‘Ciudadades sim alma, Embudos de dinero, Demuestran con cifras, Y bloques vacíos, Las calles se llenan, No hay derechos, Solo custodios’ (Lamebotas)/  ‘Cities without soul, Money funnels, They prove with ciphers, And empty units, There are no rights, Only custodians’ (Solelickers)

Following on from two self-titled EPs, Montreal-based Total Nada return with their debut full-length, Aquí Y Ahora (Here And Now).  The band continue to distil influences drawn from mid-1980s’ UK hardcore through the raw lens of Latin American punk from that same era.

Densely rhythmic Spanish language vocals, reflecting the band’s Colombian heritage, interplay with blistering guitar and a truly frenetic rhythm section to unleash an onslaught that is not only remorseless, but braided through with an aura of bleak foreboding.  From the raucous, unbridled fury of Aquí Y Ahora to the bass fuelled swagger of Deseo De Muerte (Deathwish), by way of the stomping climax to Conviértete En Un Símbolo (Become A Symbol), there is not even a hint of respite.

Coruscating lyrical themes span the legacies of imperialism (Fallas Crónicas / Chronic Failures), the military-industrial complex (Desollaron La Paloma / Slaughtered Dove), and the financialisation of our cities (Lamebotas / Solelickers).  The album evokes the spectres of squandered futures on the title track and the sense of listless timelessness that perpetual crisis engenders in our lives (Máquina / Machine).

‘J’ris de toi pour pas pleurer, pour pas trop désespérer, que tu puisses encore croire, que tout le monde devrait vouloir, exploiter, commander, dominer’ (C’est Qui Le Patron?) / ‘I’m laughing at you so as not to cry, so as not to despair too much, that you can still believe, that everyone should want to exploit, command, dominate’ (Who’s The Boss?)

Aqua Tofana was an intense, essentially undetectable poison that first emerged in 17^th century Italy.  It gained notoriety as the poison of choice for women looking to kill their husbands, both due to its difficulty to trace, and the fact that its slow acting nature allowed victims to prepare for their deaths.

Given this context, it comes as no surprise that the debut album from this Parisian trio is a fierce, unequivocal denunciation of the patriarchal conventions that continue to distort much of society, a slow violence with sometimes deadly consequences.  The band’s sound is one that straddles both the restless invention of art punk and the juddering rhythms of progressive hardcore, laced with flares of sombre melody.  It is a stripped back palette, yet one that is also characterised by a notable sense of theatre.

This dramatic inclination is stridently amplified by a virtuoso vocal performance that sees the delivery sweep from the playfully teasing to the sardonically quizzical, and from the quietly reflective to the unquenchably raging, all with an impressively fluid dexterity.  The sinister unfurling of Dégâts (Damage) and the grunge fuelled fury of C’est Qui Le Patron? (Who’s The Boss), perhaps, perfectly embody the album’s unsettling, shapeshifting essence.

‘Arnasa harta ezin ta egunerakusa, Erlojuan zurka bizi biharra’ (Erlojuaren Aurka) / ‘I can’t breathe and I can’t see the day, I’m living tomorrow by the clock’ (Against The Clock)

Gure Gerra (Our War) is the debut album from Basque punks Bellum (War).  It is an intriguing treat, fusing melodic punk with an upbeat pop sensibility that draws on their home region’s rich musical heritage, while also fashioning an interpretation that is very distinctively their own.

The chunky basslines and crisp snap of the drums lock-in a healthy swing to complement the sharply bright guitar that carries with it just a frisson of jangle.  The result is infectiously breezy, with enough grit to keep things honest, and the apparent off-the-cuff looseness can’t disguise the tightly crafted songwriting.

The strident vocals are shaded in a bleak melodicism, Bellum’s buoyant energies belying themes of anxiety and self-doubt.  This threading of shimmering sonic positivity with lyrical frustrations of the everyday is vividly captured by the fizzing Keroseno (Kerosene) and the contagiously impassioned escalation of Erlojuaren Aurka (Against The Clock).

