V/A - Jabberjaw - Good To The Last Drop

Year: 1994

Label: Mammoth

Originally this was a series of benefit 7"s to raise money for the Los Angeles venue/coffeehouse Jabberjaw featuring unreleased material from bands who had taken the tiny stage. The lineup is pretty impressive:

Girls Against Boys

Unwound

Hole

Hammerhead

Beck

Teenage Fanclub

Slug

Chokebore

Mule

Helmet

Southern Culture On The Skids

Karp

Jawbox

Surgery

Unsane

Seaweed

Inch

That Dog

Further

Plus, "Broken E Strings" might be the best Unwound song ever, and that's saying something. AND "Cleaning Woman" might be the best Hammerhead song ever, which is also saying something.

*originally posted 09-05-08, reposted 07-07-15, posted for the final time 04-20-22

DL

Nurse - II

 

Label: Scavenger Of Death

Year: 2017

Imagine if a death rock sort of band decided to speed up and play a blistering hardcore? That would be cool, right? 

Dead And Gone is an apt comparison to Atlanta's Nurse. They both have the same jet-black-everything approach to a 45 Grave meets Discharge combo. Bullet belts and black candles. I love it. I think it's an invigorating shot of misanthropic buzz, and if I didn't think that you would like it, I wouldn't have put it here. But here it is, and there you are, so...do what the good lord intended and get with it. 

DL

V/A - Erase Yer Head no. 5

 

Label: Pandemonium

Year: 1997

Not certain if this was ever posted before, so I looked for a second, didn't see it, was satisfied that my due diligence sufficed, and moved on. Even if we did, I'm sure it's long gone by now.

The Erase Yer Head series was a 9 volume (I think) 7" run by French label Pandemonium that paired European bands on one side of the record and non-European bands on the other. Novel, I guess?

We wanted the record because Unsane was on the A-side, and that's about all we needed to know. They give two songs, and as to be expected, they are both bulldozers. One is a version of "Committed", which would appear later the same year on their 'Occupational Hazard' lp, but here it is called "Bommitted" for whatever reasons, and is a rawer version than what ended up on the full length. The other track is "No Soul" which is the only studio version of the song out there. There's a live version on the Mans Ruin 'AmRep Christmas' album, but this version pummels in a way more satisfying manner. Very worth it.

The flip side has French band Hint, who some at you with one song divided (for some reason) into three movements. It's a slow build moody piece that works more on a nagging sense of dread than anything else. It's cool, I think you'll like it.

DL

Blownapart Bastards - We Are All Cobra Clutched By The State - Live on WFMU - 01.08.93

 

Label: Positive Farce (self released)

Year: 1993

When talking about the best crusty hardcore to ever emerge from the great state of North Carolina, then obviously you're talking about Corrosion Of Conformity. Obviously. And you're also going to be talking about Bloodmobile, and Stillborn Christians, and No Labels, and Subculture, and the other fantastic 1980's bands that haunted the Brewery and the Milestone and Friday's and whatever backyard party or VFW hall might have been available. 

But, if you hadn't gotten old and calcified by the turn of the decade, and you had still been keeping score, you would be talking about Blownapart Bastards and their ripping version of plants-over-people, anti-corporation, pro-fun hardcore. Cause they delivered the goods. Plus, you had Brian Tipa, ex-Naked Angel in the fold, and anything Tipa does is going to be gold. Pure gold.

DL

764-HERO - Get Here And Stay

Label: Up
Year: 1998

If you can deliver well crafted, tuneful indie rock that has some darkness around the edges, and doesn't fall back on the crutches of "fey", "sassy", or "quaint", then I'm your target demographic. I mean, yeah, sure, I'm 100% Grade A American Beef(cake)...all man, but dang dudes, even Sears had a softer side at one point (before they filed for bankruptcy?). A man can get in touch with his feelings, right?
Or maybe it's just fun to be able to sing along sometimes.
Regardless, I'm a fan of this band's Built To Spill meets Castor meets Heatmiser slow burns, they "get me"...right in my big ole Sears sized heart (vagina). Try the song "Ottawa Dropout" if you need convincing, and don't believe my lady parts.

