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viewing 1 To 23 of 23 items
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LP
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DRUNKEN 127LP
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$23.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 10/16/2020
"Look up the Canadian city of Charlottetown and you'll learn a decent chunk of its musical history. Big bands, opera... even fiddle music, thanks to early Scottish settlers in the province of Prince Edward Island. What the guide books won't tell you, for some unfathomable reason, is that the place is also home to one of the most blazing weirdo hardcore punk bands on the planet. Meet Antibodies: Ben, Teajay, Ryan and Brett make a thoroughly scuzzy, blink-and-you'll-have-missed-half-the-album racket that shares a lax attitude to studio fidelity with their countrymen the Booji Boys. So far they've racked up one mighty impressive demo tape and two intensely enjoyable albums, the helpfully titled LP 2018 and LP 2019. It's the latter two releases we're talking about today, since they've been compiled together onto one unmissable slab of wax (equally helpfully titled LP 2019 + LP 2018). With each side ten tracks long and wobbling around the 11-minute mark, it's clear they're aiming for brevity, concision and a speedy approach that's gonna see 'em ram as many full-pelt ragers through your ears in as short a time as possible. Yes, on first listen it's a blur of furious energy and brutal power chords, with barely enough time to pause and take it all in. But of course, by the tenth listen you'll have declared them your favorite band and written them a dictionary's worth of love letters, begging them to come play your town. This ain't music to savor subtly, or to spin in the background while reclining gently on a chaise-longue while sampling the finest wines and most befuddling of gourmandizes. This is punk rock in its purest form. It sounds like Thee Oh Sees, shorn of the krautrock groove and '60s sprinklings, firing themselves from a cannon straight into a brick wall. It's relentless, not that you'll want it to stop. It's Black Flag if they'd only stuck with Keith and realized their songs could all be edited down to something even more potent. It's two records from last year and the year before, juxtaposed to form your favorite album of 2020. Play it once, play it twice, play it over and over again, forever; Antibodies are the product of and cure for boredom -- and boy, do you ever need 'em in your life." --Will Fitzpatrick
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7"
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DRUNKEN 125EP
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$10.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 10/16/2020
"There's a parallel universe out there somewhere, one where Poison Idea's 'Pick Your King', Gang Green's 'Sold Out' and Negative Approach's 'Tied Down' are sacred texts and all art is merely an attempt to bow down and pay tribute to their holy genius. In this universe, Richmond, VA's Cement Shoes will be truly worshipped as the heroes they deserve to be -- this triple shot of hits is a perfect piece of punk in that lineage. 'Smashed on Glass' opens with a gloriously farty synth replicating the Universal Pictures movie fanfare, setting us up perfectly for the scraped-knuckle joy to follow. It's a two-minute thrill ride of high-speed aggression, bludgeoning guitars and vocals that sound like singer Trevor's larynx has been wrapped up in barbed wire, crushed with a steam roller and then coaxed back to life by vigorous brushing with wire wool. You know, all that fun stuff. It's followed by the brilliantly titled 'Knocked Into The Reptile Enclosure', which continues their sonic assault with gusto as Trev roars into life with a 'bababababa' that sounds like The Trashmen falling into a vat of toxic waste -- perfect for hollering back from beer-drunk mosh pits, or simply for turning up to maximum volume, annihilating all goodwill with your neighbors and earning yourself a tidy warning from The Man. But fuck that guy. By comparison, 'Going Off The Grid' is more restrained, but it's still wild as all hell, pulsating with menace and invention as guitarist Brandon leads the band down a series of dark roads, seemingly blind alleys and secret escape routes. It might just be the best song of the set, but shhh! Don't tell the others. The record is subtitled A Love Story Of Drugs & Rock & Roll & Drugs, which sounds straightforward enough. If you can pierce through the rollicking scree to find that story, you'll be screaming along at the walls for the rest of time. Either way, this is a great piece of old skool hardcore -- perfect for honing that tinnitus you've been working on all these years." --Will Fitzpatrick
