Trobecove Krušne Peći-S Mukom Žvaču Trubadurov Vrat LP (Doomtown, 2014)

You have to love a band that includes aquarium ambience on the first track. From what I understand, Zagreb's  Trobecove Krušne Peći (TKP) were a seminal part of the former Yugoslavia's underground scene in the early '80s. They never released a full record, so Doomtown has collected their recorded output for a latter-day artifact from the days of samizdat culture. 

This is taut, hop-along-jerk-along postpunk akin to [insert here the names of all the bands you're waiting for me to reference]. Like a lot of the European post-punk of the period, it sounds like dub with all the rhythm flattened out and compressed into a tin box: what comes through is the anxiety and brooding, with none of the expansiveness. That's not a criticism-most of the best post-punk worked in that manner. "Zvijezda" is, for my money, the best song here: it stutters along in an offkilter, stumblebum way, with bass and scratchy guitar notes merging with what sounds like seagull noises. "Boje Noć U Krv" could be a Brainbombs tune, stripped of the squalling dissonance-it's built around a lone horn twiling away as the singer intones about, well, something. In a bark that reminds me of the Brainbombs' singer. 

My guess is that one misses a lot by not understanding Croat (I don't), but the music is top-notch, neurotic Iron Curtain punk from the dying days of Tito's "Real Existing Socialism." You keep waiting for the explosion, and it never comes-history would take care of that a little later, of course. 

You can check out TKP here.  Doomtown has released this on a double LP with a fancy insert detailing the history of the band. If you're a geek for all things '80s and all things post-punk, as I am, you should probably get your ass over to Doomtown's site and BUY IT IF YOU LIKE IT!

 

Feral Future-Haematic LP (Western Medical, 2014)

Six reasons to buy the new Feral Future LP:

1. This is the best American punk rock I've heard since Crooked Bangs' 2012 debut LP. As it happens, Crooked Bangs and Feral Future are on the same label, Western Medical Records.

2. If you thought all Austin, Texass bands were carbon-copy Discharge rip-offs, you're wrong: FF dishes out heavy, brazen punk that ditches the d-beat and goes straight for the throat with massive riffs rising above a wall of sound.

3. Feral Future's singer can actually sing real notes, instead of howling. This gets them pretty far in the category of "worth more than one or two listens."

4. Sooner or later this band will catch on with the Pitchfork dweebs, upon which time their shows won't be fun to go to. Catch 'em while they're still a punks-only thing.

5. "Hostile" cops a riff from The Clean, and is almost as good as that song. No mean feat in 2014.

6. Feral Future rocks out the way Bikini Kill would have, if BK had been a band instead of sonic terrorists and the cheerleaders for 3rd-wave feminism.

That's about it; go to the Western Medical site and buy the LP! 

The Middle Class-Homeland LP (1982)

 Top contenders for the pointless title of "the first American hardcore band," Santa Ana's Middle Class was miles ahead of their peers in every sense. In 1978, while most American bands were still ripping off "Anarchy in the UK" and "White Riot," they were cranking out true blitzkrieg bop, frantic enough to put the Ramones to shame. By the time everyone else was stealing from Greg Ginn and Dr. Know around 1980, Middle Class  had slowed down and grooved out, leaving the hardcore goon squad eating their dust.**

Between 1980's Scavenged Luxury EP and 1982's Homeland, the band slowed down and developed a sense of rhythm: dark, even somber, but rhythmic, almost funky at times. Widely reviled by hardcore kids when it was first released, this LP has slowly been making the internet rounds and the band's finally (I hope) getting their due as unsung path-breakers in the move away from hardcore punk and towards something more considered and intelligent. Mission of Burma are usually held up as the standardbearers of U.S. art punk, along with the No Wave crowd, but Middle Class' musical progression is quite impressive: hailing from a suburban backwater, they defied the nullnode, idiotic simplicity of the California punk scene to jump straight in the deep end of UK-style post-punk with this LP.

The LP opens with "The Call": a glacial piece of postpunk framed by an ominous bassline and distant, lumbering drumwork. Jeff Atta's voice has done a 180" from 1979's Out of Vogue: there, he hollered and shouted over the impossibly rapid guitar, trying to keep up with the rhythm section. Here, Atta's presence is funereal, almost sepulchral: his voice echoes in and around the instrumentation, speaking allegorically and obliquely of frigidity, miscommunication, tension. There's anxiety everywhere, a sense of imminent crisis. "A Skeleton at the Feast" ratchets up the tension  a notch, as Mike Patton slams out a bit of cold riddim. The chorus injects a bit of light, with cymbals crashing over Atta's injunction to "split the night right open/see all the secrets there...."

