Red Traces-Once Were EP (2013)

March is prime Old Sad Bastard Music time: y'know, music that isn't exactly depressed, in the way that Joy Division is, but rather bummed out. Bummed out the way a cranky record store clerk is. Bummed out the way the characters in High Fidelity were-the book from which I stole that catchphrase, as it happens.

L.A.'s Red Traces is just such Old Sad Bastard Music. These two songs shimmer in and out of focus like a mirage in the desert surrounding the band's hometown. Slightly downcast, "Once Were" is fueled by somber keyboard notes, an exquisitely slow drumbeat, and the singer's morose intonations. Sorta like if Tindersticks weren't so damn dramatic, and instead were simply sad. I kept waiting for Red Traces to slam into a heavy part, but it never happened: it's just bittersweet pop in a blue tone. Same with "Nothing South": Red Traces has a knack for writing tunes that are maudlin without being boring.

Check out Red Traces here.

Ruptures-Deca LP (2013)

*Disclaimer: If you're 20 or younger, you're probably going to be pissed off by this review and condemn me for sneering at original young talent. Thus, ignore this and just check out Rupture's bandcamp page.*

Despite my better judgment, and every adult bone in my body (yes, there are some), this is a fun listen. If you're in your mid-20s, consider yourself an ex-punk, yet still love getting drunk to aural ignorance like American Nightmare, you know what I mean. Somewhere around 21, healthy people are supposed to outgrow the sort of bratty, immature noise represented by Ruptures. Healthy is the last adjective anyone would use to describe me or my dirtbag friends, though. Speaking of immature, Ruptures even includes the sort of instrumental bridge ("Rice") that Bane used to good effect on It All Comes Down to This. There's something about snippets of acoustic guitar that add more dignity to hardcore records than they otherwise would (should) have.

I was getting blackout drunk with a friend awhile ago and he was bemoaning the lack of top notch ignorant HC these days. He's right. Most bands are so fixated on sounding like [fill in the blank of a DC/Swedish/Japanese/Italian/LA band ca. 1982 here] that they forgot that half the fun of hardcore is just turning the distortion up to 10 and going berserk in a puerile sorta way. Ruptures proves him wrong, however. If I didn't have braces and glasses, this is the sort of music I would crowdsurf to. Heavy, heavy, heavy guitar, frenetic drumming that hammers and hammers and hammers away at you, a screeching/yowling/dyspeptic singer and breakdowns so fucking colossal they might be part of the Great Wall of China. And the sincerity...it's damn near suffocating. Anyone as hopeless as Ruptures insists they are on "Lack" wouldn't be nearly as passionate as they are.

Whatever, though-sincerity is a vice of youth, and this is a genuinely fun hardcore album in an age I assumed was inimical to such a thing. It all comes down to this!

A Sop to the Masses, or, Watch this:

Stumbled home blitzed outta my mind and was pleasantly surprised to find two videos in my email. So while I count up enough quarters to go buy more beer, y'all should check out these flicks, new Kent State video and a documentary of the first Deadshits Festival in Brisbane:

Aaaaaannndddd....Kent State!:

Kent State-Behind Closed Doors EP (2012)

Kent State does it again, on their slickest release yet. Continuing to develop the vein hinted at on their slew of early 2012 EPS, these are four songs of polished '90s retro jams.

"Behind Closed Doors" manages the difficult feat of sounding as cocky, confident and brash as any Brian Jonestown Massacre or Dandy Warhols song. Tambourines, backing female vocals and clean production set this apart from previous KS tunes. "Disconnected," featuring Airlooms, makes it very clear that the singer's disconnected from society and really doesn't give a fuck. "Formaldehyde" continues the brash tone of the first two songs, but "Time Crimes II" might be my favorite track on the EP. Opening with gently strummed guitar and distant, indecipherable singing, "Time Crimes II" slows the pace down and effectively changes tempos. After the swagger and snottiness of the first three songs, it hints at something different lurking behind the 90s popisms.

Download the EP here, then BUY THE THING HERE. Check out the video for "Behind Closed Doors" here.

Harry Cloud-Indian Pussy EP (2012)

This is a good recording, despite having what is unquestionably one of the dumbest titles I've come across since I got this blog started (I mean, stoopid is cool, but stupid is just stupid, yeh?).

Harry Cloud lurches, crawls, and drags his audience, willing or not, through seven tracks of alternatingly atmospheric and suffocatingly direct stoner jams here, and you can bet that there's plenty of pitfalls, booby traps, and side/soundeffects that sound like the voices in yr head.
I see this appealing mostly to those of you whose youths were spent in intense, focused study of the Southern Lord back catalogue, chilling out from this study by indulging in goofy K Records-style coyness. That's a shitty description, I know, but stoner rock guitar does manful combat throughout with a heavy dose of weirded out, kinda-pretentious-kinda-fun experimentation just beneath the surface.

Light up, zone out, stone out and freak out, freaks. HERE.

Fun Guns-This Frontier EP (2012)

So, I wanted to write a review of this EP last night after a quick beer, but that quick beer turned into downing a six pack. Long story short, I apparently tried to walk through barbed wire.

Suffice to say, I'm in no condition to burp out coherent thoughts today. So I'll restrict myself to the basics: Fun Guns play subdued, jangly blues with a deep tinge of melancholia that's good for playing while having a nightcap as the sun sets.

But don't take my word for it, check out their bandcamp page, where you can listen to and download it. Also check out their new(er) EP, "Heads Gotta Roll"!

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/Airlooms split CS (2012)

This is the second installment in the Kent State split tape trilogy. KS delivers three more of their trademark wasted dreampop. If MBV's "Loveless" had a cinematic quality to it, KS' stuff on these tapes is episodic: I find that it accompanies wasted nights spent aborting bottles of cheap red wine and downing painkillers quite well. I really dug the howling guitar denouement of "Interest Position."
 Kent, Ohio's Airlooms smashes out two tracks of churning alt-rock ca. 1993-94. I really can't make up my mind on them. The lazy guitar riffs and shambolic rhythm section are endearing, but sometimes the singer seriously overdoes the Kurt Cobain affectations. The vocals sound a lot better on "No One" than "Cheyanne." Best in small doses, especially if you listen to a lot of Nirvana. They're a lot closer to KS' sound than the other bands in the split series, Doleful Lions and At the heart of the World, so it's a natural transition.

You can download, and then buy, the tape over at Kent State's bandpage.

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.