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7"
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DRUNKEN 123EP
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$10.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 10/16/2020
"The lasting effect of constant exposure to the Rip Off Records back catalogue, Back From the Grave, and the general radiation of Destroy All Monsters has produced this four-track guitar-athon. This is dripping with touches of the Electric Chairs, Kiss, and the Heartbreakers, but holds together as a blast of modern offering in the grande tradition of very loud guitars and loving rock and roll." --Jonah Falco "You're gonna enjoy Goldie Dawn's debut EP. It begins with a crash of power chords. Nothing fancy, just the sound of Cheap Trick's 'Surrender' being pushed down a fire escape. Almost immediately, it explodes into a bona fide garage-punk stormer, like Brian James' finest Damned riffs bolstered by some serious bottom-shaking -- yes, we're going there -- GROOVE. 'Gone With The Wild' sashays and slinks around, even as it feels like it's hurtling full throttle towards your skull. It is without doubt a tremendous slice of rock and/or roll. Hailing from Glasgow, Goldie Dawn's mighty racket is heralded by the dramatic presence of Kate Rambo on vocals -- and hers is a formidable snarl, with shades of Ludella Black and A Giant Dog's Sabrina Ellis. It meshes perfectly with the wall of sound concocted by her bandmates, equally capable of creating an addictive noise from the finest riffs in punk's ignoble history ('Crime') as they are of making a jauntily moving country ballad that twangs in all the right places ('It's Nothing To Me'). You've heard all these tricks before and no one here's ashamed to admit it; the trick is in the joy that emerges when the guitars are ablaze and Rambo's at full pelt. Remember how the humble 7" used to feel like pop's finest weapon on the front line... An explosive device loaded with hooks and delirium... So do Goldie Dawn. Raw, fun and... what's that word the broadsheet writers use to describe records that feel like classics even as you're hearing them for the first time... Oh yeah: timeless. If you're gonna wear out your stylus, playing this on repeat for the rest of existence would be a worthy cause" --Will Fitzpatrick
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LP
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DRUNKEN 130LP
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$23.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 10/16/2020
"Ever since Rocket From The Tombs gave way to Pere Ubu and The Dead Boys, Cleveland's been producing endless shots of adrenaline courtesy of the wildest, weirdest sounds around. Knowso may not have much sonically in common with their city's elder statesmen, but they're following in the same spiritual tradition, blasting away with a take on punk rock that's tense, spiky and powerful. Following on from their Look At The Chart 12" for California's premier trash-rock stable Neck Chop, and a 7" for Total Punk, Specialtronics Green Vision is their debut album - and as full-lengths go, it's a helluva first offering. Cuts like 'Calamine' echo the likes of Devo in their jerked-out fury, but whereas there's a whole raft of slopcore bands in recent years who've focused on the other-worldly side of Mothersbaugh and co., Knowso rub their angular tendencies against clenched-teeth riffage and a brutal sense of righteous outrage. The effect is somewhere in between Steve Albini's more pointed rackets, Black Flag in both 'weirdo freakout' and 'perfect slice of fury' modes, and (unexpectedly) even the screwy rhetoric of Welsh wonders Future Of The Left. They have a killer CV -- Knowso boast members of Cruelster, Perverts Again and Cloud Nothings among their line-up -- but still, this is a record that sounds everything and nothing like those bands, with a healthy number of bonus ingredients thrown in. 'Peaceful And Extinct' shows them at their smartarse best, bouncing between (hey, bear with me) tasteful riffology and sheer power, while 'Digital God' is just a heads-down thrill ride. But hey, it's a record full of surprises and wonder, like ice cream topped with barbed wire, and it's one of the best things you'll hear all year. Insert your own 'think so? I knowso' joke here; I'd write one myself but I'm too busy putting this on repeat play for the rest of forever." --Will Fitzpatrick