*originally posted 01.24.18, reposted 04.02.22

DL

Walking Concert - Run To Be Born

Label: Some
Year: 2004

All hail Wally Biscuits!
You wanna have a "British Invasion Period"? Great. No problem here. In fact, the more Kinks-rock you want to knock out, I'm cool with it. Pop hit after pop hit of sunny, creaky, catchy blissed out fun? What's not to love?
Walter Schreifels does no wrong. I don't care if he punches my daughter square in the larynx, he does no wrong. And with Walking Concert he indulges the most Rubber Soul tendencies exhibited in Rival Schools, and let's them shine through unencumbered by distortion or two finger points. Shouldn't come as a surprise, as the through-line in his discography has been a knack for burrowing earworm melodies into hardcore, post hardcore, psych rock, or whatever else he lends his songwriting to.
Please note though (I'm talking to myself now), that Walking Concert is a true band, and not a solo project, or a collection of hired guns to back up the singer-songwriter. Drew Thomas (Youth Of Today, Bold, Crippled Youth, Dead Heavens, Into Another, etc, etc.) is on drums, Ryan Stratton (Hedge, Ouisa) is on bass, and Jeffery Johnson (of what I have no idea) is on second guitar.

Go outside for a few minutes, it'll do you some good.

*originally posted 06.21.18, reposted 04.01.22

DL

Blonde Redhead - Fake Can Be Just As Good

Label: Touch and Go
Year: 1997

Opening track on this album 'Kazuality' is near perfect in it's noise washed motorik pulse.
And from there it stays pretty great through the remainder of the record. I mean, great if you're into Sonic Youth and Unwound and stuff like that. Which...you are, right?
Oh, and speaking of Unwound, Vern Rumsey plays bass on this one, which is added "fun fact" factor.

Their next album got less noisy and rocky, and more dreamy and moody. And every album since has gotten more dreamy and less rocky, which depending on your disposition (private parts) is either very appealing or very yawn-inducing.

Super recommended. Maybe you AND your lady friend can enjoy this one together (paired with a full bodied chianti and a bowl of olives...that you feed to each other...allowing the juices to drip across your naked bodies...oiling your skin as your limbs become intertwined...heaving...breathing quickens...your now glistening forms melting together as her warm mound beckons you to slowly enter her...)

*originally posted 04.12.17, reposted 03.31.22

DL

Engine Kid - Heater Sweats Nails

Label: Troubleman
Year: 1995

Side A: Engine Kid rips your face off, shits in your child's crib, and drinks your last cold beer before running out the back door and into the woods not to be heard from again for some time. Oppressively heavy, brutal, and mean, this is what they sounded like live, the guitars were turned to "annihilate", and that they do.
Side B: Engine Kid returns to your home to apologize, clean up they mess they made, and restock your fridge with a sixer of smooth, crisp, barley pops. An instrumental that could have been a long lost Slint slow jam.

* originally posted 07-10-11, reposted 01-07-16, reposted for the final time 03.29.22

DL

Bauhaus - Live In The Studio 1979

Label: Nemo
Year: 1997

Decent chance that there isn't a practice tape by your band that's going to surface twenty years from today and be studied by music nerds, dissected, and celebrated as a Rosetta Stone of a nascent genre. I mean, I could be wrong, you might be in one of the best bands out there...it's entirely possible, just not entirely probable. If you catch my drift.
But by all means, keep at it.
And when you stumble across something along the lines of 'Dark Entries', please let me know.

Originally released with a Bauhaus retrospective book that I never saw (cause I can't read...ok?! Fucking rub it in, why don't ya?!). Ground zero shit. Essential darkness.

*originally posted 04.18.18, reposted 03.29.22

DL

Cable - Northern Failures

Label: Hydra Head
Year: 2001

The album that Cable released prior to this one, 'Gutter Queen' is a minor classic in the destructo-rock pantheon (and let's not forget the album that preceded THAT one, 'Variable Speed Drive', a noisy punch in the Adam's Apple in it's own right). So, this follow up had some pretty big shoes to fill, and by getting Steve Austin to record the thing (and scream along here and there), well, that's a pretty good start. And then to double down on the "been drinking since 1:00pm on account of getting pink slipped today at work, but fuck it, that job blew anyway...want a shot?"staggering swagger, I like that approach too.
The riffs get a little more southern fried, but the animosity is still on overkill. This band for real knows how to drive home a point, and usually that point is some derivation of "fuck off", or 'life is hard'. Speaks to me.
Somehow this record seems even more warped than what they had been doing, and definitely separated them from the Botch's and Deadguy's of the world, although you can still hear some of their history as a hardcore band, but now with added thick 16 heft. Cable took a nose dive into a self loathing stew of damaged, cascading, sludgy bile. The resulting listen, though, comes across as  exhilarating, not oppressive. It has enough swing that the groove keeps you on the up and up. Even when you're up and up above rotting prospects and a diseased future. But you're up there...for now.

*Originally posted 06.16.17, reposted 03.29.22

DL