‘Craving blood, down to abuse, Electric vultures, eyes on the noose, Marching soldiers, evil beat, Starving war dogs, looking for meat, Licking the boot, of the elite’ (Concrete Nightmare)

A glitch is, of course, a minor, temporary malfunction.  It’s fair to say that as Lille’s Gutter, who feature members of Utopie, barrel forward through our current social malaise, they feel that something rather more fundamental has gone awry – we’re not so much glitching as plunging into terminal meltdown.

This is the band’s third release, and follow-up to 2020’s Simulation 7-inch.  They continue to favour a lean, burly hardcore punk. The muscular riffage, wailing solos, and gruff, echo drenched vocals are interwoven with a healthy dose of rhythmic rock’n’roll strut together with a rich seam of mournful melodicism.

The fundamentally no-nonsense delivery is also textured with some well-judged detailing, including the brass fuelled intro and shards of tinkling piano.  From the bruising Infected to the swaggering Concrete Nightmare, by way of the barging Stranded, this is the sound of a world suffocating in the tentacles of surveillance capitalism.

The album captures a prevailing sense of us being trapped between a virtual world and reality, knowing that it is fracturing our sense of self, but unable to break free.  The increasing disposability of both our material and cultural lives and the polarising echo chambers that pollute the social discourse are captured in the rather natty accompanying lyric booklet.

‘With no eyes to see, no mouths to scream, they were shot in the back, left for dead, Long time ago but I can still see, I can still feel, scars of the past’ (Scars)

Zealots, dictators, and demagogues of every stripe seem intent on plunging the world back into the horrors of global warfare to feed their imperial delusions, warped bigotries, or simple economic greed.  The new four-track EP from Burning Kross serves as a timely reminder of the often unseen costs of war, one’s that can poison the groundwater of a society for generations.

It constructed around life in the countries occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II.  It specifically tells the story of Oscar in Belgium who went into hiding to avoid being assigned to work for the Nazis.  He was betrayed and found himself imprisoned in a labour camp.  He kept in touch with his family by letter, letters written under Nazi supervision, which give a fragmented, knowingly distorted insight into the harrowing consequences of war beyond the bloodshed itself.

This the band’s third 7-inch and their vehement, d-beat fuelled hardcore provides a bleakly raw tableau to capture the pain of those under occupation – the paranoia, the humiliation, the isolation.  The searing opener Killing Time robustly sets the tone, and proceedings are closed out with a ferocious cover of Alles Moet Kapot (Everything Must Be Broken) by 1980s’ Bruges anarcho-punks, De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig (Today’s Youth).

Considered and thought-provoking packaging rounds off the release.  Each record is housed in an envelope to mirror those that Oscar sent home, and on the reverse to the lyric card to each song is the sobering art of Keith Caves.

‘Our bodies for sales and our brains to rot, On the dole they can buy the fucking lot, They’ll work you to death until you’re obsolete, Upper-class dreams, human machines’ (Take Them By Storm)

Cards on the table – Barren?’s 2021 debut album, Distracted To Death…Diverted From Reality, was undoubtedly my defining album of that year.  So, it’s fair to say that, as I first dropped the needle on this their follow-up, there was a certain excited anticipation.  And while life can frequently disappoint, Barren? most certainly do not – this is an absolute belter.

The Parisian trio, two of whom also play in Turquoise, have honed another deeply contagious slab of anarcho-punk.  The pacing is essentially mid-paced, allowing the band to build a densely layered sound and one that is rich in arresting detail.  Their 1980s’ UK anarcho-punk roots are laced with the soaring melancholy of more contemporary post-punk, while the rhythm section segues from the fiercely propulsive to the more fluidly supple with impressive dexterity.  The agitated vocals are imbued with a striking gothic drama without this ever diluting the combative cadence, and the supporting harmonies and group vocals inject a powerfully anthemic energy.

The passionately articulated lyrical themes span our morally bankrupt economic system, the collective forgetting of colonial legacies, the systemic scapegoating of migrants, the state-sanctioned violence of the police, and the political polarisation fuelled by surveillance capitalism.  There are so many moments to savour from the sombre yet infectious chorus of Men At The Door to the haunting refrain of ‘Amnesia’ that frames Once Upon A Death…, and from the funereal swagger of The Opprobrium to the searing rhythmic tirade of Our Brains Are A Warzone.