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LP
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DRUNKEN 124LP
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$23.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 10/16/2020
"Hey, we're all angry these days. Day in, day out, it feels like all there is to do it kick against the pricks or kick out the jams - sometimes both at the same time. But what do you do when all your righteous anger gets caught up in the mesh of the daily grind? When your despair at the world (and hey, it's boiling over with right-wing fuckheads, senseless violence and the sort of oppression you might once have idealistically hoped would be a thing of the past by now) is a regular, everyday occurrence, as much a part of your daily routine as getting your caffeine fix in the morning? If ever a sound articulated that feeling, it'd be Public Eye's second album Music For Leisure. Written in the wake of the US presidential election in 2016, and surrounded by the sinister political voices that seemingly felt legitimized by you-know-who taking the White House, it's the sound of fury, righteous indignation, disillusionment and dejection, all wrapped up inside booming elliptical basslines, staccato guitar stabs and pithily spat summations of the American dream. Opening track 'Descending' has an air of much-loved gloom-rockers Protomartyr in its monochromatic rumble, but the album's main musical inspirations come from the punked-out nuggets of the infamous Killed By Death compilation series, under the shadow of Wire's art-damaged racket. Formed in Portland, Oregon in 2016, Public Eye's membership takes in three-quarters of notorious punks Autistic Youth, but while that band's take on rock n'roll was straight-ahead and speedy with it, their new outfit find more inspiration in nuance. 'Neat Machines/Red Flags' slashes at your eardrums with subtly jerky time signatures and angular jangles, before vocalist Nick Vicario remains impassive throughout its tastefully melodic second half. Then there's the album's greatest moment: the unabashed skronk of 'The Duet', which builds to a glorious final minute that sounds like Parquet Courts setting themselves on fire at a free jazz festival. Chaos, in other words, but chaos with the best kind of discipline. Repeats plays reveal greater treasures, and it's the perfect album to block out (or echo) the buzzing pressure on your brain that comes from trying to get through day-to-day life in this increasingly weird era. Beyond that, it's just a really fucking good record. Listen now and save yourself." --Will Fitzpatrick
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LP
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DRUNKEN 122LP
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$23.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 8/14/2020
Debut LP from The Mark Vodka Group, Nova Scotia delivers again. FFO Coneheads, DLIMC, Buzzcocks, and sunshine in the city. More effortlessly catchy brilliance from Nova Scotia, Canada, that your ears, speakers and shelves simply cannot live without. You want a quality guarantee? Includes members of the Booji Boys? This is a different prospect to the Boojis, of course. While that group buries deceptively tasteful hooks in clouds of ear-lacerating distortion, the Mark Vodka Group opt for a more immediately accessible level of audibility, while still keeping things firmly in the box marked "lo-fi". They sound like a bare-bones Descendants at their most irritably bratty, stealing the Oblivians' homework and doodling stupid faces all over the most insightful parts. Or maybe the other way around. Point is, they do smart and stoopid simultaneously and they'll make you wanna dive onto a dancefloor to revel in both sides. As they're not ashamed to tell you, however, the band have been around this music long enough to grow pissed off with... well, what have you got? Scenester elitism ("Big Time Rocker"), the sudden trendiness of punk among previously skeptical normies ("Everybody's Punk Now", which also boasts a killer Buzzcocks homage at its peak) and everyone dumb enough to cross them. Truth be told, punk rock doesn't come out of these lyrical screes too well, but the Mark Vodka Group are too in love with the stuff to truly let go.
