‘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.

From the howled opening on Intro, you suspect that you are set for quite the ride and Aihotz certainly don’t disappoint as they draw on a broad palette of influences, before fusing them together in intriguingly unexpected ways.

Aihotz hail from Bilbao and Niebla Total (Total Fog) is the follow-up to their 2021 EP, Matar Al Superhombre (Kill Superman).  An exuberantly punchy rhythm section underpins honed, metallic-tinged guitars, while the strident Spanish / Basque vocals, aided by an energetic array of yelps and yowls, explore darkly allegorical lyrics.  The result is an austere yet infectiously off-kilter melding of hardcore and anarcho-punk that is awash with an eerily psychedelic hue, with the title track, Peligroso (Dangerous) and Atzarria (Claw), perhaps, personal standouts.  The artwork has an icy black metal aesthetic but with notably more stylish coats.

Berlin’s Aus return with a fresh slab of darkly evocative post-punk on their new EP, Der Schöne Scheine (The Beautiful One), a follow-up to the excellent 2020 second full length, II.

Side A tracks Der Schöne Scheine and Zugvögel (Migratory Bird) revolve around the severe semi-spoken vocals, austerely detached through glacial disdain rather than disinterest.  These entwine with tautly clean yet coldly discordant, almost scratchy, guitars, while a bleak melodicism is injected by the haunting synths as the tom-led drums and resonantly melodic bass lock into their precise, relentless stride.  Meanwhile, the flipside track LSD allows a swinging bassline to forge an inexorable slow-build momentum before the vocals finally arrive for the song’s climax.  As ever, Aus deliver a consummate lesson in the exercise of rigorously enforced self-restraint to create an atmosphere of genuinely unnerving gothic intensity.

‘My landlord called in sick today, My landlord has anxiety, My landlord has nowhere to stay, He calls me up just to say…Your rent will rise, By 300 percent, Starting next week, Extract wealth and die’ (Extract Wealth And Die)

This is Industry’s debut full-length, and you can probably guess from the title that they are understandably rather frustrated with the current state of the world and this has fuelled an album of utterly searing anger.  Musically, the Berlin-based band deal in a bristling hardcore infused anarcho-punk as passionately shouted, raspingly rhythmic vocals are underpinned by metallic guitars and a pounding rhythm section.  There is a satisfyingly aggressive propulsion blended with eruptions of surging groove on Totalitarian Domination, flourishes of melancholy melody on Extract Wealth And Die, and the stomping aggression of closer Apathy Is Violence.  There is also a rousing cover of Exit Stance’s They Kill Dogs.

Lyrically, the band apply an anarchist framing to explore the causes of climate catastrophe on Lessons In Impermanence, the arms trade on Nothing Sells Better Than Death, the impact of rentier capitalism and landlordism in bitterly distorting our cities on Extract Wealth And Die, and the wider hollowing out of our democracies on Apathy Is Violence.  The album has a decidedly polemical energy, and while there is a directness to the lyrics, it is also clear that the band recognise that though they might not have all the answers, waiting for those in power to lead change will be a very long wait indeed…

Hailing from New York / New Jersey, Immagini Postume (Posthumous Image) is Mirage’s debut EP and delivers a forceful onslaught of burly hardcore punk, liberally laced with a dark post-punk sensibility.

The blistering first two tracks, Disastro (Disaster) and Non Mi Frega (I Don’t Care), establish the band’s base template of strident yet nuanced hardcore.  It is as the EP sweeps into the tautly bleak opening to the next track, Slacker, and the melodic breakdown that brings Mondo Transparente (Transparent World) to its crushing finale, that you see the band beginning to flex its more melancholic inclinations.  These impulses become even more organically entwined with the band’s surging hardcore on the flipside opener Evita La Gabbia (Avoid The Cage), while discordant melodies flare up amidst the rampaging Spirito (Spirit) and La Lotte O La Morte (Fight Or Death).