‘Realise our potential, our own capabilities, And the time will soon arrive, When we’ll consider each other, the hero’s of our daily life’ (The Package)

Karma Sutra were an anarcho-punk from Luton who were active from 1982 until the late 1980s.  A few years back, Sealed Records released an excellent compilation, Be Cruel To Your Past And All Who To Seek To Keep You There, which brought together the band’s various demo recordings and captured the band’s evolution from their heavier initial sound to its more melodically inventive expressions as the decade played out.

Now, the band’s sole 1987 full-length, The Daydreams Of A Production Line Worker, receives an equally welcome reissue.  By this stage in the band’s evolution, their more experimental inclinations were firmly established – their songwriting was still firmly rooted in anarcho-punk, but there was a greater confidence to give rein to increasingly fluid song structures and more expansive melodic passages.

The rhythmic intensity of the opener, Roleplay, flows into the unaccompanied vocals and then strumming acoustic guitar of Pillow Talk, before haunting flute is braided through the infectiously escalating The Package.  Meanwhile, the ethereal When The Music Stops and the darkly rollicking Indifference Kills ensure that the album’s restless dynamism never dissipates.

The duelling, layered vocals, together with the accompanying booklet of short essays, apply an anarchist framing to exploring themes of economic exploitation, sexual freedom, the ever-expanding penal state, and the power of collectivism, as well as reworking the tale of A Christmas Carol.  The fact that these themes are still as relevant now, if not in many respects even more so, speaks volumes to not only society’s regression, but also serve to remind us of just how forward-thinking the debate was that bands such as Karma Sutra were seeking to ignite at the time.

‘Ekonomisk integration hotar deras villaförorter, Kostnaden måste upp till varje pris, Tyst överenskommelse bland de välbeställda’ (Tyst Överenskommelse) / ‘Economic integration threatens their residential suburbs, The cost must go up at any price, Silent agreement among the affluent’ (Silent Agreement)

Exploatör’s ranks comprise members of many of the cornerstone names of Swedish hardcore, old and new. To name but a few, they span Dissekerad, No Security, Verdict, and, of course, Totalitär.  With such a heritage packed within the band’s ranks, the absolute precision savagery of the onslaught that ensues comes as little surprise.

Apokollaps (Apocalypse) is the band’s third full-length and follow-up to 2022’s Blind Elit (Blind Elite).  The approach remains uncompromisingly focused – a groundwork of frenzied d-beat rhythms, wave upon wave of viciously catchy riffage, and raspingly intense vocals.  Whiplash solos, fleeting melodic flourishes, and fiercely concise breakdowns ensure the intensity is unrelenting, with the blisteringly fluid title track and the scorching fusillade of Blodet Rinner (The Blood Runs), together with the raucous Exploatör (Exploiter), hitting home with particular venom.

The album weaves together a blisteringly succinct denunciation of the warped economic logic that entrenches existing wealth, while perversely claiming that only endless growth, rather than redistribution, can bridge the growing inequality.  This blind obedience serves only to sow the seeds for growing right-wing extremism and to further accelerate the trajectory toward climate disaster.

‘Feasting their eyes on the profits at hand, To steal is all they understand, To steal from the poor is all they understand’ (The Cutting Begins)

Umeå’s Aftermath plunge us with unreserved relish back into the heyday of late 1980s UK stenchcore, that murky realm where anarcho-punk and metallic rust become one, on this bleakly atmospheric follow-up to their 2022 debut EP, Garbage Day.  Down tuned, buzzsaw riffage and a barrelling, d-beat orientated rhythm section lay down a filthily distorted, mid-paced barrage that is wreathed with flourishes of sorrowfully melancholic melodicism.

The venomously roared vocals introduce a more avowedly death metal influence in the vein of Bolt Thrower’s Karl Willetts as they explore themes of economic austerity / insecurity, unbridled consumerism, environmental degradation, and religious indoctrination.  Stand out moments include the infectiously burly First Blood and the slab-like fury of Altered States, before the sepulchral lament of When Birds Sing No More.