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LP
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DRUNKEN 120LP
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Classic Midwest punk Devo influence, but with a "new-new wave" sound that's been coming out of California and Saint Louis. If you heard Erik Nervous's mighty 2018 collection Assorted Anxieties, you probably thought you had his sound pegged. Bruce Gilbert power chords, rickety garage skronk, and a willful primitivism that starts with a drum machine and ends with a heroically scuffed approach to melody -- it all adds up to something pretty irresistible, of course, but what if there was more to come? This time Erik's joined by The Beta Blockers, and the sound they concoct together is utterly magical. OK, when this self-titled LP comes rattling out of the gate with 90-second barnstormer "Violent Dreams", you may suspect it's just an amplified version of the old stuff, albeit with full band, but trust me: you ain't seen nuthin' yet. "Gravure" sees 'em tinkering with an angular skronk-funk that tilts an ear towards yer Minutemen, yer Bogsheds, yer Andy Gills (while ensuring both feet are firmly cemented to as many dumbass hardcore punk records as possible). The thoroughly unexpected "Blasted Heath" brings synths to the foreground in masterly fashion, while the mutant dub of "Want To Not Wanna" feels like a dust-up in a muddy puddle with an ashen-faced Pere Ubu. It's still recognizably the work of Erik Hart (for that is his true name), only distorted and further frayed at the edges. It's the sort of snappily smart sidestep you wish more bands would be willing to take, while remaining within touching distance from their roots. Best of all, it places the Michigan-based wonder alongside fellow punk explorers like Uranium Club; utterly aware of punk/hardcore/post-punk/whatever's past and its limitations, but determined to find the lesser-explored gaps that lie between and make them his own. Make no mistake, this is a mighty record.
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LP
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DRUNKEN 117LP
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"You'd think Jake Robertson would already have his hands full playing in the likes of Ausmuteants, Leather Towel, School Damage, Drug Sweat, et al. But no, evidently there's always time for one more thoroughly wracked project, and Alien Nosejob's focus is as kaleidoscopically scattershot as you'd expect from a man with such a short attention span. Just to confirm: yes, that's a good thing. From the off, we glide through the Coneheads-style Devocore of 'Television Sets' before romping through the jangling lo-fi pop of 'Weight Of The World', which skips and mopes while making like The Clean setting light to their parents' carpet with a magnifying glass. There's also charmingly scruffy soul-pop, chugging sci-fi slop-punk, straight-up college rock balladry and much, much more. But these aren't sketches or tossed-off genre exercises. They're bona fide works of consummate skill that resonate sincerely and effortlessly. Essentially, each song sounds like a challenge to the one that follows, a cry of 'step the fuck up'; Suddenly Everything Is Twice As Loud is a treasure trove of mini-masterpieces. Rough as fuck mini-masterpieces, sure, recorded with a cheap drum machine and guitars that sound like rusty drills cutting through power cables, but mini-masterpieces nonetheless. When venerable doyens of the pop establishment make albums of such eclectic scope and genuine songwriting talent, they get called geniuses. When punk-as-fuck wiseguys like Robertson pull it off, words like 'maverick' get tossed around. Rest assured, his Alien Nosejob project covers both angles. This second album is an instant classic that deserves to be heard far beyond the underground -- but if it isn't, who cares? He's probably playing in another seven bands already by the time you read this. I've not heard them yet either, but I can tell you they're all fucking amazing. Just buy this record and join the cult." --Will Fitzpatrick
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LP
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DRUNKEN 119LP
