Tag: punk

TRACK | Crime of Passing – Vision Talk

5/5 golden merles

Geographically in the world as it has been mapped, Crime of Passing are from Ohio. In the empire of aesthetic this s/t album sits near the capital, wherever that happens to metaphorically lie… probably not far from John Carpenter’s prison island version of Manhattan.

Right out the gate there is apparent enough texture and melody to be a strong contender for the year-end lists.
“Tender Fixation” is the lead single and a great, hounding track. But “Vision Talk” is the easiest revolver for me. If you gave me a hundred years I couldn’t make a single track with this much clarity that is simultaneously as dense and textured.

The tome includes plenty of chrome plated and finely calibrated tracks. Post-punk often loses its edge and some of it’s precision in the prolonged mire of continuing to act despite an acknowledged futility for doing so. But Crime of Passing takes those tones/aesthetic and shocks them back to life, keeping the complexity of the characteristics and sense of impending doom but also maintaining a bit of fire lit underneath it.

Both phasing and finely focused, it regularly, impossibly, rides the line between both decimated and decipherable.

TRACK | Rouge – Aversion

5/5 golden merles

Delivered by Phantom Records on either the day of fools or the day of fooling fools, April 1st, Rouge’s self-titled is a record full of refined rage, defiant sludge and radiant sulk. At just under 14 minutes, the EP is extremely consistent and well crafted work.

It’s a very solid punk/synth EP. Its primary concerns are those of social and bodily autonomy and the confrontation of unjust hierarchies. I like this style and share these worries. If these are concerns you share and a style of music you appreciate, the odds are very much in favor of you liking it, too. Ok?

There are within the set lots of influences piled together from punk, synth-punk, post-punk and surf & garage rock. It is both irreverent to predecessors but reverent to form itself. The primary constant behind the curated veil are the hooks that lend themselves readily to easy piercing.

Surprised to see this only show up so far on the great 12xu and Tremendo Garaje, it’s an extremely easy sell; and the digital album is also listed at “Name your own price.” The least you can do is nothing, but it is also quite easy to do a little bit more.

TRACK | Andrew Jackson Jihad – Temple Grandin

5/5 golden merles

“Temple Grandin” is one of the finest lo-fi pop openers of the common era. The track combines a chorus-refrain of “find a nicer way to kill it” with a vibrant series of industrial-grade hooks.

Throughout the verses, individuals whose origins set them apart from the civilizations in which they find themselves (Stevie Wonder, Temple Grandin, Helen Keller) are celebrated for their efforts to overcome this apparent gulf.

Beyond that, each individual’s outsider perspective provided them with a greater appreciation for the hypocritical cultural and structural faults present within the larger in-group. And each acted heroically, with decency and moral courage in the face of possible further ostracization, in an effort to improve the conditions they observed.

There is no singular map, each persons route is different, but there are others who have demonstrably trekked great distances, decently, without forfeiting their humanity.

in the days before the damage
human beings were the ones
that did the chasing


TRACK | Gen Pop – Bell Book Candle

5/5 golden merles

Olympia-based Gen Pop’s “Bell Book Candle” is some good guts on display, smearing and smashing guitars decay alongside some thundering and twisted vocals. The production is a fair simulation of the unadorned and apparently undeniable.

I have no idea if the title/chorus is based on the Richard Quine directed film from 1958 or Pope Zachary’s 8th Century decree of excommunication for “exceptionally grievous sin.”

But my name is the same as that Pope. And I did once cohabitate with a Siamese cat. And I did recently watch Jimmy Stewart in Harvey. These combined attributes make me more qualified than most to tell you with some authority that the track is good regardless.

TRACK | Rude Television – Exactly

5/5 golden merles

I originally heard Rude Television’s “Exactly” on the great onetwoxu.de, if you are looking for more superbly well curated garage and punk rock.

The track has a euphoric and exacting production. The appropriately applied phaser and reverb laminate the vocal and guitar lanes, encasing them for posterity, not so much to keep them pristine but rather preserving the filth intact.

A strong melody that rises out of the gentle mire, echoing and effective. The synths careen about the upper ranges, harmonious. Emitting from a blown gasket on the outer reaches of West Palm Beach, Florida, the tones are said to be a curative elixir, or at least pretty good for what ails you. Anyway, it probably can’t hurt.