‘Med hjärtat brant i lagor, Och brostet fullt av saknav, Full av angest in I marden, Och I sjalen fusen nalar’ (Sorg) / ‘With a heart burning in flames, And a chest full of sorrow, Full of anguish into the grave, A thousand needles into the soul’ (Sorrow)

Hailing from Lidköping, Illvilja (Malice) return with their second album, Döden (Death), building on the conceptual themes first explored on their debut full-length, Livet (Life).  Teasing out how death’s shadows shroud our lives, it examines both the ruptures and the liberations that it provokes.  Their emotionally charged neo-crust provides an evocative counterpoint to these bleakly poetic reflections on mortality.

They key to the album’s intensity lies in the band’s deftly handled pacing dynamics, their ability to relentlessly build tension, intuitively balancing vigorous velocity with passages of haunting delicacy.  Defiantly soaring melodies, galloping riffage, and blast beat eruptions are interwoven into a darkly evocative tapestry.  The blackened vocals are raw yet impassioned and lock-in with a rhythmic synchronicity that is insidiously contagious.

The mournful acoustic intro to Sorg (Sorrow) lures you inexorably into Illvilja’s embrace as they sweep from the surging intensity of De Som Forsvänn (Those Who Strayed) to the swaggering optimism of Ärr (Scar).  Döden sees hope and horror as two sides of the same coin, swirling and intertwining in a mesmerising dance for domination.

‘Clocking in, no clocking out, No separation, no dividing line, Conveyor belt, production line, Converyor belt, you’re out of time, Animal, animal unnatural, Who’s the product?’ (Human Market Capital)

In our lifetimes, we have witnessed the repurposing of our civic life to optimising capital accumulation at the expense of the collective good.  Our democratic institutions have been hollowed to foreclose political contestation.  The governing ‘common sense’ has become immutable, the very form of our existence. Forever.

What Seems Forever Can Be Broken is a visceral challenge to this depoliticisation, a fierce recognition that hegemonies can seem eternal to the very moment before they collapse under their own hubris.  I had the good fortune to catch a searingly brilliant show from Vampire on their recent UK run where the Australian trio brought all the finest qualities of anarcho-punk – duelling semi shouted vocals, martial drumming, and darkly surging riffage – vibrantly to life.

The velocity of this live performance is vividly captured on this their debut album, which has been given a thoroughly welcome European pressing by Discos Enfermos and Phobia Records, having been first released last year by Perth’s Televised Suicide.  The highlights come thick and fast from the burly fury of Built For Decline to the bleakly melodic Nothing To Hold, by way of the raucously infectious The Zone.  Meanwhile, the contrasting vocals from each of the band members are layered in a ferocious rhythmic fusillade as they dissect an economic system that is quite literally grinding our collective futures to dust.

‘You were designed by an idiot, a self-styled creatif, you’re a Friday five o’clock toss off, before another wasted wet weekend’ (The Arcade Claw King)

We are currently amid the shifting sands of a fourth industrial revolution driven by emerging digital technologies that we’re promised / threatened will be even more transformative than those that have gone before.  Whether that proves to be the case remains conjecture, but what we can guarantee is the likely outcome will be lower wages, poorer jobs, and even more outsized corporate profits.  Not exactly enticing is it?

AAA Gripper’s debut album, We Invented Work The Common Good, expressly sets out to explore our relationship with work in its contemporary setting – how we are first compelled onto the production line and how, despite whatever intentions we might have, escape frequently proves elusive.  Tautly resonant bass lines and crisply precise drums provide the band’s cornerstone, while shards of angular guitar flare abrasively, with each element fizzingly audible.

Meanwhile, the drawled spoken word vocals lock-in with a rhythmic synchronicity as they unfurl a sardonically surreal series of vignettes, spanning everything from the horrors of team awaydays to the work ethos of wasps.  The overarching sense is one of staccato agitation, the essentially monochrome palette fuelling the album’s singular sense of clarity as it sweeps from the fevered Lower Demons to the more limber expansiveness of Angel Washes.  The result is a blend that mirrors our own experiences – wide-eyed naivety, knowing complicity, burning cynicism all leading to the realisation that we are shackled to an economic system that is plundering both us and our communities for its own gain.

