitars and a lithely limber rhythm section.  The new addition is a horn section that infuses an unexpected radiance to the jittery paranoia of opener Small Grey Man, a surreal reimagining of the mysterious real-life story of the death of an unknown man on a Sligo beach in 2009, the themes of the unsolved and the unanswered prove a recurring lyrical preoccupation throughout the album.  The horns provide a spikier presence on Viewers Like You and inject layers of vibrant depth to the swinging The Big Guitar Jackoff In The Sky.

The buoyantly infectious energy of Tokyo, Paris, LA, Milan belies what appears to be a sweeping tale of escape on swaying trains and overnight ships, with each of the cities arrived at then perishing to forces unknown, ending with the melodically intoned, repeated mantra of the names of these now lost cities.  Meanwhile, a series of spoken word vignettes, accompanied by meditative spaced-out organs, are interspersed throughout and tell the allegorical tale of The Wall (‘Oh, I didn’t realise that I was in danger.  Thank you Wall’ said the woman).  This reads as an exploration of why people are susceptible to the very idea of walled borders, wrapped up as they are in notions of impermeability, protection, and purity.

The artwork is also pretty striking and involved the band co-ordinating hundreds of local volunteers being clad in red ponchos and photographed aerially in the shape of a giant spiral.  And, quite frankly, why not.

‘Walking these old streets after dark, I never see it coming. I mourn every summer. Familiar haunts, comforts lost, memories embalmed. Life is repeated loss.’ (We Have The Answer)

We Have The Answer is the debut album from Michigan’s Heavenly Blue and quite the statement it is.  Comprising seven members, including dual vocalists and three guitarists, the band have forged a sound rooted in densely layered, writhingly serpentine emotional hardcore.  Guitars that sweep from harsh aggression to melancholic reflection in an instant, while the rhythm section delivers a ferociously lock-step bottom-end that ensures a resolute core to the searing aural chaos.

Meanwhile, the dual vocalists explore the sense of a society trapped by inertia, both individual and collective, that prevents it from adequately responding to the social injustices that define it.  They inject a frenzied energy as they veer from raw screams to the melodically clean sung, and from the roared to the spoken word, relentlessly feeding off one another, intricately entwining and layering as if they are of a single mind.

The result is an album that retains a powerful coherency, despite its savage oscillations, and brims with moments of fierce clarity: the surging, infectious Static Voice Speaks To Static Me, the ravaged, fragile mid-song incantation that defines …And Like That, A Year Passed, and the seamless flow from the jaggedly rhythmic Heat Death Parade to the hauntingly sombre opening to closer, All Of The Pieces Break.

‘Behold, The end of death, Revered butchers, Sacred machines, A vision of extinction, A silicon plague’ (Nanodeath)

Now this is an absolute bruiser.  Hailing from Richmond, Virginia and featuring members of Asylum and Balaclava, this is Prisoner’s second album and follow-up to 2017’s Beyond The Infinite.  The band continue to meld a brutal fusion of buzzsaw guitar driven death metal and crushingly heavy doom metal that is further intensified by punishing industrial rhythms.  Since their debut LP, the band has added a new member to focus on programming and sampling, which sees the industrial influences notably elevated in the mix in a manner that feels utterly instinctual, with noise-infused samples further amplifying the bleakly dystopian atmosphere.

Three different members share vocal duties which lends another textural dimension to the blackened hardcore onslaught.  Fierce roared vocals are entwined and layered with rawer, more guttural growls as they render viscerally evoked apocalyptic visions of humanity’s impending demise through late-stage capitalism fuelled technocracy and environmental degradation.

The band are equally assured in unleashing blistering sub-two-minute eruptions, such as Pool Of Disgust and The Horde, as they are in fashioning much more expansive tracks as encapsulated by the dark melancholy riven Shroud and Entity.  The stand-out moments though are, perhaps, the ferociously dynamic opener, Flesh Dirge, that expertly conjures expressions of a vividly reimagined Left Hand Path-era Entombed, and the unrelenting, mechanically propulsive Pathogenesis.