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"'You only get worse,' goes the first line on Dark Thoughts' third album, but while they might be correct about your personal decline, this West Philly trio are quite evidently better than ever. Hot on the heels of 2018's At Work LP -- 18 months later, to be precise -- this new collection sees the band at their willfully-dumb-but-smarter-than-u best, knocking out Ramonescore nuggets of the purest gold as if their lives depended on it. Whether imploring you to 'listen to the radio' or simply 'please don't leave me alone', Jim Shomo's voice remains the perfect balance of snot-drenched sneer and wounded croon, while the band lock into their fast'n'furious groove to frame his lovelorn melodies with the correct amount of muscle, and maybe they'll even pour a few beers directly into their amps while they're at it. Sure, they retain the sound that powered those first two albums, but they know what they're doing -- if it ain't broke, don't fix it; if you're broke, write a 90-second punk banger about it with an irresistible melody and play it as loud as possible. As if to prove that fact, synth-splashed closer 'Must Be Nice' shows they might even have written their best cut yet. Getting back to that first song, 'Hesitate', Shomo goes on to say: 'I've seen the future / It looks so much brighter than it used to.' On the basis of Must Be Nice, it's difficult to argue with that assessment: this is the perfect synthesis of pop and punk and a welcome reminder that your '70s heroes just wanted to recreate the unforgettable 45s they heard on the radio as kids. The 12 songs here may be destined for your turntable rather than the wireless, but you'll treasure 'em every bit as much. Another classic from a band that just doesn't know how to stop writing 'em -- Dark Thoughts forever." --Will Fitzpatrick
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LP
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DRUNKEN 111LP
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Debut LP from this Chicago band that is a new iteration of Broken Prayer. If you were a fan of Broken Prayer, it's hard to imagine how you wouldn't be on board with Droids Blood since they rely on a similar combination of noisy hardcore and whirring synth topped with Scott Plant's trademark topical lyrics and distinctive vocals. Since 2016, Plant has been fronting Droids Blood, whose lineup also includes Broken Prayer drummer Nick Donahue. On Be Free, they vary the tempos more and even add some borderline poppy hooks, but there's also lots of grimy, slightly industrial synth gunk, and bass murk -- "Unreality" sounds deranged in the best possible way.
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LP
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DRUNKEN 113LP
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Let's take a journey into the world of The Mind. You'd probably classify this as "post-punk", if only because that's the only bracket into which they (very loosely) fit. Basslines pulse robotically while guitars splutter discordantly across sheets of static and electronic drums; like dub music shorn of its Caribbean groove and reinvented by retro-futuristic robots, hellbent on kicking out some brain-busting skronk while they wait for Skynet to take over. Opener "Blah Bla Nothin" weighs in like Pere Ubu staring at the chasm between Dub Housing (1978) and Lady From Shanghai (2013) before drowning in hiss, and "Enjoy Your Fantasy" is the soundtrack to This Mortal Coil's nightmares, powered by the distant sound of rolling drums and a fuzzy tension that bristles the hairs on the back of your neck while leaving you thoroughly unsettled. Elsewhere, studio trickery and a dystopian sci-fi gloom hang over the whole thing like dust on a lampshade -- basically it's all over the place. They're as idiosyncratic and thoroughly in tune with their own voice as the early days of Throwing Muses; throwing their glorious chaos at the wall and allowing its own order to settle.
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LP
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DRUNKEN 115LP
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Incredible third LP from Iggy Pop's favorite Canadian power-pop garage punkers, Booji Boys, with 15 songs of melodic scuzzed-up pop. Tube Reducer follows 2017's double whammy of their self-titled debut and its gnarlier-than-thou follow-up Weekend Rocker (2017). And guess what? It's more of the good stuff. In fact, it could well be their best record so far. Sonically, you should know what to expect by now -- a disregard for fidelity; songs that sound way more effortlessly simple than they necessarily are; melodies that'll burrow their way into your head even as you fight through the fuzz to make out what the hell vocalist Alex Mitchell is actually singing... "Stevie Cool" is the bona fide winner this time -- the scuzzed-out power-pop anthem to end all scuzzed-out power-pop anthems -- but there's not a bad cut on offer here. "Nothing Good" blazes by in a fit of nail-biting energy and hooks so razor-sharp you could use 'em to cut through sheet metal, and if you've not donned your pogo-ing shoes to throw yourself between the walls of your house when "Life As A Fed" kicks in... well shit, man, do you even punk rock? By the utterly batshit closer "Moto-Hard" they've even thrown a brass section into the mix, skronking away cheerily and deliriously like Flipper's "Sex Bomb" running the wrong way up an escalator.