‘A neo-fascist state disguised like democracy, On the backs of the oppressed there’s always opportunity, Violence, injustice, these are state run industries’ (Service State)

Austerity has become one of the defining aspects of capitalist society, despite never having succeeded even on its own warped economic terms.  But the slow violence that it unleashes has proven both highly predictable and uniformly destructive.  It entrenches existing wealth, punishes the already marginalised, and incubates the conditions for an authoritarian turn.

Hekátē hail from Athens, with Greece having been subjected to a particularly brutal austerity package as part of the country’s 2015 financial bail-out.  The repercussions of this – poverty, insecurity, far right extremism – form the central focus of the album, captured with particularly bracing velocity on the uproarious Service State as it deconstructs the trail of destruction in blackly acerbic style.

Μαύρη Τρύπα (Black Hole) is the band’s second full-length and follow-up to 2020’s Μέρες Οργής (Days Of Wrath).  The strident, semi-shouted vocals, which alternate between Greek and English, together with the throbbingly resonant bass lines bring to mind 1980s’ UK anarcho-punk and are fused with crisply precise drumming and synths in the vein of more contemporary post-punk.

With no guitar in play, the synths carry the melodic weight, segueing from the jauntily skittering to the more coldly anthemic, and providing space for the band’s wider instrumentation to punch through emphatically  An atmosphere that is fuelled in equal parts by a sense of melancholic despair and defiant rage unfurls, sweeping from the woozily gothic opener Εμφύλιος (Civil) to the darkly brooding Βουβές Φωνές (Silent Voices) and swirling Δίνη (Vortex) to insidiously catchy effect.

‘Far above the skylark sings, And beats the air with joyful wings, Till all the sky with music rings, At high noon of the day’ (Margaret L Robertson)

Shropshire’s Haress return with their third full-length album and follow-up to 2022’s Ghosts.  It is an album of remarkable emotional weight, a visceral ode to both our connections with place and the power of community.  It draws on The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers, a fictionalised retelling of a collective of 19^th century weavers and land workers who mass forged coins in one of England’s most significant financial counterfeiting operations as they sought to protect their livelihoods from industrialised automation.

The album opens with Blood Moon, the guitar shimmering and trembling like an eerie early morning mist as it swirls relentlessly from primordial forests and sweeping valleys to tight city streets.  The track then locks into a haunting, groove-laden loop, occasional spectral howls only adding to the darkly foreboding atmosphere.  Waves of instrumentation – encompassing guitar, bow-played guitar, and subtly propulsive percussion – similarly shape King David and Coin Clippers as they are incrementally layered upon one another, ebbing and flowing between passages of meditative reflection and those of surging, hypnotic power.

It evokes a mesmerising sense of being guided through our island’s history from the Peterloo Massacre to the Tolpuddle Martyrs, from the 1926 General Strike to the social democratic moment forced in the aftermath of World War II, a legacy systematically squandered over the past forty years.  But a more hopeful tone, simmering with both optimism and defiance, emerges as the title track calls upon the folklore of the skylark, the harbinger of a new dawn.  The moment midway through where a sole voice kicks in with ‘Far above the skylarks sing’ is utterly spine-tingling and as the communal vocals join, it builds to a euphoric intensity that calls upon our past to resist the paucity of ambition that defines our present.

Scottish folk singer Quinie unfurls a haunting fusion of dark Celtic folk and the music of the Scots traveller community to deeply evocative effect on her debut album.

Walking is, in many ways, the best way to fully understand a landscape, whether it be urban or rural. It allows you to experience the rhythms of a place, to slow yourself to absorb, even if only subconsciously, the fine grain detail of everyday life.  Scottish folk singer Quinie took this thinking to the next level as she embarked on a trek through western Scotland in company with her horse, Maisie.

