Selfies-Bad Blood EP (2014)

Between his slew of releases as Sick Thoughts and his growing pile of collabo-efforts, Drew Owen's got a work ethic to put the Krauts to shame. While Frau Merkel & co. specialize in financial neo-colonialism in southern Europe, though, Owen settles for milder pursuits like recording trashed noise. On this one, he's teamed up with a partner in crime from the D to dish out more goods.

This EP consists of six tracks that wouldn't be out of place as an installment in the legendary Live at the Roxy 1977 series. Ditching the psychotic, Iggy-on-crank Reatards vibe of Sick Thoughts, Selfies has an undeniably British feel. That consists of plodding drums; desultory, mildly distorted guitar; and a vocalist who sounds like he popped some Klonopin and a sixer of Carlsberg before walking into the studio on a rainy day. Song topics include "Police Dogs" at your door and fear of going outside.

None of the tracks blew me away, but there's potential here. If Selfies records again, they could grow up in public like the Adverts: Half the reason to start a punk band is to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.

Perfect for jerky, twitchy nights at the bar ogling your new crush while you impotently sip your over-priced beer and contemplate how many New Year's resolutions you've already broken.

Check out Selfies HERE.

Sick Thoughts-Need No One 7" (2013)

So in case you fuckers haven't heard or noticed, B-More's Sick Thoughts is the current toast of the null-node-garageville-scene (constituted by me, whatever bartender can stand my presence here in the Old Country, a rolling pouch of Vannelle tobacco, and a bottle of bottom-shelf gin). Monsieur Jay Reatard left a massive void in all uv ower hartss when he kciked the bucket awhile ago and, dare I say it, add two or three more years to his run than I envision him actually goin', and Sick Thoughts' Drew will (is, in fact) fill[ing] said void.

Yup, the I-don't-give-a-fuck-but-God-do-I-love-Rock vibe I always got from Jay's best shines, even spits and shouts,* through, on everything Sick Thoughts has shat out since its brilliantly moronic inception. Which is a lot, in fact-dood has thrown three or more proper releases at us since the beginning of 2013, in addition to the sickeningly-awesome collabo project he's got goin' with Nick from Kent State.
All of this makes for preemo-primeo noise, voidoids. "Need No One" has everything you need for a great Saturday night: throwaway guitar leads that Johnny Ramone woulda thought rude, drums that Tommy never bothered learning 'cause they're that crude, and vocal lines that, and I have it on good information straight from whatever Ramone is still alive, y'all, Joey himself wrote and then discarded in a dumpster in Queens ca. 1976 'cause the kids at CBGBs woulda laffed him outta da rooom for singin' 'em. This beautifully beshitted 7" is ample proof that dood behind the sleez, Sick Thoughts don't need no one, and neither should you!

Get the picture? No? Well let me illustrate it WITH CRAYONS, you stupid cunts. Good, I finished this review and now I can get back to drinking gin straightout ov a plastik cupp.

Anyways, if you love crude rock and everything it entails, go buy yrself a pack of smokes, go home, blast this as you get blackout drunk, then start yr evening. I love you all, shitbirds.

*Especially given the blatant aesthetic rip-off-appeal of the cover aesthetics. JR LIVES, SHITBIRDS!

Deformities-Sometimes I Wish for my Own Death EP (2013)

What do you get when you throw Bodymore's finest together? The best throwaway EP of the year (anyone who thinks that a record consisting of 2 songs that don't exceed two minutes can't be the year's best EP shouldn't be reading this blog). Drew from Sick Thoughts and Nick from Kent State team up for epic, and epically brief, scuzzfuckery on this one.

The eponymous opening track mixes the hilarity and relentless monotony of Sick Thoughts' best with the (slightly) better production and (slightly) more complex guitar work of Kent State. A goblin may have invaded the studio while they were cutting "Still Separated II," to take over signing duties. The guitar slices in and out, and Drew's arrhythmic patter makes it sound like to drummers were dueling while the tape was rolling.
There's not much else to say: you either love sloprock noise or hate it. The latter type can fuck off, the former can revel in Deformities' idiot majesty.

Dungeon Kids-Oh How it Hurts EP (2013)

 Dungeon Kids' upbeat, off-kilter garage thrumming doesn't really fit with what you expect from Baltimore, s a city best known for Edgar Allen Poe, The Wire, and grinding poverty.* I guess it's just further evidence that the internet has completely decentered physical space and its influence from how musicians work?

Getting off my pseudo-insightful high horse, Dungeon Kids offers thee five tracks that fall somewhere between garage rock and Fugazi-style postpunk. It's a strange mix that I've never really understood, but these kids is good at it. The lead song, "Is there Light?," perfectly encapsulates their sound. It opens with fullforce guitar fuzz and a mushy rhythm section that propels the band forward. Then, around 20 seconds, the song jerks into a midtempo verse that sounds like the chorus. It comes complete with the noodling guitar leads that never break through into catharsis. This is the third band in the last year that reminds me of the Unicorns without really sounding like them at all. Anyway Dungeon Kids are more interesting if only because it sounds like they in fact give a shit about the music they're playing. Same goes for Celestial Shore & Shopping Spree, the other two bands.

The "sounds like____" formula is escaping me right now, but this is the sort of album that my friends in Olympia would blast when it's noon, we're stoned and unemployed, and the sun hasn't come out for about a week. That sorta stuff.

Get stoopid then get a job with Dungeon Kids, over here!

*Oh, and this band!

