Iโll keep this bit short: during 2019 I reviewed about fifty releases in this bi-monthly column which fall under the definition of punk or hardcore, or were considered by me to do so. Below is a rundown of the ten I liked the best, in reverse order until the coveted number one spot. (I donโt really think itโs coveted, that was just a sort of joke.)
There were also a great, great many more I didnโt review, because much of the punk underground doesnโt really go big on publicity, let alone send out freebies to random dickheads like me, so often things go unheard until several months after they were released. Iโve addressed ten such items below as well.
Aside from that, there isnโt much of substance to add to a year-end overview on the topic of this subculture. Punk evolves, even if that evolution is often incremental, and is subject to trends and flashpoints, but I donโt really feel that these happen in the context of a particular calendar year. (Am now imagining a Dow Jones index-type live ticker, except itโs for, like, hardcore guitarists starting industrial solo projects, or something.)
Maybe 2020 will bring us loads of MaggieโnโRonnie-type songs about Boris & Donnie, in the same way people have been idly wondering for about thirty years if a new wave of angry political punk about easily identifiable targets is just around the corner, but I donโt really see that happening or think it would have much bottom-line value as a style of protest.
Next February, I will have written Noelโs Straight Hedge for ten years, which on a personal level is something to chew on for sure; I enjoy doing it on tQ specifically because it isnโt a punk or hardcore-specific website, indeed doesnโt cover those genres a great deal otherwise. Making it more likely that someone who isnโt very plugged into this corner of underground music (Iโm not going to get into the whole โ6 Music dads think such-and-such popular band is punk but this is the real stuffโ thing, I donโt care and it doesnโt affect the bands I like) might find something rad theyโd never have otherwise heard of. If you think you might fit that description, get scrolling, streaming, purchasing and life-changing via the below. If you want.
10. Disguise โ Bas Fada
(Static Shock)
โDublinโs studded screech owls.โ
9. Soga โ Demo
(Iron Lung)
โTotal energy with, by my reckoning, exactly one slow part, every member chips in on vox and accentuates the already strong sense of girl-gangness.โ
8. Enzyme โ Howling Mind
(La Vida Es Un Mus)
โThat shrill-drill atonality Disorder patented in the early 80s and some phaser-heavy psychedelia.โ
7. PlasticHeads โ Nowhere To Run
(Ugly Pop)
โAn overall way with hardcore-paced garage punk thatโs got me recalling good times spent with The Shitty Limits in a past era.โ
6. Rainbow Grave โ No You
(God Unknown)
โOnly at all audience-pleasing if said audience are here for glue-headache-throb psychedelic punk sludge.โ
5. Haiboku โ Un Nuevo Poder
(Rock SVB / Planeta Destrozado)
โHerberty vocal rasp and outrageous canvas-splattering metal guitar solos are a driving force alongside rhythm-section bulldozery, but at their heart Haiboku come off like a rockโnโroll band, just one playing very VERY fast and loose.โ
4. Terra Soror โ Revenge
(self-released)
โSix songs which thread an almost surfpunk groove through blown-out gothic anarcho vibes and make extensive reference to ecofeminist theory.โ
3. Petlya โ Troglodyte
(Estranged Communications)
โHectic tempos with gaspworthy shifts of same, infinite ripples of vocal reverb, guitar solos like a chemical explosion lighting up the sky and vocals that emerge straight from the throat while eschewing dread Cookie Monstrosity.โ
2. Implement โ Through Screams Of Infernal Misery
(Cold Comfort)
โEddie Van Halen joining Cro-Mags for their second album?ย Crossover thrash verses and power metal breakdowns leave you anticipating a bangover and Leah Massey is a vocal revelation.โ
1. Game โ No One Wins
(Quality Control)
โEssential for punks and metalheads alike.โ
TEN THAT GOT AWAY
Das Drip โ Das Drip
(Sorry State)
This one really did get away from me on its August release, shoddy work from a keen advocate of US punk label/record shop Sorry State and, especially, pitched-up breakneck pencilneck abstractly-thrashinโ squigglecore. Personal rashes scratched by the Warm Bodies LP last year have though been inflamed by Das Drip, who like Sorry State are from Raleigh in North Carolina. They donโt really do riffs, their rhythms seem less set on making you open up a pit than tricking you into falling over, and Rach Canningโs vocals have a sort of โheard through a megaphone during a protest at the other end of the streetโ quality (Iโm not going to try and explain why I actually like this). Her bandmates, whoโve also done time in Raleigh stalwarts like ISS and Whatever Brains, supply the hyper-to-heck teen-energy hardcore clang a la Neos or debut-EP Meat Puppets.