Quinie had previously been inspired by the music of Scots traveller singer, Sheila Stewart.  This trip was an opportunity for her to explore the history of this musical tradition and to immerse herself in the interconnections between people and place, a process heightened by the slow pleasures and complications of travelling with Maisie.  This journey was to prove the catalyst for Forefowk, Mind Me.  Largely sung in Scots, the traditional dialect of lowland Scotland, forefowk means ancestors, speaking to the reflections that the trip provoked.

A spartan assemblage partners Quinie’s distinctively lilting, emotionally charged vocals with austere instrumentation spanning sombre viola, jaunty fiddle, and the almost primeval howl of the small pipes.  It’s swirling emotional eddies are perfectly embodied by the pipe fuelled opener Col My Love and the mournfully unaccompanied Generations Of Change.  It is an album saturated in a certain timelessness – on the one hand ethereal and otherworldly, on the other deeply rooted in the communities in which it was forged.

‘Hair back, use the heat, crossed legs, erase the pink, pain is in fashion, no sense of self is always in fashion’ (Playing Puppet)

Musical Chairs is Artificial Go’s second album and sees the Cincinnati band began to inventively expand the skeletal, angular art-punk of last year’s debut, Hopscotch Fever.  The pacing is a touch more mellow, the instrumentation a little lusher as the band conjure an atmosphere that evokes a notably welcoming warmth, mirroring the band’s own growing self-confidence.  This increased expansiveness sees their trademark bright, scratchy guitars, snappily crisp rhythm section, and catchily understated choruses layered with flourishes of acoustic guitar, saxophone, and looping electronics.

Importantly, however, the off-kilter energy and absurdist imagery that propelled their earlier release is still evident in abundance.  Angie Willcutt’s arrestingly mannered, austerely melodic vocals conjure another set of sharply observed vignettes exploring both life’s darker elements alongside those of a lighter hue.  Playing Puppet dissects misogynistic expectations and Tightrope Walker our frequently distorted relationship with the animal world, while Circles playfully revels in dog breed comparisons and Red Convertible in the desire for just that, but only a red one mind.  The band save their most unexpected twist for the end, closing out on the otherworldly rhythms of Sky Burial.

‘Slash welfare, Who to call, Pregnant and alone, Potemkin village, no, no home, She’s a human dog, Rearing her chainsaw child’ (Lillibilly)

Philadelphia’s Kilynn Lunsford has been involved in experimental DIY punk – most notably, perhaps, in the guise of Taiwan Housing Project – for some twenty years.  She released her first album under her own name, Custodians Of Human Succession, in 2022 and is now back with the captivating follow-up, Promiscuous Genes.

The album’s starting point is rooted in 1980s’ post-punk, an inspiration that is then deftly refashioned in Kilynn’s inimitable style.  She calls upon dissonant dance beats, flaring noise punk, and a rich pop sensibility to hone a sound that is catchily alluring and impetuously unpredictable in equal measure.

The finishing touch is, of course, Kilynn’s own mercurially shapeshifting vocals.  At differing times, she taunts, then comforts, ominously menaces, then consoles.  Shaped by her experiences as a healthcare union organiser, her darkly surreal stream of consciousness unpicks the governing rationality that seeks to excuse and justify, rather than challenge, socio-economic inequality.

Sweeping from the powerfully ‘Slithering on the ground’ repetition of My Amphibian Face to the unsettling trip hop of the title track, and then from the thumping euphoric beats of Gateway To Hell to the eerily compelling Let’s Eat, the only thing you can be sure of is that you won’t guess quite where you’re going next.  But you will almost certainly rather like it.

‘And she lets them drown, a path that only fools may go, and leads with hanging fruit so low, she lets us weave our deadened web, in the middle of her crown’ (The Witch)

I must confess that this my first encounter with Lung and I’m not sure anything could have quite prepared me for the sheer velocity and invention that the Cincinnati duo unleash on this their fifth album, The Swankeeper.  Structurally, their sound is a fusion of noise punk and elements of progressive post-hardcore.  Yet remarkably the fearsome battery that ensues is delivered by the simple partnering of cello and drums.

