For whatever reason, or more likely no particular one, every few years there seems to be a cluster of new UK DIY punk bands releasing demo tapes within weeks of each other. This monthโs column has no fewer than ten of them, the filling in a sandwich composed of four 12-inch slices of circular vinyl bread. Sort of thing.
The La Vida Es Un Mus label have just released Love & Revenge, the second album by Kriegshรถg from Tokyo. A revered institution in Japanese hardcore despite or because of their sporadic schedule โ this is their first full-length since 2010, with two singles also released in that time โ these eight songs meet plenty of expected stylistic targets but rock, swing and groove more palpably than older Kriegshรถg records, and most of their domestic peers.
Scarcely demure as regards instrumental tone, with the bass of Shingo (all four Kriegshรถg members are mononymous) especially gnarly, this is nevertheless an album driven by riffs over distortion. The title track gives me Damaged-era Black Flag vibes as much as anything, while songs are often long enough to allow for expansion, crescendos and all-round sonic grandstanding. The title of LP opener โ่็ฉบโ, one of four songs in Japanese, translates as โvoidโ, and vocalist Masaki sounds like heโs shouting into one, or perhaps imploring a tornado to turn around and leave. Everyone in this band is a crucial unit, though, with Love & Revengeโs drum style skewing closer to John Bonham than trad D-beat and โๅทใใไบบ้ โ closing things out with near-post punk rhythmic brood and guitar like a district of blown-out shop windows.
Both ur-punk and pre-punk, having formed over half a century ago, albums by Cock Sparrer have often been once-a-decade events, although Hand On Heart (Captain Oi!) arrives a mere seven years after Forever, its predecessor. Billed as the London bandโs last or โmost likelyโ last release, depending on which sales notes you read, the finished product is spirited and energetic โ if you listened to it without knowing anything about Cock Sparrer, youโd surely never assume they were mostly of retirement age and supposedly ready to take that option.
A canonical band in the history of Oi! despite operating at a degree of reserve from that scene, from brilliant 1983 album Shock Troops onward Cock Sparrer have built their sound from glam, pub rock, music hall standards (or Cockney pub singalongs of them) and something like power pop, all played on big crunchy punk rock guitars. There has, it seems, been a concerted effort to make Hand On Heart the groupโs most polished album, production-wise: this includes the presence of, quote, โstring arranger Simon Dobson (Bring Me The Horizon, Mike Oldfield)โ on penultimate song โMy Forgotten Dreamโ. An addition I doubt most Cock Sparrer fans were crying out for, although the song is serviceable enough, and has a guitar part that sounds like โDisco 2000โ by Pulp of all things.
Grit is generally lurking in these ten songs, though, with โMind Your Own Businessโ and โOne Way Ticketโ sporting distinctly heroic solos and drummer Steve Bruce keeping tempos at a rolling boil. The first of those is vocalist Colin McFaullโs aggiest moment; more often the frontmanโs long-developed sentimental streak fuels his lyrical content, along with a habit of speaking almost entirely in idioms. It says much about Cock Sparrerโs hard-built legacy that these songs sound entirely earnest and genuine.
Ten UK demos, one paragraph each, alphabetical order, letโs go! ASBO are from Brighton, debuted about six months ago and have released a live tape and, via Glaswegian label Pogo Till You Drop, this five-song demo. Their influences, as listed by vocalist Oli Dunk (previously found in Londonโs Zek), can all be summarised as โAmerican hardcore bands who borrowed from British skinhead bandsโ, and thereโs definitely a sense of a transatlantic tennis rally with ASBOโs grody blare, which sports the mutant clatter of early 80s NYHC but โ thanks in large part to Dunk himself โ some distinctly southern English menace.
Bristolian goths Bruxism have been doing the rounds for just over a year, and their summer โ23 demo has recently been made physical via Eggy Tapes and Noise Merchant, although both labels have sold out. Itโs sterling, swirling stuff, replete with buzzing bass and keyboards that lend heavy texture without getting to the point of oppressiveness. Donโt see much point in throwing in a Joy Division cover (โWarsawโ), personally, but hey itโs their demo not mine, and the four Bruxism originals here are what seals the deal, glowering with ill-disguised glee and landing somewhere between Clan Of Xymox and Rakta maybe.