Foster Care โ El Abuso
(Total Punk)
Total Punk Records with one of its rare forays outside the 45rpm single format, and despite the third album by New Yorkโs Foster Care in fact being total no-foolinโ hardcore, no Trade Descriptions Act is getting invoked in this column โ because El Abuso goes way too hard for me to care. Its 19 minutes has a barely-suppressed AmRep type noiserock mentality, with screwy banks of feedback flooding the mix, but Foster Care capture the obnoxious quintessence of the genre like early Poison Idea, The Fix or Nine Shocks Terror did, with the misleadingly-named Chris Teenager having perfected his bilious garble and Jesse Crawfordโs bass as heavy and toxic as a flaming tar barrel. Unlikely โex-memberโ count: drummer Alison Busch used to be in dandruffy mid-00s retro-rawkers Awesome Color.
Mรกti โ EP
(self-released)
Iโm not saying I flipped a coin over two 2019 servings of Greek-language HC blowouts, but another โ Antimob from Athensโ second album โ was well in the running for the top ten. Mรกti, meanwhile, are from New York, have two members (of four) of Greek extraction and pressed up their own debut 7-inch of diamond-hard mayhem back in spring. Thereโs touchstones with the Toxic State Records mutant mentality (Mike Gallant, also of Haram, is on guitar here), but I donโt think anything this metal-hailing has ever sprayed out of that sewer: peep the solo on โฮ ฮฑฯฮฌฮปฯ ฯฮทโ, the crossover thrash bludgeon of โฮจฮญฮผฮฑฯฮฑโ and the righteous use of both on โฮฮตฮฝ ฮฃฮบฮญฯฯฮตฯฮฑฮนโ. Heresy in some circles, this, but I rate this EP over any to date by the stylistically and geographically related Warthog.
Payday โ Second To None
(Quality Control)
London straight-edge metallic hardcore was never my scene in either an idiomatic or actual sense, but itโs not like Iโm immune to the appeal of some of its elements โ especially sinisterly plodding drop-tuned guitar parts played by self-evident death metal fans and lyrics about people who are, basically, just complete wankers. Payday, a quartet whoโve been around for three years or so, emit my kinda sXe rage, and this debut album is unvarnished screwface savagery that sounds more like a product of early 90s Cleveland (Integrity and their various fabled peers) than the rap-influenced capital city gristle of Knuckledust et al (although one of the song titles appears to be a Sneakbo reference). Tom Pimlott, probably the most ubiquitous musical figure in UK hardcore, joins as drummer, supplying treetrunk-thick rhythmic frames for Marco Abbatielloโs irate vocal, and recording Second To None with frankly crushing clarity for good measure. The amount of riffs per square inch on this thing has got top boffins bamboozled, I tells ya!
Perra Vida โ Eterno Retorno
(Hell Hath No Fury)
Perra Vida emailed a year or so ago asking about a review, which was pretty cool because Peruvian feminist hardcore bands donโt email me as often as Iโd like, but by the time their Bandcamp EP came out on 7-inch my eye must have left the ball. The quartet, from Lima, recently released a debut album, thus offering a chance to unflub my past flubs. Eterno Retorno tilts its hat towards โpunkโ as opposed to โhardcoreโ, in terms of tempo, tone and employment of uplifting woah-ohing backing vox, but this lot are air-punchingly good tunesmiths, with Diana Matos perhaps an even better frontwoman. Thereโs succour in these ten songs for fans of the Latino punk continuum, early 90s malt liquor-chugging East Bay type bandsโฆ and, in โMis Mercenariosโ and โSalte De Mi Menteโ, Perra Vidaโs debut release.
Powerplant โ People In The Sun
(Dreamland Syndicate/Erste Theke Tontraeger)
A solo synthpunk project (inflated into a full band for โ very entertaining โ live performances) devised by Theo Zhykharyev, a Ukrainian living in London, People In The Sun is the debut Powerplant album, allowing for Zhykharyev having recorded one in 2017 and later deciding it wasnโt long enough to count. This, positively epic at over half an hour, came out on tape in early 2019 and got reissued on wax with the help of perma-crucial Germans Erste Theke Tontraeger. What did they hear in it? Maybe the intermingling of minimal synth burble, refining itself into Numanoid swell (โClassic Evilโ and โTake My Money!โ respectively), cleancut new wave (โDungenโ) and swathes of cheaper-than-yer-life garage keys to prick up ears of all Mummies, Spits and Coneheads connoisseurs. Iโm just a lowly enthusiast, though, donโt ask me.