One of the strange coincidences of post-punk is that Middle Class was slowing down and grooving out while Gang of Four, comparatively at least, started rocking out on 1981's Solid Gold. "Mosque" is midway between the jerky post-punk of early Gang and the solemnity of Homeland's darker tracks: an ambiguous tale of revolution in the Islamic world ("sins of all the fathers/visited upon the sons....a plague of liberation, a plague of liberation"), the music is jerky, writhing within a tightly controlled framework. "Ritual and Deceit," with its effects-laden, gothic opening, marks the beginning of the end, marking time until the majestically sparten closer, "Everything."

It's fitting that this was the band's last recording. There's a sense of finality here, that the Middle Class had come full circle from the impassioned savagery of Out of Vogue to the glacial reserve of Homeland. From the tentative, groping basslines of "The Call" to the chanted chorus of the closer, "Everything" ("I've got a lot to learn/about the price of dreams/I've got a lot to lose/I've got everything...."), this LP is the sounds of doors slamming, people dancing nervously as night falls, of lights going out everywhere.

To conclude an overly long review: this is one of the (heretofore) forgotten classics of the U.S. underground of the 1980s. If you don't believe me, download the LP and find out for yourself. As far as I know, no one has re-pressed the LP.

You should, however, buy the benefit LP that Frontier Records recently released; proceeds go to Mike Atta's cancer fund. Help the dude out, he helped found hardcore, kiddies!

*EDIT, 4.2.14: I fixed the link, the file should work now.*

*None of this is to besmirch the Bad Brains, who were equally adept at breaking out of the hardcore ghetto, besides being about a million times more talented, musically, than 99.99% of all other musicians of the 1980s; throw on I Against I if you dunno what I'm talkin' about, punk!

The Proletariat-Indifference LP (1985)

Boston's Proletariat were, to quoth the Bard, men out of time: if they had been British, everything would have made sense. If they were recording in 1979 instead of Reagan's America, it would have made sense. Conversely, if they were part of the recent crop of post-punk revivalists (Radio 4, Interpol, et. al.), they would have been quite successful. Instead, they were a Boston punk band trafficking in intelligent, bass-driven fury at a time when everyone else was simply furious.

The Proletariat made a career out of tracing the contours of an American take on Gang of Four, Delta 5, and so on: sinuous basslines, muted, squalling guitar, and howled vocals above the din of misery. This sound was accompanied with brutally intelligent lyrics confronting the typical bugaboos of Americans too smart for a society based around rampant individualism, greed, proud anti-intellectualism, and violence: the genocide of Native Americans ("Trail of Tears"), mindless consumerism ("Marketplace"), American gun culture ("The Guns are Winning"), and the pathetic stupidity of American nationalism ("Homeland").

All of this was, of course, straight to the point in Reagan's America. And all the moreso today, since we live in the world that Reagan and Thatcher made in their image. 1985's Indifference is hard to listen to at times: like The Clash's "This is England" or Gang of 4's "We Live as We Dream, Alone", it's the product of a band whose existence was based on the idea that change is possible if we struggle, colliding into the brute reality that the Reagan Revolution was here to stay. That the stupidity, patriotism, and unthinking pursuit of money was the only thing on the horizon. There's no hope to this LP, beyond the simple fact that it exists. We're in a similar situation right now: I think everyone's finally realized that Obama is even worse than Bush II was, and that under his all-seeing gaze, the United States has become the spymaster and murderer par excellance, at home and abroad.

What else is there to do, though, but sing, dance, and soldier on through the darkness? On that cheerful note, let me present you with one of the forgotten classics of the U.S. underground.

Get it HERE.

His & Hers-The Worst People I Know EP (2014)

This EP confused and confuddled me upon first listen, and it wasn't 'cause I drank 5 beers beforehand (I did). What other adjective can you use for a band whose sound veers wildly between the call-and-response vocal chants of the Mekons and the contorted introspection of Mineral?

Bristol's His & Hers offers us five tracks of brooding, shouting, thrashing, sometimes-hollered post punk in the most not-Gang-of-4 way possible. There are tempo changes and jerky guitars, but the shouted spurts of emotion are too warm for this to be sheer derivation.