Throughout, raw, bristling Italian vocals challenge our broken economic system on Non Mi Frega (‘You only think of us as objects for your profit’) and Slacker (‘The hand that strangles you is the hand that pays you’), together with the often equally repressive forces of religion on Evita La Gabbia and La Lotte O La Morte.

Who is in need of some Anarcho Indie Pop?  If you answered in the negative, I suspect you may be being premature in your judgment if you’ve not yet immersed yourself in the rather bewitching sounds of Twelve Cubic Feet.

I have always felt that hardcore punk benefits more than most musical subcultures from having a healthy regard for its past, to better understand its musical trajectories and, perhaps more importantly, the evolution of its political conversations.  But, at times, when you survey wider musical culture, it can feel like we are being slowly drowned in the nostalgia of reunion tours and lavishly repackaged vinyl reissues.  And as the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler once said, admittedly almost certainly not with hardcore in mind, ‘Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire’.

Yet a couple of La Vida Es Un Mus Discos offshoots, Sealed Records and Demo Tape Records, consistently serve to remind us that there remains real value in excavating our musical ashes.  They have both brought back to life the recordings of some great bands who are now barely remembered yet, with hindsight, forged sounds that were often instrumental in shaping our musical futures.  And Sealed Records have uncovered another gem in Twelve Cubic Feet with the reissue of their 1982 album on Namedrop Records, Straight Out The Fridge.

Sealed’s tentatively proffered suggestion of ‘Anarcho Indie Pop’ is an apt one.  The band’s sound is fragile yet fully realised – clean, jangly guitars, a jazz accented rhythm section, and warmly organic keyboards provide the perfect backdrop to dual vocalists of a post-punk persuasion and a keen pop sensibility.  The result is an album saturated in an early 1980s’ English aesthetic that feels concurrently both bleak and uplifting, and sadly still rather pertinent to our current malaise.  And there are standout moments aplenty – from when the band locks into an extended instrumental crescendo to the ruminative The Almhouse built around an otherworldly keyboard motif, to the infectious vocal harmonies that propel Escaping Again.  And the final track Tuesday Afternoon brings it all together quite brilliantly.  An unexpected treat.

‘The very thought of a full heart, my own volition: a violation, the audacity to feel ok, tremendous cost of living, tremendous cost of loving’ (Love Child)

Los Angeles’ Sweat comprise Tuna Tardugno on vocals, Anthony Rivera (Dangers, Daisy Chain) on drums, and Justin Smith (Ghostlimb, Graf Orlock, Dangers) on guitar / bass.  Love Child is their second full-length and follow-up to 2022’s Gotta Give It Up.  The band continue to forge a sound rooted in swaggering rock’n’roll infused hardcore, though this time injecting a notably more muscular edge.

Taut, surging riffage is underpinned by powerfully limber drumming, and while fierce solos remain, the band’s more melodic inclinations have been dialled back a touch in favour of a stomping physicality that defines Pair Of Dice and A Real Good Time, the raucously vibrant breakdowns that fuel Pure Display and Bad Taste, and the sheer innate danceability of Physical.  Throughout, unexpected flourishes inventively flare, ranging from the melodic crescendo on White Nectarines (‘I know, you know.  Stick a knife in 9.  I know, you know. Pull it out 6’) to the whispered interlude on the rampaging title track.

Meanwhile, snarled, rasping vocals, accompanied by a satisfyingly hearty range of grunts and growls, dissect the exploitative paradigm of our economic system.  The lyrics acerbically explore how we get lured into its rationality on Pair Of Dice (‘You will put in your all, tunnel vision focus, Til you realise you got got, There’s no repaying lifetime missed’), and how it systemically commodifies us on Commercial Pleasure (‘If they can’t break our brain, they’ll break our will, If they can’t lock us up, They’ll feed us pills’), an intention that White Nectarines nails as now barely disguised (‘You think they care? It’s designed this way’).