Sick Thoughts-Deformation demo CS (2013)

I make an effort to post all sorts of music on Drug Punk, but Baltimore's Sick Thoughts is what I started it all for. Crude, lo-fi, loner rock that will never be popular among the masses. As usual with this sort of music, there's a crucial distinction between your records sounding like shit 'cause you're consciously aping a style, on one hand, and sounding like shit 'cause you're too poor and/or fucked up and/or ignorant to do otherwise, on the other. Sick Thoughts is definitively in the latter category, and kudos to this dood.

If you made it through that paragraph, you already have a pretty good sense of what Sick Thoughts sounds like. He's even cruder, however, than most of the lofi trash I post here: at several points on the tape, in fact, the guitar and drum(machine) are out of sync. My favorite track is "Something I don't Have": it opens with directionless tone, then the ram-bam-fuckyouma'am (almost) 4'4 time sleaze kicks in. Dood talk-sings like a drugged newscaster about "you and your bullshit," and I caught the drums sliding out of time at least twice. The song is so crude and slipshod it sounds like two tracks were mixed on top of each other without anyone noticing. "Ugly" continues the descent into wasted oblivion: choppy, clipped drumming and trashed guitar patterns partially mask the drunken burble-singing. "Ugly" is so crude, it's almost avant-garde at times. Fucking majestic.

 The blown-out 4-track (lack of) recording value and slurred vocals make for a grey, muddy porridge overall. This demo is the perfect soundtrack for drunken apathy, being depressed while zonked on speed, drinking too much cheap red wine too fast, yelling at your significant other when s/he is trying to help you out of your self-induced misery, and in general being a stupid dumbshit. I've done all of those activities, so I know what sounds good while executing said idiocies. This.

Make some bad decisions and get fucked to SICK THOUGHTS! Physical copies will be available at the end of July on Southpaw Records. Dood is apparently opening for Oblivians in August, so any drummers in the Bodymore area should help him out by playing. Stay tuned for more from this guy, which I'm hoping will be forthcoming very soon.

Kent State/At the Heart of the World split CS (2012)

Wrapping up the Kent State tape series, this one features Bodymore, Murdaland's At the Heart of the World. You really need to be on different drugs to dig the two sides: I'd recommend booze and weed for KS, but break out the Valium and 'shrooms for ATHOTW.

The Kent State tunes veer away slightly from the  shoegaze bent of the previous two tapes, in favor of the jangle-pop displayed on the Walk Through Walls EP. "Past Lives" is wasted fuzz pop, while "Last Meal" sounds like something that one of the original Slumberland Rex bands coulda made. I wanna say that Nick's going in a Brianjonestownmassacre direction with "Big Iron Door:" chanted vocals, maracas, lightly-strummed acoustic guitar, etc.

At the Heart of the World is quite a departure from the Kent State side, and the split tape series as a whole. Instead of Nirvana worship (Airlooms) or orchestral dream pop (Doleful Lions), we get three chunks of vicious, sadistic noise a la peopling or Dominick Fernow's various maladies. I don't dig this stuff too much these days-turns out it's a bad idea to embrace one's inner demons-but I like these three crunching, lurching slabs of disgust with humanity. I think that the three songs are remixes or alternate takes on the same programming.

Dig it here, dear fux.

Kent State/Doleful Lions split CS (2012)

As a lot of you prolly know already, Nick from Kent State is inaugurating the new year in fine fashion by dropping a triad of split cassettes on us.

This one, with Chapel Hill's Doleful Lions (now based in Chicago), is an auspicious start. Whereas KS' previous release, Walk Through Walls, wore its Guided By Voices influences on its sleeve (to the point of covering "Pimple Zoo"), they're going for a heavier, washed out sound on this tape. The guitar is a lot less colossal than the heroes of this genre-Dinosaur, Jr., MBV-but the slurred vox, blurry guitar, and echoed drumming all make me think of flannel, long hair, and bad downers. "DNA" may be my favorite KS tune: artfully wasted double-tracked(?) guitar, hazy J. Mascis-esque singing, and an artfully wasted sensibility really set it apart.

Chapel Hill/Chicago's Doleful Lions have been around since 1996; this is the first I've heard by them. "Solar Christmas" and "Night Castle" are clean, undistorted, tightly constructed pop tunes. The arrangements are beautiful, and somehow remind me of this rich girl I accidentally fell for in high school.

 KS and Doleful Lions together are a good antidote to January depression. Pop this on, turn on your sunlamp, and get wasted, bro.

You can download the tape for free, and buy it for $5, on Kent State's bandcamp page. Or you can save some cash and buy this with the other two tapes in the split series. Which I'll be reviewing in the next week or so.

86 Mentality-self-titled EP (2004)

I was having a pretty good Sunday evening, watching paint dry as I always do when on vacation, when I read this. Now I sorta feel like dustin' off these "maniacs on pedestals," as Warcry put it. Barring a Reign of Terror, blasting 86 Mentality is a good outlet for impotent rage.

The opener is one of the best hardcore punk tunes of the '00s. The intro is perfect for slamming from one of the room to the other, and the singer's first bark is actually startling. "Life Trap" is how I'm feeling these days about the future for the States: "they fucked you, they fucked me/no way out..." From there on in 86 Mentality delivers blazing Oi based around a razor-wire guitar and sharp drumming.

All crimes are paid! It looks like this is out of print, but you can still pick up the "Final Exit" 7" over at Grave Mistake Records.

*EDIT, 11.22.12: Re'up'd the file. Get it HERE. *