I'm pretty sure that as an amateur critic and professional jerk I'm supposed to hate this kinda music but it's actually kinda good. His & Hers have a knack for catchy blasts of feeling that almost make yours truly wish he was an 18-year-old fan of Ihatemyself again. It's chaotic without being ill-conceived, clever without being cute, and some of the hooks make you wanna pay 3 pound for it (I don't know what that converts to in dollars but given how fuckin' expensive London is for us Yanks probably like $5,000).
 Fuck your feelings here.

Crystal Soda Cream-Escape from Vienna LP (2013)

This album sounds like the kind of record I might concoct if I lived in the building featured on the cover: claustrophobic, melodramatic, and elegantly wasted in a way that us Amurikuhns could never match. Cold/dark/fuckitallwave is real big now, as well as a wholesale cannibalization of sounds that first drifted to the surface back in the mid-80s, but Central Europeans have a right to make this sorta music. Crystal Soda Cream have crafted one helluva sound on this LP and, like the building on the cover, it's great to hide behind while having a panic attack.

Of course, when I have panic attacks my preferred soundtrack is Skip James or this, but then again, formalism's never been my strong suit. CSC plays the sort of maudlin, droopy-eyed post-punk you'll love if you dig Martial Canterel and such biz. They're a live band, granted, unlike Canterel's synth ice picks to the neck, but I can feel the glacial frigidity and haughty Teutonic grandeur wafting from Danubian heights all the way down to my squalid flat in the Valdarno.

Come to think of it, this LP even features a song called "Roman Holiday." I don't think it's about going to Rome-it's a bit too chilly for that-but it's my fave'un here. The guitar is barely audible, but it's amazing how much presence you can pack into a few subdued, insistent notes. CSC comes dangerously close to forward momentum on "DIWHY," but the music is so contorted and considered that there's no danger of spontaneous joy breaking out. The noisy clusterfuck midway through "Drag" is cool, too, although the chorus worries me a lot, coming from Austrians: "You better stay out of this country I was born into."* Uh...? In any case, the Monozid LP I reviewed awhile is a lot of fun: dance yourself stupid to that, then start drinking gin and chill out with this one.

Hate this review? Good, go fix yourself a drink, put on your best mascara, and shake your neurotic ass to this fun piece of post-punk. HERE.
You can buy the LP HERE!

*Another case of me missing the irony-as I was hoping, this is bitter social commentary, not racist doggerel. Cheers to the band for contacting me on it!

The Dicks-Dicks Hate Police 7" (1981[?])

I'm assuming most of you know this one, but if you don't, boyhowdy, bopper, are you in for a treat! Austin's Dicks, along with the Big Boys and MDC, formed the van guard of the States' queer punk scene. They woulda been a great band regardless of who these guys liked to sleep with, however: this 3-song EP is a blistering example of American punk in its prime.

The Dicks and Big Boys both went in for weirder, more durable sounds at a time when everyone else in the U.S. punk was trying, and failing, to sound like Bad Brains and/or Black Flag. Off-kilter guitar twang, Gary Floyd's deep, bluesy howl, and amusing commentary on this country's ills really set these guys apart. "Hate the Police" is a brilliant slice of disgusted analysis of a racist cop who's had a bad day; the guitar sets a slow burn lead that sounds more urgent than MDC ever could. "Lifetime Problems" ends with Floyd cackling maniacally and that goddam guitar squalls to match him. "All Night Fever" is my new favorite tune to start a bout of drinking to: a slender, sinuous bass line introduces a hammering beat that almost sounds funky. Any girls wanna dance to this? Well, I'm in Italy so how do I say that in Italian? Whatever.

LIFETIME PROBLEMS. Apparently the Dicks are alive and well and back together. Check 'em out if they're playing in a town near you.

Monozid-A Splinter for the Pure LP (2013)

Leave it to the Germans to drop the cleanest, crispest post-punk LP I've heard in years. Most of the music I review on Drug Punk sounds like garbage-that's half the appeal, usually-but not this one. For some reason I drank half a fifth of Rebel Yell whiskey last night and despite being packed full of razor wire guitar, Monozid's debut LP isn't stepping on my brain with steel-toed Docs. Rather, it makes me wanna dance after slamming a bit more of that Rebel Yell, the remnants of which have been staring at me from my kitchen counter like an albatross.