The cello is an absolute revelation.  Forced through guitar distortion pedals, you can’t help but imagine a vast, pulsing bank of amps as it sweeps from doom-laden slabs of riffage to more delicately dancing melodic interludes.  The drums match this repertoire step for step, all pounding fury before subsiding into more fluidly limber patterns as demanded.

The arch, darkly melancholic vocals add a further dramatic dimension.  Cellist Kate Wakefield is also a classically trained opera singer, which is apparent from the sheer power of her delivery.  The flourishes where she leans into this operatic background more avowedly, do take a moment or two to acclimatise to, but once you do there’s no denying the further emotional heft they imbue.

From the stark mantra of ‘You are worth the money’ (The Money) to the haunting refrain of ‘No, I won’t be caught burning flowers on your grave’ (The Magician), by way of the rhythmic fury of Fire Spell, this is an album that never ceases to grab your attention.  The highlight is, perhaps, the venomous cello riff that defines Sunshine’s Over – the moment that the drums drop out to leave just the cello and a mournfully matching whistle is absolutely banging.

‘A crushing education, Swallowed by the floor, Dying from the shame, A taste of what you need’ (Settle Down)

Hailing from Long Beach, Self Improvement return with their second full-length and follow-up to 2022’s Visible Damage.  And what a delightfully understated, insidiously atmospheric treat it is.  The crisply punchy drums resist any temptation to overplay, while locking in with the tautly resonant, darkly danceable bass lines.  Meanwhile, the guitar weaves its own independent yet equally restrained patterns, tensely angular and melodically serpentine.  Flares of electronics inject a further layer of intriguing texture.  This precisely constructed palette, sparsely coloured yet richly detailed, proves the perfect tableau for the evocatively virtuoso vocals of Jett Witchalls.

The default mode is one of detached, sardonic semi-spoken disdain that morphs with impressive dexterity from the stridently forceful to the hazily ethereal and then the playfully mocking without breaking stride.  This vocal fluidity, with its distinctive English cadence, marries with one of the album’s core themes as Settle Down, Dissolved, and Change My Mind skewer the preordained roles forced on women by social convention, before turning to the cultural polarisation and hollowing out inflicted on us all by technology on Scam and Just Like Me.  This is an album that eschews grand statements in favour of a subtle, enticing finesse, and it is all the more hypnotically persuasive for it.

‘No chance of reconciliation, No room to grieve, In life we are promised only one thing, Catastrophe to suffer regardless’ (In Life…)

Wicked Dream is the debut 7-inch from Richmond, Virginia’s Cicada, who feature members of the equally incendiary Black Button, and to claim that it is an intense ride would be something of an understatement.  This is savagely dense, intrinsically sinister hardcore.  It literally seethes with ideas that flare fleetingly before we are plunged back into the roiling discordance.

Yet at no time does this sound like a band simply throwing ideas around chaotically.  Such is the band’s taut control that there is always a sense of a sound that, for all of its writhing inventiveness, is firmly anchored to deliver truly venomous velocity.  The harshly grunted vocals are drenched in dark desperation at lives evolving without purpose, fuelled by relentless consumption and atomised isolation.

The highlights come thick and fast as the band unleash nine tracks in as many minutes.   The EP sweeps from the wild, psychedelia-tinged opener Epiphany to the martial squall of In Life…, while the metallic fury of Much Worse segues into the hauntingly melodic intro to the brutal stomp of the title track, before dissolving into the frenzied free for all of closer Desperation Ceremony.  The striking, darkly unsettling artwork seals the deal.

‘No hay hogar, No hay salvacion, No hay seguridad, No conozro lo sagrado, Muerte en todo lado’ (Putrefaxion) / ‘There is no home, There is no salvation, There is no security, I do not know the sacred, Death is everywhere’ (Rotten)

Gritos Norterño (Northern Cries) is the debut album from Destruxion Amerika, a band that calls on the musicianship of members of the New York triumvirate of Kaleidoscope, Straw Man Army, and Tower 7, together with vocals from the band’s originator, also of Altar Of Eden and Nosferatu.