‘The trail of change keeps moving, To the same tune of loss, And nothing’s tamed that emerald demon, That keeps burning up our lives’ (Working Daydream)

What is the key ingredient to truly great post-punk?  Yes, of course, the melodies must be saturated in melancholy, and the atmosphere bleakly foreboding.  But the often-forgotten element is propulsion, a fluidity to stir the feet as much as the melodies stir the heart.  And these are qualities that Sectarian Bloom have in spades.

They hail from the Bay Area and Strategies Of Tension is the band’s debut full-length, pulling together remastered versions of their two cassette-only EPs – the first side is 2020’s self-titled release and the flip side being 2022’s New Spring.  Their sound is a well-crafted display in layering and pacing dynamics.  The rhythm section lays a foundation of punchily dark basslines and notably supple drumming, the latter displaying some delightful flourishes, especially on Our Time.  Then the richly resonant lead vocals of bassist Will, stark yet nuanced, complete the band’s sonic base.

The more vividly freestyle elements follow.  Firstly, the backing vocals of drummer Susi (except on Static when she leads), which provide an infectiously melodic counterpoint, sometimes layered, sometimes brightly dancing in support, competing on Because We Like It. Finally, there is Sam’s tensely serpentine guitar work, which at times is so crystalline that you suspect it is close to shattering, such as on Blue Light.

The albums lyrics have a certain poetic quality as they explore themes of social struggle, state oppression, and gentrification that oscillate between fear that the moment for change may have passed, and a vital commitment to ensuring that does not prove to the case.

Unsufferable are a three-piece comprising Robert Fish (108, Resurrection, Every Scar Has A Story), Dave Buschemeyer (New Day Rising, Spread The Disease) and Ryan McInturff (Bloodjinn) and their debut seven-inch is a statement of blistering intent.

The band deal in metallic tinged hardcore and they lay down an onslaught of searing intensity across these two tracks.  Opener Enemy Of The State eviscerates the current political environment in the US (‘True intentions clear, despite the lies, Picking rights off, one by one, its easy to feel free until you are the one’), highlighting the assault on abortion rights (‘Upon birth, their life is inconsequential to you, as they were always nothing more than a pawn’) as a critical battle against the wider dismantling of people’s rights (‘It’s a war on women, a war on the poor, a war to disenfranchise.  This war, it’s at our front door’).

Flip side track Revisionist sees the band focus on forging a monolithic, slab-like groove as they explore the importance of dispassionate readings of history and facing up to the realities of what happened (‘We can’t heal, we can’t prosper, we can’t move past, what we deny’).  Throughout both songs, the guitars and rhythm section lock into a truly relentless delivery, the breakdown riff on Enemy Of The State genuinely spine-tingling. It provides the perfect foil to a characteristically visceral vocal performance from Rob Fish as he segues from cathartic roar to impassioned spoken word as only he can.  A debut LP is slated for early 2025 and it can’t come soon enough.

‘We’re running in place, addicted to everything, Skin deep, pretty and neat, keep it on the surface, Small talk trivia, we want a shallow experience, Century of self is sprawling and we’re all famished’ (Monument To Pleasure)

Comprising three parts of Majority Rule and vocalist Maha Shami, who as it happens provided guest vocals on Majority Rule’s contribution to their 2002 split with pageninetynine, Washington DC’s Nø Man are back with their third length, Glitter And Spit.  Sonically, the band continue to forge a sound that is rooted in relatively clean, leanly crafted, groove laden hardcore – thunderously resonant basslines and pounding drums lockstep with taut guitars and harshly aggressive, almost blackened, vocals.  There is a powerful clarity of intent in evidence, most vividly, perhaps on the utterly fierce March Of Ides and Can’t Kill Us All.

Lyrically, the album primarily focuses on Maha’s visits home to Palestine, prior to the horrors that have unfolded more recently, and seeing first-hand the dehumanising realities of life for her family, as well as reflecting on her own personal experiences growing up as a refugee from the region.  The album closes with a clean sung cover of Burning Skulls by Lydia Lunch and Rowland Howard that then segues into a haunting instrumental, Damaar.