Monozid's been around for 10 years, and although I can't make out what they're singing about, any band from Leipzig together that long is making music for the right reasons. Most contemporary post-punk is a heaping pile of dog shit. With due apologies for mixing metaphors, it goes down like a can of soda: sickly sweet and pleasurable, then all that corn syrup starts coating yr innards and it feels simply sickly. I noted this in my review of Monozid's 2010 split with Bootblacks, and I'll say it again: if you're ripping off the Leeds crew and it ain't DIY, then fuck you.

Anyway, the music. The years these guys have played together really shines through here. The songs are brutally efficient, with nary a hole in Monozid's wall of sound. They combine noisy, atmospheric guitar and a rhythm section that may be composed of automotons. The title track really stands out: it could be a demo from In the Flat Fields. "The Drowning," though, really has me hooked. A slow burning piece of brooding white dub, it slowly boils the guitar down to squalling staccato bursts shooting out from the tense riddim before finally blowing over in the last thirty seconds.

If you spent a good portion of your late teens getting wasted to the fresh sounds of The Pop Group, Gang of Four, et. al., get this one.

Listen to the LP, then BUY IT!!!, here. Check out Monzoid live, too:

Antique Pony-Museum of Blood EP (2012)

After spinning these Glaswegians' [sic?] debut EP, I can safely say that they are fans of mathrock. Their email winging the EP my way described them as a noise band, but their sound isn't as guttural as most groups I associate with that genre.

Instead, these nine tracks exhibit a pretty solid grasp of postrock songwriting. The production is a bit too mannered for my tastes, but it sounds like an aesthetic choice, not happenstance. Most of the tracks sound like the makings of jazz musicians who got fed up with playing in fancypeople bars and got into Scratch Acid. The drummer totally stole the opening roll for "novella written by retired mortician" (gee, these guys had their thesaurus at hand when naming these songs, eh?) from Joy Division, but eh, who isn't ripping off Morris & co. these days?

Anyways, you'll dig this if you like sustained, guitar-centered post-rock instrumentals. This is a lazy review, I know, but I'm on my way out of the house to get blackout drunk and try to make conversation with the anarchists of Florence, so buzz off.

Check out Antique Pony HERE.

A Part-Iranyitott Lovedek EP (2012)

Budapest's A Part [sorry for the lack of macrons, blogger doesn't let me input  diacritical marks] specializes in the doom 'n' gloom, bass-heavy glum rock that's real good for dancing and/or crying yourself to sleep to.

The drums anchor A Part's bass-heavy sound, with scratchy guitar lines sprinkling themselves around and about the rhythm secton, like so much broken glass in the night. The sound is particular effective on "Dobjatok Le!", the opener, equal parts Leeds Class of '79 dance punk and goth'd-out, church bells 'n' black rain coats glumcore.

"Interlude (Uzenet FEntrol)" reminds me of little-known Greek band Ora Miden, as far as song structure goes: the band uses drop out effectively, with a limping beat punctuated by throw-away guitar fuzz, and the singer mumbling, either apathetically or in a drugged fog, take yr pick.

The title track brings it all together with swirling guitars and despondent vocals. The band deliberately takes the song apart midway through and reassembles it into desultory, chiming white noise.

You'll probably dig this band if, like this author, you spent significant parts of your youth listening to Joy Division in an apathetic mire, interspersed with dancing to Gang of Four when you could find uppers.

Download the EP here. Last year's LP, also available for download, is quite good. Check out the video for one of their other songs-it has some sweet natural disaster footage!:

Opus Null-Alkotmanyos Anarchia LP (2012)

Following up their slew of 2011 demos, Opus Null's debut LP successfully synthesizes their previous work, while hinting at new directions for these bruising Budapesters.

Featuring some re-recorded songs from the Vas Nepe EP, Alkotmanyos Anarchia features several new songs, my favorite of which are "Melyseges tisztelettel," "Ciklus," and "Perdulet," which can serve as a survey of the album as a whole.  The former brazenly rips off an old Partisans guitar line for a mid-tempo romper-stomer, and is typical of previous Opus Null material.

"Ciklus" gets kinda math-rockesque: chiming drums and molasses-slow guitar rapidly transition into rapid-fire, slamming choruses and drunkenly slurred vocals.

"Perdulet" is more of a departure. Opening with disorienting guitar and chant-singing, minor notes interspersed with synthesizer make for a  mindfuck-this is the sort of stuff hinted at in previous ON work, but here they achieve a spooky, engaging piece of psych-punk.