‘Llantos no nos dejan ver más adelante que los recuerdos, Tu nostalgia! Tu nostalgia! Tu nostalgia es pura frustración!’ (Derrota) ‘Crying does not allow us to see further ahead than memories, Your nostalgia! Your nostalgia! Your nostalgia is pure frustration!’ (Defeat)

Gurs hail from Bilbao and take their name from a French internment camp that was initially established to hold Republican combatants escaping from Spain following Franco’s fascist Nationalist victory in the civil war in 1939.  Gerran Bizi Gara (We Live In War) is their debut full-length and follow up to their excellent 2022 self-titled EP.

The band continue to successfully harness a potent combination of richly dense, melancholic post-punk and surging, bristling hardcore.  The guitars weave sinuously smouldering melodies to which the gruff shouted Basque / Spanish vocals and driving rhythm section provide a punchily aggressive counterpoint. The result is an album steeped in sonic drama, not least on the searing opener No Retorno (No Return), and an abundance of heart swelling group choruses, most notably, perhaps, on Volverán (They Will Return) and Derrota (Defeat).

Lyrically, Gurs deploy darkly poetic, and at times, rather more vehement imagery to explore the hollowing out of our lives on No Retorno and Eder Ta Hutse (Beautiful And Empty), as well as the consequences of social segregation in our cities on Volverán.  The title track and Derrota are calls to action in the face of political repression and misplaced notsalgia respectively, while the album closes with Anna, a raucous personal tribute.  An album that burns with a palpable sincerity.

‘J’en ai connu des déconvenues, j’ai encaissé tous les coups durs, est-ce que ça me rend vraiment plus fort ?  Je vais pas te mentir, sous mes faux airs, j’ai des remords, quelques regrets, j’ai moi-même commis des erreurs’ (Blessures) ‘I’ve had some disappointments, I’ve endured all the hard blows, does that really make me stronger? I’m not going to lie to you, beneath my false appearance, I have remorse, some regrets, I have made mistakes myself’(Wounds)

Grisaille (Greyness) is a new project from Fabrice Le Roux (vocals) and Lionel Cadiou (instrumentation) of Syndrome 81.  And this connection does not surprise once the band begin to unfurl their darkly melodic punk across this their debut EP, Entre Deux Averses…(Between Two Showers…).  But while a haunting sense of melancholy may be shared, Grisaille’s sound is imbued with a more hopeful, life affirming energy.

Both tracks, Blessures (Wounds) and Ton Souvenir (Your Memory), are supremely well-crafted as they explore themes of regret and remembrance. Clean, almost jangly guitars and robustly passionate French vocals form the band’s bedrock while surging melodic breakdowns and impossible to resist choruses ensure that the needle is dropped time and time again.

‘Every word one scream, Every word one prayer, Every word one habit, Every confidence is false’ (False Confidence)

Darkly pulsing synths, skitterish off-kilter melodies, and pounding dance rhythms coupled with more crisply primitive snare beats are the trademark of Berlin’s Cosey Mueller, also of Glaas and Das Das.  Deadpan vocals, alternating between German and English, practise the art of repetition to insidiously catchy effect, fuelling an atmosphere of uneasy angst that perfectly complements the coldy mechanical soundtrack.  Meanwhile, swells of warmly languid guitar add further unexpected texture.

The songs themselves are tightly crafted and brim with enticing flourishes from the almost whispered urgings that close Innen Ohne (Inside Without) to the surging, rhythmic Jetzt Oder Später (Now Or Later), and the powerfully clean sung chorus to floor-filler Dog Salon.  To be honest, I’m not entirely sure you could ever play this album quite loud enough.

‘I was prematurely born, Sat through an endless dawn, For years and years, Like me, It was half-formed, Outworn, Like me, An artless effigy for his scorn’ (Dream Deicide)

The debut album from Berlin’s Noj is saturated in bleak foreboding and a darkly dissonant energy.  The groundwork for their industrial post-punk is laid by the throbbingly infectious bass grooves and punishingly rhythmic drums, while the guitars veer from tautly angular, bleakly melodic incisions to squalling noise-fuelled eruptions.  The semi-spoken vocals are coldly detached, emotionally austere as they explore sombrely allusive themes of memory and loss, illusion and delusion, myth and reality.