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DRUNKEN 112LP
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The Beginning & End Of Cereal Killer is Cereal Killer's first full-length album to date and also their last release since 2016's Demo's EP. The album was recorded over six weeks of tracking in the famous Geelong studios, The Barracks, before calling upon mastermind Mikey Young to sail his yacht across the bay and put his much-practiced mixing techniques into full effect -- the result is mind-blowing. Cereal Killer gained worldwide success in 2016 after their headline performances at Glastonbury and Coachella festivals where they blew away adoring fans and reached international stardom.
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DRUNKEN 109LP
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Heterofobia coming out of Northern Mexico, Monterrey to be exact. Their name says it all, if you are wondering what their lyrics are about! This band is a part of the new crops of amazing bands coming out of Mexico ready to say "fuck you, we are queer, pink and punk and not going anywhere". Frustrated with homophobic culture right now, the music is a grey goth and hardcore. Daniel's vocals (Cremalleras) are acidic screams contrasted with some killer guitar riffs that have a dirty garage sound yet keeping a strong dark cold punk feel to them. The rest of the band merges itself with Mexican po sounds from the '90s and the Madrileno wave for measure. Features a cover of La Uvi's "Ya Esta Bien".
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DRUNKEN 107EP
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What's that you say? "The punk album of 2019"? Ahhh, c'mon man, it's way too early for grand statements like that. What, you think you can make this claim? Just because Vancouver trio Corner Boys have managed to mesh the finest elements of Good Vibrations heroes like Rudi, Protex, and (sure) The Undertones with the buzzsaw power-pop of their city forefathers, the Pointed Sticks? Just because songs like "(I'm Such A) Mess" flow so effortlessly into your consciousness that you'll start wondering how your brain ever functioned without 'em? Hell, just because this might just be a perfectly-executed example of the sort of spiky, addictively essential treat you started to wonder if you would ever hear again? Waiting For 2020 follows a duo of excellent singles -- 2017's Just Don't Care and 2018's Love Tourist -- and it doesn't just pick up where they left off, it does what you always hope the follow-up to an opening salvo will do. It takes the promise they set forth and does way more than merely deliver on it, instead providing us with hook after hook and pogo-worthy pop classic after pogo-worthy pop classic.
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DRUNKEN 104LP
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Not content with pouring their bleak urgency all over the trials and tribulations of modern existence with 2017 LP Gestalt, Negative Space return with a seven-song slab of brutalist post-punk -- and it's another triumph. Seething with fury, it almost (but not quite) masks its venomously-spat lyrical content behind angular basslines that Steve Hanley would've been proud to call his own and guitar chords that teeter and totter between the blunt force of Black Flag and the dissonant crunch of Gang of Four. This is no easy ride; it's music that wraps itself up in peril before clawing its way out and stomping on whatever's left. With song titles like "Theft Utopia" and "Performative", you know what you're getting -- a pointed railing against those who hide behind hypocrisy and illusion, while the monochrome glare of the music makes it clear that none of this is to be fucked with. At times it even sounds like they've been caught up in the textured smoosh of Sonic Youth's Washing Machine (1995), with guitars exploding into senses-crushing fog even as the mechanical clank of the rhythm section continues its relentless, insistent pounding.
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DRUNKEN 103LP
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Following on from 2015's mighty debut The Good Never Comes, No Negative's The Last Offices LP takes the Montreal quartet's penchant for raw, ragged noise, and lobs it into a drum of molten steel, before fashioning the cooling results into something truly formidable. First off, this is very audibly (and thrillingly) a punk rock record. You can hear the metal fascination that drove Black Flag down ever-heavier routes in the '80s, but also echoes of the explorative, spacey psych of Hawkwind and the pointed mind-fuckery of the Butthole Surfers at their most crushingly bleak. Hell, even the expansive kraut-punk spirit of John Dwyer's Oh Sees can be found here, albeit buried under the sheer force of something that is unmistakably hardcore. "Your planet has been swallowed by a black hole... you can no longer taste or smell or see," they claim on the ferociously bad trip of "Transmission From The Black Hole:, and that's an accurate reflection of what it feels like to listen to this band operating at full pelt. They're smart, they're harrowing and they're totally kick-ass. They're the sound of a generation-wide existential crisis, making anthems for anyone who knows the only way through the mess of 2019 is to surrender your brain to the healing powers of the riff and just watch everything evaporate.