Pre-order on the bandcamp. The album releases in a couple of days on the 18th, I am looking forward to hearing the remainder.

TRACK | Natural Causes – Like It Should

5/5 golden merles

“Like It Should” is contemplative but also contains a fair amount of the threatening. Not ‘fair’ in the sense of ‘significant’ or ‘considerable.’ But ‘fair’ in the moral sense, it contains the right amount of the ominous and the foreboding.

There is here an equitable offset of the well-reasoned to the kinetic. It has a the sense of the analytic in concert with the rapturous and the enraged, to the refined degree that you get from the Fugazis, the Protomartyrs, and the Oughts of the earth; the ilk who balance the conscientious along with a call to action.

The old man says “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” But why not some fairer balance? There can be a great and good register of the lashing and the misgiving in equal measure. And we can instead unite in that searching, more certain and assured after, with all the conviction that commiseration allows.

TRACK | The Archaeas – Absent Mind

5/5 golden merles

The Archaeas “Absent Mind” is a dose of fiery garage-punk imported from Louisville, Kentucky. Recent P&P favorites Wombo are also from the neighborhood. But the ultimate embodiment of human evil Mitch McConnell also resides there, lest you think it strictly heavenly indie rock turf.

The track has all the peculiarities of elegantly controlled chaos and strikes a marked balance between its upfront, surgical pop characteristics and the smoldering, ruptured punk elements.

In the series of humiliations and degradations known as ‘the world,’ this can be a difficult balance to strike, what with all the distractions and immiserations afoot. But, considered or intuited, it has been achieved; the whole s/t album is great. With respect to Style vs Substance, Content vs Form, Design vs Function, Et Cetera vs Etc, there is enough tasteful thrash and tarnish around the imminently coherent core for you to invest your credulity in.

As the empire collapses, turns its exported brutality inward, and quality of life decline for us all, we’ll surely turn on one another instead of our shared oppressors. But one thing I hope we can all agree upon is that Louisville is making some sick tunes and that we’re both proud of and thankful for them.

TRACK | LAFFF BOX – We Hear You Talking

5/5 golden merles

Equal parts ripping and roaring, there’s not one Florida ounce in this track that isn’t a good time. Both terrorizing and playful, sort of reminiscent of the common era. Crooked and delightful.

There is a fine patchwork of influences that I have been culturally conditioned to respond positively to.

It has theatrical and melodic elements of Rocky Horror and belligerent/lacerating subsections of Kel Mason’s superb GEE TEE and DRAGGS. And, of course, all the fine roots of whatever compost fed those grubs to their formidable and resolute selves.

Never mind the origins of these things: Australia, US, UK, Germany, whatever; we all live together now more than ever in one another’s minds. And it’s crowded. And this is the result of that digital brain swelling, a fine and upstanding cesspool of innovation.

TRACK | Protomartyr – How He Lived After He Died

5/5 golden merles

With “How He Lived After He Died” we have another finely tuned and balanced appreciation for content and form. Protomartyr have done it enough that at this point it does not appear to be a mistake. There’s clearly premeditation.

The ironically named All passion no technique is yet another (and the original) entry in which Protomartyr manages to properly render human expression in a compelling and expert manner.

“How He Lived After He Died” is another rendition that does justice to their own source material, a debt that always seems to perpetually reemerge with each rendering.

Apparently 21 songs were recorded in four hours and this was one of them. A fact that is at least as frustrating as it is impressive.

Being the 10th track of 17 feels buried, but in a good way. That is a confident placement for something this great.

TRACK | Death Lens – Witching Hour

5/5 golden merles

It is difficult to keep the bile intact as it populates the mold, all to be bound and set, maneuvering within the pop structure.

If you like The Cramps Psychedelic Jungle but despise this, I would wager that the nostalgia has rotted your brain.

Or you’re partial to The Stooges’ Funhouse but don’t see any redeeming qualities in what Death Lens are retching up here, well then something is off, and future assessment are brought into question. In my estimation your pure perceiver may be found untrue and needs calibration.