Putzfrau โ Demo
(Edger)
This one was a meatless-space version of those olde tyme โI was in a record shop and Iโd never heard of them and this was before Google so I just took a chance tell kids today that they wonโt believe youโ stories. That is to say, I saw a social media post linking to Putzfrauโs streaming platform of choice, no context offered, and an optimistic click on their debut demo knocked me on my situpon. Subsequent research doesnโt unearth much too vital โ theyโre from Portland, most of them (certainly singer Tai Faux) used to be in a group called Heavy Hands, theyโre pretty definitively a Local Band at present โ but hardcore breezeblocks like this tape reaffirm why itโs (still) legit to bring nowt new to the subgenre, as long as youโre REALLY FUCKING GOOD. Only one song of eight, the early Hรผsker Dรผ-like โSick Sad Worldโ, lasts over a minute; never are things not full steam ahead, never does Tai sound like she couldnโt suplex you through a table, often am I left thinking that In School should have stuck around longer but that Putzfrau refresh that spirit.
Rakta โ Falha Comum
(La Vida Es Un Mus)
Sao Paolo gothic postpunx make an audacious leap from their wall-of-Siouxsie aggro-wigouts to Falha Comum, a seven-song cauldron of dub-punk churn & swirl. Delay is spooned onto delay like a psychedelic sundae; atmospheres can be tonally mournful (โEstrela da Manhaฬโ) but throb with an invigorating groove; Raktaโs new drummer (Mauricio Takara, a bloody bloke spoiling Raktaโs all-woman attack but bringing some smart jazz underground cred to compensate) brings many styles and much percussive nous to the table. Continuing the work This Heat, Ut and PiL started, and a truly on point live act back in spring too, touring with Brazilian buds Deafkids.
Taiwan Housing Project โ Sub-Language Trustees
(Ever/Never)
More superlative out-punk, on the consistently great Ever/Never label (a cue to note that the Chinese Restaurants LP they just released is also essential bizarreness) and located in Philadelphia. Taiwan Housing Project features Mark Feehan, once in Harry Pussy with Bill Orcutt, on guitar, and for a dude who started playing in bands over 35 years ago he sounds overflowing with youthful vinegar, forming a killer axe duo with Kilynn Lunsford, THPโs banshee-brutal vocalist. Something like โBuy Buy Buyโ, a merciless verbal dismantling of suburban aspirational mores over the most thick-skulled sub-Mudhoney wah-wahnk imaginable, to say nothing of the intermittent sax bleat and trash-sloppy drumming, makes the same sorta case for no wave as Putzfrau do for early 80s hardcore. If youโve heard and liked the album by Manchesterโs Locean I recently reviewed here, you might get a wriggle on to Sub-Language Trustees too, although itโs a bit more punk-compact.
Vidro โ Alt Brinner (Kink)
Came out in January, this Stockholmersโ debut LP, and was caught up on by me some time over summer when I saw Vidro had someone called Vendela singing and dared to dream. Say what? Half a decade back, in Straight Hedge, I reviewed a cassette on Matt Batyโs Box label by Queerโd Science, Manc no wave noiserockers with the best up-in-your-coupon vocalist Iโd seen in forever โ Vendela Engstrรถm, who departed the UK some time after. And, it turned out, turned up here. Vidro are a pretty interesting confluence of figures in general, also including a Brazilian, an American and Swedish hardcore OG Staffan Fagerberg, and Alt Brinner is a minor ripper. Its essence is dark, midpaced melodic punk, sure, but the three musicians torpedo this with lakes of chorus pedal, nerve-janglingly atonal solos on cuts like โSista Dagen Pรฅ Jordenโ and a mix that practically staples your head to the bass drum โ all while Engstrรถm spits more lava than ever, death, feminism and European borders filtered through her verbiage. File with the Terra Soror, Ubik and Arse releases from punkโs last 12 months. Bonus blare: Vidroโs split tour tape with Brazilian band Cankro is shortly being released on vinyl by Osloโs Byllepest Records.
