Three songs. Six minutes. Chaotic aggressive punked-up discordant post-hardcore with antagonistic, flesh-ripping hooks, more attitude than most style-over-substance poser acts can muster across a career and a mic drop of a release ahead of their upcoming tour with Stick To Your Guns, the Private Room EP (Pure Noise) is three previous B-sides that Canadian modern hardcore band Counterparts felt deserved more attention.Continue reading
Tag Archives: punk rock
Jøtnarr- Jøtnarr
Over the course of numerous EP releases and various appearances in the UK’s underground scene, Colchester trio Jøtnarr have begun to garner quite a reputation. Where the blend of black metal and crust punk is, by now, all the rage, in the hands of Jøtnarr it becomes a whole new beast which fully incorporates it all fluidly through sludgy grooves and an intensity that makes it their own. If early EP’s were impressive, however, this full self-titled debut (SuperFi) fully realises and hones their vision.Continue reading
Rise Against – The Ghost Note Symphonies Vol. 1
In a move that shouldn’t have surprised anyone given the band’s long-standing modesty, the sudden appearance of new music from Rise Against still feels like it came out of nowhere. The Ghost Note Symphonies Vol 1 (Sony), effectively a Rise Against unplugged album, arrives with little if any, fanfare but, as with many Rise Against records, it deserves your quiet and rapt attention as what they have delivered here is a record of quiet grace, emotion, and elan.Continue reading
Asylums – Alien Human Emotions
In the era of DIY, the music industry has seen a lot of success from self-made acts. When you can run your own record label and put out a very highly praised debut, the bar is set pretty high for anything that follows. The UK’s own Asylums have done just that. They released their debut in 2016 with rave reviews and two years later they are following up with Alien Human Emotions (Cool Thing). This sophomore drop from the Southend natives uplifts the alt./art rock genre in a direction that intrigues a younger audience from the second it’s turned on.Continue reading
Secret Cutter – Quantum Eraser
Regular readers will be fully aware of the high level of praise thrown Holy Roar’s way throughout 2018 so far, and with good reason, because their roster continues to produce some of this year’s most exciting, aggressive, and forward-thinking music. So when it was announced that the label would be helping Secret Cutter get their second record, Quantum Eraser, to the UK faithful you could almost hear the sound of this little island’s collective jaw hitting the floor.Continue reading
Burn The Priest (Lamb of God) – Legion XX
Depending on where you mark the stages evolution of Lamb of God, it has been twenty years since they effectively began the concentrated march towards the Metal behemoth we know and love today. Most of you will know they were originally monikered Burn The Priest, and released an eponymous album in 1999 before revamping themselves as LoG around the time of the appointment of Willie Adler on guitar for 2000’s New American Gospel (Prosthetic) – the band’s only line-up change in their history.Continue reading
Pennywise – Never Gonna Die
Never has there been a more apt title for a record than the new one from Hermosa Beach’s Pennywise, who have now been around for the better part of three decades. Never Gonna Die (Epitaph) is the bands attempt to right some of the wrongs they made on 2008’s Reason To Believe (MySpace), which for many die-hard fans was a real low point.Continue reading
Spear of Destiny – Tontine
Thirty-five years, and now fourteen albums, of railing against the establishment and providing regular, biting social commentary and Spear of Destiny mainstay Kirk Brandon could have been forgiven for dialling it down on Tontine, a fan-funded album released on Brandon’s own Eastersnow imprint, and just appeasing the masses with re-recordings, or watered down versions, of hits of yesteryear. Instead, the lack of giving a fuck that comes with such longevity and belligerence of vision fuels an interesting and diversely poetic selection of tracks. Continue reading
Ilsa – Corpse Fortress
To refer to Ilsa’s latest, Corpse Fortress (Relapse), as just Doom Metal seems a bit reductive. Yes, Doom is the foundation on which the monolith tracks of Ilsa are built on, and that is fiercely on display on ‘Drums of the Dark Gods’ and ‘Hikikomari.’ But careful attention reveals that there are undercurrents of Black, Thrash and even Punk fortifying the stock.Continue reading
Funeral Shakes – Funeral Shakes
This eponymous début album from Watford’s Funeral Shakes (Silent Cult) is the sort of record that could be part of rebuilding your faith that your favourite rock’n’roll band can still be the last gang in town. Comprising members and former members of Nervus, the sadly departed The Smoking Hearts and Gallows, the band’s underground credentials are pretty impeccable. This collection of twelve songs (well, eleven songs and an instrumental number) is a pared back, attitude-heavy collection of swagger-laden tunes revealing a (not unexpected) love of UK Punk, hardcore, and melody.Continue reading