Also from Bristol and with the patronage of Eggy Tapes for this two-song effort, Chewing Glass Collective have been around for maybe three years and sling sludgy metallic hardcore. โBlood Bleacherโ has death/grind tunings, cookie monster vocals and pitworthy breakdowns; โAnaesthetic Attack (Destruction Redux)โ drags itself along concrete for one minute and blasts up the road for the other. Odd fellows out in their local scene, sonically speaking, Chewing Glass Collective do however have a highly Bristolian asset โ their own soundsystem โ and use it for clubnights which seek to explore the common ground between extreme metal and bass culture in its myriad forms.
Dead Name is a great band name, just waiting to be used, but youโd want it to go to a good home wouldnโt you. Happy to report that on the evidence of these four songs of fuzzed-out queercore rippage, to say nothing of the membersโ qualifications in the field, thatโs very much happened! London-dwelling and comprising personnel from Woolf, Brighton anarchos รttestor and hippypunk veterans Omega Tribe, itโs only Dead Name singer Jade whoโs an entirely new voice to this listener, but an impeccably forceful one for their bandmatesโ midpaced attack โ expounding on topics of vibeless Tories, murderous coppers and foxhunting wankers (and resistance to same). Its focus is distinctly British but outwith the lyrics I could well believe this had came out of South or Central America.
Thought Iโd be really annoying and review a tape that isnโt for sale any more and whose music isnโt online anywhere. Itโs by Hellscape, who live in London; this two-song promo was purchased with haste after seeing them play the Damage Is Done fest earlier this year. The last song they played that afternoon, โThe Graveโ, is the first on the tape and itโs absolutely class if you like slow-burn deathrock with hooks big enough to take back in time and sell to some 90s grunge chancers. โTraitorsโ Gateโ, which follows, is shorter and more hardcore, blessed further by a sample of Kat Slater off of Eastenders calling someone a slapper. Plan seems to be for these songs to resurface on a 7-inch co-released by the Donor and Advanced Perspective labels.
Moist Crevice titled their debut cassette Psychic Violence after what they were attempting to do to me, personally, when choosing their name. However I rose above it and am now hailing this London bandโs zesty no wave-y dramaticism. Itโs something like Confusion Is Sex-era Sonic Youth meets the more compact flailings of Perfect Pussy and a big spoon of goth rock: the title track has a riff that starts about 40 seconds in thatโs as good as anything featured this month, and Irene Montemurro is a compelling frontperson. Wearer of elaborate, high society ball-type costumes onstage, the vocalist โ Swiss-born, Italian-raised โ sings three Moist Crevice songs in English and one, โRodni Gradโ, in Serbian.
If you flip for crossover thrash then donโt waste another minute not listening to Nerve Agent, who come from Birmingham and just dropped their Game Of Death EP on Noise Merchant. This is an absolute bastard! Not only was Nerve Agentโs debut show as recently as February, it was directly before Helsinkiโs Foreseen, who I suspect have influenced these Midlanders at least partially. Game Of Death opens with a sample of Vera Lynn, for unexplained reasons, and clamps its jaws around the chew toy for 19 solid minutes thereafter. Dan Warren is a great vocalist, with just the right amount of hardcore in his holler and lyrics clearly from that side of the tracks too.
More than a hot streak of metal in Ruined Virtueโs sound, as evidenced on this demonstration tape: itโs another oceanic linkup, with Pogo Till You Drop this time assisted by Contact Minimal of Montreal. Ruined Virtue are from Sheffield and while Iโm not entirely au fait with their backgrounds โ frontman Harrisen Jacquesโ seems to mainly be in straight-edge bands โ they strike me as fitting in neatly with, and measuring up to, likely local lads like Rat Cage and Stray Bullet. These five songs have bombastic tendencies (a fadeout on โSanctus Bellโ!) and cumulatively land somewhere between mid-80s Swedish HC, doomladen metalpunk and recent smashers like Kinetic Orbital Strike.