‘The violence erupts, A scorched earth, A lipless smile, Recognise the life gone, A history erased, A scorched earth’ (Scorched Earth)

Diploid hail from Melbourne and have been prolifically active in the Australian DIY scene for the past decade.  I Am Yours. And I Am Here Again is the band’s fourth full-length and follow-up to 2019’s Glorify.  It sees the band take their fierce fusing of chaotic hardcore and grindcore to new levels of ferocious inventiveness.  The album itself is, perhaps, best understood as a single visceral movement, packing as it does 18 songs into 25 whirlwind minutes, songs segueing almost seamlessly into one another.

Diploid though are experts in judging just when to change gears to ensure that their onslaught retains its unbridled intensity throughout.  Opener Falling, and closer Active Shooter, provide suitably discordant bookends to the sonic carnage, while tracks such as the crushing The World Is Overflowing With Sorrow, the swaggering Scorched Earth, and the utterly bruising His Arms Bound prove to be personal highlights.

The album’s title comes from a speech by exiled Turkish author and human rights activist, Dogan Aqhanla, when speaking at the Armenian Genocide Commemoration in Berlin in 2005.  The author’s work has been defined by explorations of genocide, and this together with processes of radicalisation provide the band’s lyrical fulcrum.

I had the pleasure of catching Diploid on their first European tour in July of last year.  And while my expectations were high, nothing quite prepared me for the battering that was delivered that evening.  Every aspect of their set from Mariam’s raw screams to Reece’s demonic roars, from the ferocious riffage to Scarlett’s brutally frenzied drumming was amplified beyond what felt physically possible.  Cathartic doesn’t even begin to describe the impact, and as the set ended you found yourself almost dazed from the brutal velocity of their performance.

This is the European pressing from Rope Or Guillotine.

‘Tears, the blood, the sweat, Quotas filled when all are shed, The labours gone unacknowledged, Shackles grimly greased, The only residue of their toil’ (Mother Of All Woe)

Featuring members of Fall of Efrafa, Morrow, and Arboricidio, this is the debut LP from London’s Wreathe.  The band build vigorously on the foundations of those three bands – roared, sometimes layered, vocals entwine in raucous tandem with darkly lean melancholic riffage and a thunderous rhythm section.  A palpable rage courses through the sonic onslaught, but it is matched with a defiant optimism that, if we act collectively, all is not yet lost.

The album’s lyrics are based on vocalist Alex CF’s book, The Book of Venym: An Egalitarian Demonology.  This is a fictional exploration of the philosophy and invocation of a pantheon of pagan nature deities, known as the Increscent, ‘a battle cry for the much-beleaguered idea of compassion above self-interest and bigotry’.  It examines humanity’s deteriorating relationship with nature and how this is in turn then reflected in its fracturing relationship with itself through the privileging of individualism over the collective good.

This provides the album with a powerfully unifying momentum as the narrative unfurls and the philosophical tenets of the book are vigorously animated.  The slow build eruption of opener One Hundred Swords Of Righteous Anger sets the tone perfectly, the album then melding bristling rage with discordant melody (Green Messiah, The King Is Risen) and powerful slabs of doom drenched bleakness (Enemy Of All Reason, The Stumps Are Graves Of The Land) with equal relish.  The visceral Mother Of All Woe brings proceedings to an utterly crushing finale.

‘Time sleeps inside of me, Sunken, Silent, Abandoned in sorrow, Emerging thoughts narrowed, Far away from myself’ (Unter Tage [Regress])

No Sun Rises deal in blackened hardcore and Harmisod represents their third release following 2021 EP Dominium Terrae and their 2019 debut full length Ascent/Decay.  It sees the Göttingen based band give greater rein to their black metal instincts, while continuing to draw on an avowedly hardcore propulsion.  Four tracks across a forty-five minutes run time speaks to the ambition on display and impressively the momentum never dims as an atmosphere of wintry darkness is expertly conjured.