You are lured remorselessly into the band’s stygian embrace as they relentlessly build momentum towards a never to be quite realised crescendo.  Haunting backing vocals, mournful violin, melancholic instrumental interludes, and pulsating electronic flare-ups, all feed the unrelentingly claustrophobic atmosphere.  The album’s architecture remains consistent throughout, shifting shape in emphasis, but never intent, from the slow-build escalation of opener, No Room Cut To Fit, to the fiercely propulsive dynamics of Forgotten Realms and 49 Days.  The title track itself is a superbly realised evocation of the album’s smouldering essence, the sinister rolling acoustic melody elicits shades of South Of Heaven-era Slayer, as it entwines itself through the discordant, staccato aggression.

‘Oscuros caminos vi a elegir, para oscuras sensaciones evitar sentir, por que a mi esto me toco vivir?’ / ‘Dark roads that I saw to choose, Dark sensations to avoid feeling, Why did I have to live through this?’ (Dungeon Crisis)

Hailing from Temuco in Chile, Se Pudro Todo…Adios (Everything Rotted…Goodbye) is Argh’s debut full-length, following a couple of earlier 7-inch releases, most recently 2021’s El Silencio De Los Cromagnones (The Silence Of The Cro-Magnons).  The band deal in densely layered hardcore base that is fused with a myriad of influences from melodic raw punk to fierce d-beat and flashes of early crossover thrash.  The result is an album that sweeps from the anthemic Brigada Cascabel (Rattlesnake Brigade) to the stomping aggression of Dungeon Crisis by way of the saxophone-fuelled title track without ever losing momentum despite the savage twists and turns.

Raspingly rhythmic Spanish vocals bristle with nihilistic disdain and the band share a certain atavistic energy with the likes of Long Knife and Woodstock 99 as they map out humanity’s apocalyptic future with a relish that only boisterous gang vocals and wildly rollicking solos can accurately convey.

Barcelona’s Rotura return with their second full-length, Al Otro Lado (On The Other Side), and follow-up to their 2021 debut, Estamos Fracasando (We Are Failing).

The trio continue to forge tightly honed, darkly melodic punk, teasing out a taut interplay between the band’s innate melodicism and a haunting sense of melancholy, the undeniable sense of futures being squandered.  Powerfully clean sung Spanish vocals are complemented and layered with gruffer support to inject a further layer of vibrant energy, perhaps, most notably on the pulsating Jamás Podrãn (They Won’t Ever Be Able).

And as with all great melodic punk, the leanly infectious delivery belies lyrical concerns of a rather more sobering hue.  The band explore a raft of compelling themes from the growing threat of authoritarian populism on the ferocious title track (‘It is always easier to hate the one next to you, It is always easier to obey and not to think’) to a bleak fear on Te Escapas (Escape) that there is no alternative to our current trajectories (‘Memories from the past, Unrest invades you, Just to think that there’s no way back).

Meanwhile, the boisterous El Aire Que Nos Qema (The Air That Burns Us) tackles environmental degradation (‘Deforestation, Desertisation, And the air that burns us’), the more sombre Nadie Eschucha (Nobody Listens) the Potemkin City veneer of tourism obsessed cities that ignore the plight of their own homeless (‘When no one listens and doesn’t want to know, Many pains are calmed when the night falls’), and the rampaging Túnel De Plastico (Plastic Tunnel) the exploitation of migrant workers (‘Crossing the strait out of necessity year after year, Sleeping in shacks after hours of exhausting work’).  A fiercely bracing release that robustly locates itself somewhere between Rata Negra and Pöls, with an occasional nod to early 2000s Alkaline Trio.

Copenhagen’s JJ And The A’s are back with a new four-track follow-up to last year’s blistering self-titled debut, and it is a record that is as raucously uplifting and infectiously danceable as we could reasonably hope for!

The core components of the band’s sound remain firmly in place – lean garage punk riffage and a vibrantly punchy rhythm section form the lock-step base, while organs that are just the right side of tinny unleash waves of swirling fuzzed-out melody.  Centre stage remains the clean sung yet distortion drenched vocals that project both a surging energy and a hook-laden melodicism.  A rampant positivity fuels the EP – not one born of blind optimism but rather a blazing, almost euphoric, defiance that defines tracks such as Generation and The Runner.  A fierce hardcore heart wrapped in an uplifting power pop vitality.