This editionโs final Noise Merchant tape is by Sex Germs of Leicester. Theyโve been going for about two years though seem to have increased activity since membersโ other bands Nothing Clean (powerviolence) and Knice (garage rock) hung it up; the eight-song Germcore is something different again but comparably boisterous, mid-to-fast punk with robust hardcore basslines that often feels somewhat โ2006โ to me in a Shitty Limits or Brutal Knights kinda way. Anna Hazlewood bolsters the whole with pan-scouring vocals and an upfront sense of humour stops agreeably short of wackiness.
And to finish this demo dump we have a band who appear to be operating completely anonymously, which naturally I take as a challenge โ but no, Skint are running rings round me (for now). The band were kind enough to post me their tape, with a return address in Vauxhall; the inlay says it was recorded in London and Boorloo, aka Perth (the Australian one). Skintโs vocalist laments, semi-thematically, the โmeal deals … and clearance foodโ which fuel their existence, and lodge an appeal for personal ecological responsibility on โReduceโ: โReally need a plastic bag?โ That oneโs got a โforgotten Hackney anarcho band from 1985โ lyrical vibe, but musically it and its three sibling tracks are hyperefficient brickwall hardcore that swings us all the way round to that ASBO tape I wrote about a thousand words or so ago.
Donโt know much about Geo, never heard of most of the bands their five members have also performed in, canโt even list any fascinating facts about their home city of Groningen without cheatingโฆ but I can tell you that their debut album Out Of Body (Erste Theke Tontrรคger) is some finely itchy scratchy post punk eccentrica. Got a vague sense that this sort of music, splicing no wave, funk and disco in variously abrasive and accessible ways like people have been doing for some 45 years now, is a little unfashionable at present, but itโll always retain a cool frisson, although Geo are โ pleasingly โ too yelpy and needling to give the impression they care much about that sort of thing.
โThe music sounds weirdโฆ the rhythm sounds fine,โ Jorne Visser sprechgesangs on โSunglassesโ, attempting to review Out Of Body with its opening lyrics. Itโs his and Michiel Kleinโs twin guitar action that gives Geo much of its punk bite, unrolling sheets of Teenage Jesus-type noise as Maud van Maarseveenโs basslines maintain a dignified solemnity and Ype Zijlstra cowbells the heck out of songs like the endearingly dopey-sounding โCaught A Cricketโ. Visserโs vocal style is sort of a midpoint of G.W. Sok, ex of The Ex, and Ben Wallers from the Country Teasers et al, although less proselytising or noxious than either of those. โHelp! Iโm a rock!โ he appears to claim during โWu Obt Fasโ, a very lively one on the evidence of this record.
To finish as we started, an albumโs worth of hulking hardcore out of Tokyo: this time itโs Klonns and their debut LP Heaven (Iron Lung). By complete coincidence, theyโre scheduled to be playing in London at the exact moment Iโm writing this sentence, and though they should be back in Japan by the time you read this I can only imagine some pits got opened up if Klonns can replicate this sort of downtuned blizzard-beastliness in public. Like Kriegshรถg, they have a few punishingly noisy releases in their discography โ Vvlgar, from 2019, is some commendably chewy crasher crust earache โ but have tweaked their sound and folded in some non-obvious influences to fine effect.
The electronic intro and outro to Heaven doesnโt actually tell you much about the stuff between the bookends, but does help to back up the groupโs intention to make the album โa comprehensive overview of Tokyo and Japanese underground cultureโ. An implausible speedrun with less than 20 minutesโ playtime, surely, so you might be better off just treating this as a really good screwy neo-HC release with some well-realised embellishments and fleeting features for pals including techno producer Golpe Mortal (death metal vox on โHeavenโ the track) and Sailor Kannako (screech owl vox on โRealmโ), who plays in electrogoth duo Xian with someone from Klonns. Thereโs a certain type of person who prizes the inherent sonic tics of Japanese hardcore punk โ ones which are mostly jettisoned on Heaven in favour of a sound that could have come from pretty much anywhere but stands up as an example of a scene thatโs global, contemporary and exciting.
