Signifying Nothing

November 2011 Reviews

By admin on Nov. 25, 2011.

Sick Fucking O
Demo

Members of Voorhees are back with a new band that sounds like…Voorhees. Obviously, not as classic as Spilling Blood Without Reason, but good angry 82 era hardcore that will be enjoyed by fans of Voorhees for sure. Cool Devo cover at the end.

Defile
Demo 2010

Fast, angry, hardcore somewhere between midwestern style and power violence. I bet live you can hear a bit of Rorschach in their sound too. I’d like to hear more.

Slowburn
Demo

Members of a variety of NJHC bands including Spirit, Vision, and Floorpunch playing melodic, Turning Point, style hardcore. This isn’t too bad, but it’s not something I would listen to that often. The members of this band have done much better before.

Beware
Demo

Members of Stick Together and a few other PA bands doing pretty bland Chain of Strength style hardcore that has all of the flaws most 1980′s “melodic,” nearing emo, hardcore bands have. The generic 88 styling of Stick Together are way better. I’m shocked by how many people are so into this.

Bloody Hammer
Demo 2010

Moderately generic Oi! trying to sound like all of the classics. This isn’t a bad effort at sounding like Four Skins, one of my favorites, but isn’t something I will listen to much. I don’t dabble too deeply in this genre during modern times, but check this one out if you love this stuff.

Good Times
Demo

This was handed to me on the way out of a show. I’m not sure if this is supposed to be serious, but the music moves between 88 style hardcore to chugga chugga idiot metal. Add in some pretty misogynistic lyrics and this is pretty shitty.

Hatred Surge
Deconstruct LP
Rescued From Life Records

Taking cues from bands like His Hero Is Gone, Neurosis, and Mind Eraser come this LP by Hatred Surge. Brutal hardcore with alternating male/female vocals. This is one of my favorites of the past few years.

Rorschach
Remain Sedate Reissue LP
Gern Blandsten Records

While I like Protestant a lot more than this one, the first Rorschach LP is an essential part of the evolution of post youth crew hardcore in the nineties. The influence of late eighties bands like Breakdown can still be heard from their very early sound, but so can the incoming influence of bands like Bl’ast!, Voi-void, and Die Kreuzen as well. As with Protestant, the resisue is greatly aided by remastered sound.

Miles Davis
Bitches Brew Live CD

I highly doubt this is a legit release, but worth checking out. The liner notes are hilarious though: the writer acts like NO ONE has ever heard live material of Davis from this era. Tape traders have avidly passed around shows from his electronic years from a damn long time. Ignoring that is comical. There are better shows out there.

Young Republicans
Sabatoge Your Cookout 7″
More Than A Witness Records

One of the great holy grails of the tape trading circuit when I was a teenager was the Young Republicans demo. As you probably know, members of, and songs, from this tape moved to New York City and did a slightly more well known band called Youth Of Today. This demo is pretty generic early eighties hardcore that isn’t bad, but doesn’t really stand out. Worth noting is the songs that did move over to Youth of Today and eventually Project X as well, which is an interesting historical note. Just for that, I strongly suggest picking this up.

Waste Management
Get Your Mind Right 7″
Painkiller Records

Wow!!!! Serious SSD worship from this Massachusetts band. The music is more in the vein of early NYHC bands like The Abused or Agnostic Front, but the pleading, sick, Springa style vocals are unbelievable. I hear a little bit of Crucifix too (SSD meets Crucifix? Fuck.). This would have fit in nicely alongside records on XClaim! or Rat Cage. Nice cover of “Fight,” out of nowhere, in the middle of the record too.

New Lows
Self Titled 7″
Lockin Out Records

Somewhere amongst Word As Law era Neurosis and Humanity Is The Devil era Integrity comes The New Lows’ debut single on Lockin Out. this is a style can be fall apart quick because of too much chugga chugga or experimental bullshit, but The New Lows keep it together. My only complaint is a few too many kickbox style mosh parts. That shit is so corny; however, the band can’t be punished for the idiotic way a crowd way react to them.

DropDead/Converge
Split 7″

DropDead did a split with…Converge? Okay. The DropDead side of this split is pretty good, up to their usual good standards. Converge are just not a band who have ever interested me. Post hardcores love that shit.

Wasted Time
Futility 12″
Grave Mistake Records

Wasted Time come back with an excellent followup to their debut 7″, this time heavily soaked in Kings of Punk era Poison Idea and Oi! bands like Blitz and 4-Skins. Wasted Time is able to tread between an authentic old style and more modern production and stylistic values. This is one of the best records of the decade.

Innumerable Forms
Dark Worship 7″
Hell Massacre Records

Justin Detore’s death metal project is exactly as awesome as it sounds. Serious old school death metal which really stands out in a genre I don’t dive too deeply into outside of most of the classics. A lot of the newer Mind Eraser (Justin’s day job) material in somewhat in this vein, or at least heavily influenced by it. Excellent and worth tracking down.