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DRUNKEN 108LP
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London/Oxford-based Scrap Brain are back with a long-player that expands and improves on their dirge-y and unconventional brand of hardcore punk. This time around the group embraces a wall of sound approach; this is a record that sounds both huge and claustrophobic at once. A dissonant take on Flipper with one of the best lyricists in contemporary music. Edition of 500.
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DRUNKEN 106LP
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Third LP from Freak Genes. Cleverly deranged punk music for freaks, made by freaks. Whether it's in their genes or acquired from years of dysfunctional ideas gone awry playing in bands, this album is a synth in your face. For their third LP, Freak Genes have unearthed 12 more sort-of-pop sort-of-not songs for your ears to enjoy. Making use of a synthesizer found in a skip and a guitar that won't stay in tune, III is garage rock meets Gary Numan. There are some hit tracks, weird stuff, and almost intentional accidents. If you like making functional use of dysfunctional ideas, this is for you -- and if you love Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, The Units, Lodger-era Bowie (1979), 154-style Wire (1979), or The Flying Lizards, then so much the better.
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DRUNKEN 105EP
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The Cool Garden is piss-funny. "Landlords" is a searing take on the perils of renting that devolves into Kafka-esque levels of preposterousness while also remaining frighteningly recognizable. It goes from personalized number plates to chimpanzee-staffed call centers in just under three minutes, sounding like the The Desperate Bicycles trying to rip off Hex Enduction Hour (1982). "4Chan" is a diary entry of sorts for a regular poster on the Internet's most infamous troll caves. Two unsympathetic guitar chords crash rudely into each other ad infinitum. An addictively excellent slice of horribly nervy pop music.
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7"
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DRUNKEN 101EP
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Ain'cha just sick of being promised a horrible, gnarly noise and getting a whole load of polished, whiny pop-rock instead? Fear not, there are no such concerns with Urochromes. These guys know their Touch & Go from their SST; their Scratch Acid from their Flipper; their mutilated guitar rifferama from their serrated musical bludgeoning. The Beat Sessions crams the sounds of your favorite, pig-fuck bands into a winningly ostentatious collision of pre-programmed drums and manic rawkundrol lunacy.
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DRUNKEN 100LP
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C.H.E.W. (from Chicago, Illinois) are the realest of deals. Feeding Frenzy, their debut, starts with a flurry of drums and goes straight into aggro-heavy, straight-to-the-point hardcore. It gets the adrenaline flowing so fast one can practically see it burst out of one's chest and march on over to the front of the show to get a circle pit going. Most punk packs a punch; this simply pulverizes, in the best possible way. Four anarcho kids with righteous ideals, C.H.E.W. are here to make one sit up and take notice. Well, what else can one do when the blitzkrieg rains forth as powerfully and scintillatingly as this? The album barely lets up for a second; even when they slow down for a spacious creepy-crawl just before the midway point, one can feel the tension ratcheting up another notch or 12, just to keep the anticipation high for the rush of hi-velocity chaos that's surely about to hit home. Feeding Frenzy is just under 31 minutes of noise that'll leave you floored and totally swept up in adoration.
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7"
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DRUNKEN 099EP
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Formed the very day Melbourne-hailing singer Christina Pap arrived in Cleveland, Ohio, they're a pointed blast of too-busy-to-give-a-fuck rawness and vital urgency. Punk rock doing what punk rock does best, basically: getting to the point with noise and purpose, leaving your dazed but exhilarated ears to pick up the pieces afterwards. Their I Like Your Band 7" is a testament to that -- never less than scintillating, at least partially thanks to garage-soaked riffs that are never less than heroically, bottom-shakingly addictive.
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