The drawled Spanish vocals conjure an atmosphere that brims with urgent desperation yet that is also concurrently mired in languid despondency, a compelling tension matched by the wider just shy of lo-fi battery.  The guitars are a fiercely lean fuzz.  This allows the swinging bass lines to punch through with a taut resonance in partnership with the loosely limber drums.  It is a blend perfectly embodied by the shimmering fury of Ciclos (Cycles), the bleakly infectious Fosa Comun (Mass Grave), and the enticingly choppy Humillados, No (Humiliated, No).

The result is as mesmerising as it is frenetic, burning with a sense of powerlessness and frustration at the dehumanising economics, hollowed out media, and the state sanctioned violence of an increasingly authoritarian US government.  It bleakly evokes a sense of a society rotting from the inside out, knowingly nurturing the roots of its own demise, relentlessly accelerating the path to its own self-destruction.

‘Not here to talk, Not backing down, Indignant screams for purity, Dreaming of a world that never was, Restore tradition, Enforce division, Thrashing for progress undone’ (Never Going Back)

Milwaukee’s Innuendo make their vinyl debut in rollicking style with Peace & Love.  Taking cues from early 1980’s hardcore and injecting them with both a raucous rock’n’roll vitality and an uncompromising sincerity, they deliver a thoroughly refreshing slap to the senses.

The dirt-toned guitar is languorously delivered, mid-paced strumming and flaring blues infused solos setting the tone of raw infectious hardcore.  It is instinctually contagious without ever veering into the actively anthemic, as the rasping vocals and swaggering rhythm section lock-in with ferocious abandon.  The barrelling Just Talk and wildly escalating Stuck are personal stand outs.

Lyrically, the album grapples with a society that is looting itself in its determination to sate the demands of capital – economic exploitation (Suffer For Peace), scapegoating the already marginalised (Poison Pill), and sowing the seeds of division to distract from its own rapacious greed (Finding Death).  It closes with Never Going Back, a searing denunciation of the reactionary yearning to turn the clocks back to some rose-tinted past rather than confronting the real causes of our current malaise.

‘As I sit with my dog, I can hear your crunchy riffs ringing in my ears, That Traynor amp will always echo across Ketch Harbour my friend, And your smile will always shine through the grey’ (Ketch Harbour)

Mutated Void first came into view in 2022 when releasing both their debut LP, Roses Are Forever, and the follow-up EP, Slash The Altar, almost on top of one another.   The Halifax, Nova Scotia band have now expanded to a foursome, but very little else has changed.  This for the avoidance of a doubt is a very good thing.

This is blown out, very lo-fi crust hardcore punk forced through the harrowing lens of the rawest black metal. Tarnished sees the band unleash ten further filthy blasts and the song structures writhe and morph with an unexpected virtuosity despite their relative brevity.  Meanwhile, the vicious blackened vocals explore themes of mental isolation, social exclusion, and police violence.

That said, there are also signs evolution lurking amid the shadows.  During the two more expansive tracks at nearly two minutes, Abandoned and Ketch Harbour, they lock into an impressively intense groove.  The former even opens with a melodically squalling solo as heartfelt tribute is paid to fellow Halifax musician, Ben Brennan, following his recent death.

‘All I see is violence and bloodshed, Again and again, Death comes near, You want peace, Now there’s a price on your head’ (Peace By A Rope)

Hailing from Milwaukee, People Die is the debut full-length from Necron 9, following up a series of increasingly blistering demos over the past two years.  Their sound is one rooted in an almost atavistic rage, and it initially floors you with its all-engulfing intensity.  However, as you more fully immerse yourself, there is a satisfyingly engaging level of depth to keep drawing you back beyond its sheer lacerating rawness.

Rabidly catchy riffage comes thick and fast in combination with a rhythm section that stamps its mark with a reckless, swinging abandon.  Meanwhile, the feral grunted vocals unleash a violently primordial yowl against a society whose values have been remorselessly corroded by deeply entrenched social oppression and militarised violence.  As the album hurtles from the searing title track to the flaring melodicism of Flower Child, by way of the bouncing velocity of Not Me, this is a truly unhinged ride.