Bleakly cold guitars that brim with sombre flourishes entwine with a powerful yet nuanced rhythm section, while underpinning rabidly harsh German language vocals that weave a darkly allusive lyrical imagery of fog and forest, dark and light.  Opener Nebelleben (Fog Life), which includes a spoken word reading of Hermann Hesse’s poem Im Nebel (In The Fog), and the third track, Tanz Im Fahlen Lichte (Dancing In The Pale Light) are powerfully executed explorations of mournfully atmospheric blackened hardcore.

But, perhaps, the two stand out tracks are where the band meld their searing black metal with explorations in dark folk.  The first half of track two, Unter Tage (Underground) [Regress], opens with a beautifully haunting vocal guest appearance from Nicole of Berlin’s Luminescent, which interplays with acoustic guitar and violins as it builds to a spine tingling crescendo (‘No one responsible, Although in charge’) that then erupts into a ferocious second half.  Album closer, In Trockener Erde (In Dry Soil) [Bury Me], builds from a darkly infectious, almost menacingly jaunty folk opening, courtesy of Dutch duo Tüül, before segueing into a blackened onslaught that reworks the same eerie melody to dramatic effect.

‘Atomise, Control the territory, Control the technology, Isolate, Assimilate, In the void of thought, That fits the hate’ (Dominion)

Now I can’t claim to have ever been much of a clubber, but there was a now long departed club in Birmingham that I always rather enjoyed on my occasional Saturday night visits.  The front room was the sort of banging techno favoured by those who enjoy wearing furry boots, the middle room a more mature house vibe, and then an upstairs room where quite frankly mash-ups of all varieties would be unleashed – some really didn’t work, others definitely did.  And Zeropolis, a London based French duo, deliver a fusion that would have brought that particular house down.

1000 Walls is Zeropolis’ full-length follow-up to their self-titled 2020 EP.  They deal in darkly pulsating synth punk, saturated in post-punk melancholy, and riven through with a seething anger and defiance.  Shouted vocals and infectious choruses soar above the twin synth and guitar attack, while pounding dance rhythms underpin the bleakly discordant melodies and uplifting euphoric eruptions.

This proves the perfect soundtrack for the band’s exploration of the atomisation of society through rampant social inequality (Dominion), populist harnessing of the resultant discontent (The Nobodies), and workplace exploitation (Bullshit Job), as well as the anxiety and insecurity that this provokes (Keep Calm).  The themes also speak to our need for hedonistic release (Dance) while steering clear of nihilistic acceptance – yes, you’ll want to bust out your best moves but never in resigned abandon, always in preparation for the battles to come.

‘La nostra casa é in fiamme, il calore mi spacca le labra, mi spaccala facia, mi abbandono tra le tue braccia, tra le macerie e i resti sparsi di ciò che credevamo di avere messo in salvo, e avevamo lasciato indietro’ (Le Ombre Intorno) ‘Our house is on fire, the heat splits my lips, it splits my face.  I abandon myself between your arms, among the rubble and the scattered remnants of what we believed we saved, and we left behind instead’ (The Shadows Around)

Turin’s Sacrofuoco comprise the same four members as their previous iteration, One Dying Wish, that was active from 2017 to 2022.  The band felt that they had outgrown their original form both musically and personally, and while both bands share the same kernel of emotional hardcore inspiration, it is vividly clear that a newfound confidence and assurance permeates their music.

Anni Luce (Light Years) is their statement of renewed intent and its seven tracks split between four visceral eruptions and three rather more expansive explorations.  Throughout, the band prove skilfully adept at marrying a surging, sinuous aggression with passages of haunting beauty.  They flow between the two with an inventive, organic fluidity, most dramatically, perhaps, on Corpi Celesti (Heavenly Bodies) and Una Sottile Linea (A Thin Line).

Meanwhile, harsh Italian vocals are layered with more melodic backing and intertwined with powerfully effective spoken word interjections.  The lyrics have a poetically allusive quality and look to explore themes around how our lives are becoming increasingly fractured by political opportunism and invasive technology, and how the resultant barriers frequently evolve as cages that sacrifice more than they protect.