400 Blows - Black Rainbow

Year: 2003

Label: Rehash

This music is a tightly wound ball of energy that writhes, roils, and continually folds in on itself. The rhythms are militaristic in their precision, the guitar lines are pulled taut, and the vocals are overdriven stories of sickened characters. It's hard to imagine these tunes coming out of sunny Los Angeles, but 400 Blows are graduates of the same scene that gave us Slug, Qui, Year Future, Bluebird, and the Icarus Line among so many others. 

Black Rainbows will be seen in the near future as a crucial release in the pantheon of rock n roll, no shit, it's that good. They are better, smarter, crazier, and less polite than the average "metal" band, and I imagine their fans are too. 

DL

400 Blows 3-19-98

Sorry for the lack of posts on my part. I've been out fruitbooting across California in search of the ultimate summer.
Memories... Saw these guys at a skatepark in Costa Mesa, CA in 99' and was totally blown away by their magic. Voice, guitar and drums. No bullshit. 2nd time I saw em' they blew At the Drive In and the Murder City Devils off the stage. I was even lucky enough to have my old band play with them several times and have them blow us off the stage too. If you're into fuzzy guitars, yelling and mathematical drumming, check. this. shit. out. PS- their second record is around here as well...

DL

Zaleski / Ugly Zoo - Split

Label: Fleeting Youth
Year: 2014

Not a split as much as it is a consolidation. What you're getting is the debut ep from Ohio band Zaleski called 'Void', and the debut ep from Pennsylvania band Ugly Zoo called 'Ugly Zoo' (easy enough), and what those two eps, or bands, have in common I could not tell you. I mean, aside from being on opposite sides of this record, that is.
Zaleski are up first with five songs that draw from slightly spaced out post hardcore vein, but maintain enough vigor to keep their orbit in check. It's sort of the DIY basement show version of Hum, if you know what I mean. Their songs want to drift off into the sky, but the band seems to wrangle them out of the haze and into submission by way of volume, lurching power distortion, and well placed scrapes of anger. I like it. Whether or not it likes me is another story.
Ugly Zoo carry the flipside with four songs that also walk the post hardcore walk and talk the noisy guitar rock talk. And that walk is decidedly more upbeat than their compatriots on the reverse of this record. No hesitation shown, just punchy urgency. Moments of Crain, moments of The Great Brain, and a few hints of 400 Blows and No Age as well. I imagine their practice space smells a real fright. I like this as well. Feeling pretty good that it might actually like me back. Call it a hunch.

DL

Twin Stumps - Seedbed

Label: Fan Death
Year: 2010

If you know me (and you don't), you will know (and you won't) that I don't throw out Gob comparisons liberally. Don't do it, that's my policy. But damn if the first impression you get from this record isn't the late, great, Reno band. Everything is a grinding mess of uber-distortion that carefully reaches through your (now blown) speakers to get a fistful of your hair and smash your forehead into the stereo (or...less effectively...your iPod). The Gob comparison is strictly sonic, as Twin Stumps doesn't go for the speed that Gob traded in, and instead uses a very deliberate pace, more like a 400 Blows, but add in a rumbling low-end absent from that band. Maybe if you played a Die Kreuzen record at half speed you could effect the same results?
One of the best new bands out there, taking the best from hardcore, noise rock, and whatever else came before them, and spitting out something completely vicious and exciting.
Listen to it, and I feel confident you will understand the necessity of filing away your own copy in your collection, which can be done here: Fandeath Records

DL

V/A - Shiny Grey Monotone Radio - Show 5

Label: n/a
Year: 2012

Number five in the Radio Show series, and it's a nasty one. Starts off swinging and only gets burlier as it lumbers forward on a mission to pulverize. It finally takes it's foot off the gas briefly about two thirds of the way through, but that respite only heightens the full throttle beating it delivers until the final scree of feedback closes out the proceedings after 54 draining minutes.
The observant (or compulsive, or nerdy) may note that this version of the compilations was the first to offer a few "couplets", or pairing of songs, based on some random trivia or another. Shared membership, geographic locale...my rationale knows no consistency, but maybe you'll pick up on it. Maybe you won't care (probably advisable) and you'll just enjoy it for what it's worth.
The bands are:
Craw
Glazed Baby
Loudspeaker
Shallow, North Dakota
Crawlpappy
King Snake Roost
400 Blows
Love 666
Pride Parade
Brass Castle
Silkworm
Boilermaker
Hum
The Raymond Brake
Pipe
Worst Case Scenario
The Great Unraveling

DL