Gasmask Terror
Black Sun Fake Gold LP
Solar Funeral Records

Gasmask Terror are an interesting band whose sound falls somewhere between UK82 and D-Beat styles. I think this LP drags a little bit, but I think I have a general distaste for longer records in this style from most bands outside of the heavyweights like Discharge. This is definitely worth checking out.

Waste Management
Power Abuse 7″
Painkiller Records

Yes!!! Brutal SSD style hardcore from members of Mind Eraser. This record takes the best of early Boston and New York with some seriously raging lyrics (especially “Too Much Unity”). A definite contender for record of the year.

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Reviews For The Week Of August 8th

By admin on Aug. 9, 2011.

I don’t need to explain this one.

Bad Brains
171A Sessions 7″

Has anyone else noticed that a lot of Bad Brains demos are popping up the past few years? These are three versions of songs you probably know, but heavier than say the Black Dots session. A live, horrible, reggae song ends the record. Not really that essential.

Waste Management
Tape

Members of Mind Eraser, etc doing really ILL Boston 82 hardcore ala SSD. The best part about this one is the pleading, furious, Springa style vocals. One of the best bands going today. There is a live set on here too with Abused and DYS covers. I’ve been waiting for someone to proclaim there is “too much unity!” for years.

Give
Heaven Is Waiting 7″
Deranged Records

This is my least favorite Give record so far. Heading away from Swiz and more towards something like Avail, this is a little too poppy for me. Still, their other records are so solid that a few misses here and there are acceptable.

Various Artists
Youth Crew 2009 7″
Upside Down Records

Youth crew? Most of these bands sound like Chain of Strength. The only really decent band here is Break Through. I found most of the bands to be rather uninteresting. This style is really in need of a hiatus.

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Signifying Nothing Episode 04×03

By admin on Aug. 5, 2011.

Talk Is Poison-Right To Die (Self Titled)
Youth Brigade-Snow Job (Demo)
Voorhees-A Cure For The New Disease (Spilling Blood Without Reason)

Necros-Youth Camp (IQ32)
Mind Eraser-Manhood (Glacial Reign)
Sacrilege-A Violation of Something Sacred (Beyond The Realm of Madness)

Rorschach-Hemlock (Protestant)
Corrosion of Conformity-Holier (Animosity)
Blessed Offal-Bottomless Grave (Demo)

Misery-Class Warfare (Who’s The Fool)
Neurosis-The Choice (The Word As Law)
Slang-World of Lunacy (Life Made Me Hardcore)

Indian Dream-Silent Screams (Orca)
Mauser-New Threat (End of the Line)
Black Flag-Best One Yet (Loose Nut)

Whirl-Blue (Distressor)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Reviews For The Week Of July 25th

By admin on Jul. 25, 2011.

Mind Eraser at some Scion sponsored gig. I giggled at how DFJ bums out the bouncers.

Blessed Offal
Self Titled Tape

Death metal coming highly recommended by friends who dig this stuff. While a few songs go on forever, Blessed Offal keeps them interesting with enough changes of pace to not lose me. This is pretty good.

United Youth
Demo

Decent 88 style hardcore that goes by in the blink of an eye. I see a lot of potential for an ep. Keep going.

Vaccine
Crimes In Blood 5″
Painkiller Records

I am glad this is a 5″ because there is about three minutes of music here. I don’t think a single song goes over 30 seconds. Vaccine fit somewhere in between Infest and No Comment, playing blazing fast hardcore with some changes within those brief songs. This is excellent.

Black Flag
Live At The On Broadway CD

Huh, this is totally weird. I’ve had pieces of both of these sets (the debut of the “My War Demos” lineup) for about 13 years, but only parts put together to make one set. Even weirder: It was labeled “Los Angeles 1983,” not even the right city/year. This obvious bootleg (hello, poser alert, on the wrong song titles) puts out very nice soundboards of two Flag shows from 1982 at the On Broadway in San Francisco. My Rules and I’ve Got To Run are brand new songs, and some of the My War songs are played as well. Obviously, this is essential material from Black Flag, but I’m not sure if you want to support the bootleggers.

Bl’asting Concept
Self Titled LP
It’s Alive Records

Our old friend Fred Hammer put this one out on his long dormant It’s Alive label. Not surprisingly, because of their name, this band must be big fans of Bl’ast!, Fu Manchu, and Annihilation Time. Heading more towards the rockier sound of the latter two bands, I lost a bit of interest when listening to this one. I think there is a big audience for a band like this right now, so I’m sure you will check it out for yourself.

War Hungry
Self Titled LP
Six Feet Under Records

Somewhere between Iron Age and…Life Of Agony (? Seriously? People like that crap?) comes the new record from PA’s War Hungry. This is pretty metal and would have fit in with all the Roadrunner Records bands the kids in my high school who were into “hawd” bands dug. I’m glad I stuck to Floorpunch and Voorhees. This is definitely not for me.

Mauser
End Of The Line 7″
Vinyl Rites Records

Burly Discharge/Anti Cimex inspired hardcore from the cess pool of Florida. This is a genre filled with lots of garbage, but this stands out as an essential modern piece of d-beat hardcore.

