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LP
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DRUNKEN 113LP
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$22.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 11/8/2019
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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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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LP
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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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LP
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DRUNKEN 111LP
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$22.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 8/2/2019
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 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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LP
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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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LP
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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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LP
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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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7"
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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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LP
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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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