The Lorettas-Fuck the Lorettas EP (2014)

What comes to mind when you think of Canada? Probably empty spaces, hockey, beer, and the COLD. They're wallowing through  a "polar vortex" right now, whatever that is. This is the perfect climate for claustrophobic, raging garage punk, and Winnipeg's The Lorettas are here to meet your deeply felt desire for icy anger.

As with most records that stumble across my desk, production values are non-existent: this is nothing but single-track guitar riffing and neanderthal paintbucket banging. And it works. "Teenage Hell" flies by in a guitar whirr as Erica belts out tales of, I think, teenage hell. She sounds exactly like one of Mika Miko's singers, and her vocals give the EP a delightful edge of spiteful brattiness that set it apart. Dick Dale they ain't, but The Lorettas almost pull off a sweet surf riff on "I'm so Done." Same deal with "Blue Ribbon Blues." Altogether, the EP sounds like a 16-year old's shouted retort to her parents, after they grounded her for the week: rage all you want, nuthin's gonna get better, but man does this EP shred, as sheets of ice descend from Hudson Bay.

Check out the EP, then PAY FOR IT, HERE. 

Flesh Lite-demo CS (2013)

It's a safe bet that the Flesh Lite guys spend a lot of time doing bong rips and throwing beer cans at each other in someone's parents' basement in suburban Winnipeg. While blasting "Bleach" and Big Black at unhealthy volumes. Their demo finds Flesh Lite deploying the full panoply of blunt instruments to clobber the listener into numb acquiescence: bricks, clubs, baseball bats, even mattocks!

"Bed Bore" is a slow-building wrecker that just gurgles a savage, shaggy riff over and over again as the singer, Bret, gurgle-burbles something that may or may not be English. "Phlegm" falls somewhere between Nirvana's sludgiest efforts and outright noise: if I was a Hessian I could totally headbang to this tune, but it's a bit too clever in a knuckle-dragging sorta way to be anything truly metal(lic). Mid-way through, a stray note of clean guitar wafts out from under the resin-encrusted wreckage, only to quickly submerge in a shower of distortion. "Fresh Baggage" strays dangerously close to "well-written song" territory, but veers away again for more burbleburblepisshiss crunching noise. I spent a lot of my youth drinking bad beer and listening to Nirvana, and if that activity is part of your past, present, or sounds like a fun idea, you'll probably dig Flesh Lite.

Get into these neanderthals here.

*p.s.-I've been told that there's at least one straight edge member of Flesh Lite, so apparently pepsi cans are involved in the can-throwing contest. Regardless, these guys are fun as hell.*