Whirl
Distressor Tape
Bridgetown Records

As if D-Beat and youth crew hardcore being genres filled with garbage was annoying enough, shoegazer is another genre where the good is heavily outweighed by the bad and vastly overrated. A friend told me Whirl were very much in the vein of Slowdive, so I checked this out. “Sounds like Slowdive” indeed! This is beautiful, dream like, shoegazer ala Slowdive. After a soundbite from Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, Whirl slam into some fantastic music. Seven songs is a perfect length for this, leaving the tape at its ending before any hint of boredom, a big problem with this genre, ensues.

The Rival Mob
Raw Life 12″
Lockin’ Out Records

The Rival Mob are one of the best bands out there today. Somewhere between Madball, youth crew hardcore, and Ringworm, they sound fresh and interesting without anything silly or outside the realm of hardcore. Great stuff.

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Reviews For The Week of July 18th

By admin on Jul. 18, 2011.

Talk Is Poison…one of the best bands of the past 15 years…

State of Alert
No Policy Bootleg LP

This is a pretty complete bootleg LP with all of State of Alert’s recorded material. The No Policy 7” on Dischord, the tracks from Flex Your Head, two demos, and a live set. I’ve heard all of this before, but completeists will dig having all of this in one place. Why hasn’t Dischord done a discography for them already?

Various Artists
Brutal Supremacy Compilation Double 7″
Painkiller Records

The long awaited debut compilation from Painkiller Records does not let down. Mind Eraser and Scapegoat continue to plow through their always excellent careers with a nice handful of unreleased versions of songs from each band. Hatred Surge seem to have had some lineup changes, but I am still reminded of His Hero Is Gone when listening to them. Iron Lung are a band I had heard about for awhile, but never really heard before. They remind me of some late eighties Touch & Go bands like Shellac, Butthole Surfers, etc and some of the nineties Gravity Records emo bands. Pretty decent stuff. All bands are worth your time.

No Hope For The Kids
Angels of Destruction b/w Cold Touch of Death 7”
Backwards Masking Records

This is definitely my favorite NHFTK record. The A side is a heavy, melodic song that reminds me of the Adolescents a lot. The B side is a faster song with some riffs pretty reminiscent of The Misfits. A two song single is about all I can handle from this band. I did not like their LP.

Christian Mistress
Mother of Mercy b/w The Hereafter 7″
Nasjonal Records

Fantastic Venom soaked metal from this Portland band. Great riffs and changes without become boring or tedious, which a lot of metal gets for me very quickly. A lot of people think the vocals sound like the singer of The Gits, and I can definitely see that.

Free Spirit
Free Yourself 7″
Triple B Records

One of the few impressive youth crew records of the past…oh, let’s say, 15 years or so, combine “second tier” bands like Confront and Hard Stance with a bit of Token Entry to put out a great seven inch. I think there is a lot of potential here, unlike most of the junk coming out of this genre.

The Rival Mob
Hardcore 4 Hardcore 7″
Six Feet Under Records

Members of bands like No Tolerance and Mind Eraser (including one of the illest dudes I know, DFJ…his tweets during the Royal Wedding should be taught in schools) playing hardcore somewhere between good Madball and good Ringworm. I love how noisy Doug’s bass is on this record. This sounds modern without all the stupid chugga chugga or tough guy poses.

Supertouch
WNYU LP
Horror Hotel Records

What more can you say about this? The Supertouch NYU set is, by far, the definitive recording of the band. You probably already have this from the tape trading circuit (my rip was the one frequently passed around for years it seemed), so this LP isn’t super essential. It’s a nice idea to get definitive copies of NYU sets. I’d love to see a label do a series of them.

Soul Swallower
Devour LP
Painkiller Records

Back after a multiple year hiatus, Soul Swallower follow up on their debut seven inch with more ugly hardcore in the vein of Citizens Arrest, Napalm Death, and Rorschach. There is a sense of progression here towards a more noisy, ugly, sound. Some of these songs had been on demos recorded around 2006 (one recorded with a member of DropDead), but there are new ones here too. A candidate for record of the year.

California Love
Reaping The Whirlwind LP

Members of Look Back & Laugh playing power violence in the style of No Comment, Neanderthal, and other California bands. This is pretty good, but I rarely listen to it. If you’re a big fan of this style, I would still check it out because I bet you’d like it.

Reveal The Truth
Courage 7”

Pretty generic thrashy youth crew style hardcore from this Florida band. This reminds me a lot of many of the bands on the old Voice of 1000′s compilation. If you can’t get enough of this style, you’re love this band.

School Jerks
Control 7″
Cowabunga Records

Serious early Black Flag worship from this Toronto band. Think Jealous Again era Flag. This band has been progressing quite nicely as each release goes by. I would highly recommend checking this band out.

Maggot Minded
Tape Compilation

A tape compilation with primarily west coast bands. Most bands play decent modern hardcore with the highlight being HIV (ex-members of the excellent band Cold Sweat).

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