I'm sure that Opus Null is referencing homegrown Hungarian traditions and sounds, but to me this sounds like a bunch of punks slowing down, freaking out, and exploring the limits of guitar haze.


GET RAD, DOODZ. Download includes cover art and lyrics, in Magyar. Opus Null lives here. If you don't know Magyar (like me), check 'em out on Facebook.

Metro Decay-Ypervasi LP (1984)

The computer I'm typing this entry on is from 1995, and I'm frankly amazed I was able to upload an image of the cover, so there ain't no verbal or lyrical fireworks in this entry, folks.

Anyways, Metro Decay's 1984 LP Υπέρβαση is a classic of Greek new/cold/whateverwave. Dudes gigged around Athens a lot in the '80s, opened for The Fall, Birthday PArty, etc.
"Εισαγογν στην κίνηση" is probably my favest track on heer: they totally steal the structure from Joy Div, but throw in some Greek instruments to give it a MD-unique feel.

The version I'm posting butchers the Greek-script track titles; they're posted below.

Merry Xmas, folks.

*EDIT, 10.31.12: I reup'd the file. DOWNLOAD HERE. *

"Υπερβασν" was recently re-released; check out an interview with the band from last year here.

1. Μαύρος Κύκνος
2. Ανάμεσα Σε Δύο Κρεσσεντα
3. Το Ταξίδι
4. Εισαγωγή Στην Κίνηση
5. Απειλή
6. Παιχνίδια Στην Επιφάνεια
7. Το Πάγωμα Του Πάθους
8. 'Έβενος
9. Υπέρβαση
10. Λίμπιντο

Bootblacks/Monozid split 7" EP (2010)

 I hate Interpol. Those bastards didn't respond to Peter Hook when he submitted his CV to them, when they were looking for a new bassist! MOre broadly, I despise the revival of the dancey end of post-punk over the last decade, in anodyne, safely depoliticized, rhythmic form for the moronic suburban masses. Those bastards don't deserve Gang of Four. They deserve Miley Cyrus, or whatever it is that civilians listen to (is Miley Cyrus a musician, even?).

Like Talking Heads said, "this ain't no party/this ain't no disco."  At its best, post-punk was dangerous, provocative, nerve-wracking, and, yes, funky. But there was always a message and a point behind the sinuous basslines.

So I was pleasantly surprised when that "post punk" the guy from Leipzig's Monozid used in his email linking me this split meant "post punk like The Pop Group," not "post punk like Gang of Four/some dance band." Brooklyn's Bootblacks churns out two taut, threshing floor tunes built around pummeling drumwork and laser-wire guitar. Monozid grinds out the sort of frantic, anxious, declamatory buzz dance that I associate with mid-period Ex or The Pop Group. The guy's voice is suitably hollow, the guitar dense as steel wool, especially on "Shame of the Nation," where it sounds like a howling insect.

The post punk revival in the States has, for the most part, produced a heaping pile of hipster shit, with Pitchfork media buzzing over the pile, leering away. But these two bands convinced me that, even at this late date of the 2010s, people can still do something worthwhile with off notes, stutter-step drumming and leading bass.

Check it out here. Monozid lives here. Bootblacks live dissa way.

23 Skidoo-Ethics EP (1980)

When I was in high school, some of my friends were in a ska band called 23 Skidoo. I would call them bad, but for me, "ska"is another word for "awful."

Calling themselves "23 Skidoo" got them a heaping mouthful of rebuke from my friend and co-worker at the record store I was employed at. 17-year old ska kids that they were, they had no idea what he was talking about and went on with their Mountain Dew chugging. 

This is that. 23 Skidoo's first release is a classic example of UK post-punk's genre-bending. The first tune goes by in a blur of crisp drumming and scratchy guitar, while "Another Baby's Dream" is a decent take on dub, although it lacks the looming menace of, say, The Congos (23 Skidoo were English, after all). Not too shabby for a band that usually gets shuffled behind A Certain Ratio, Throbbing Gristle, et. al. in the post-punk roster.

We've got no reason to panic.... Apparently, you can buy an original on EBay, if you're so inclined.

Middle Class-Scavenged Luxury EP (1980)

Middle Class started as arty thugs, and finished as thuggish artistes. Always a step ahead of their SoCal brethren, while other LA bands were still thrashing out their stupidity with three chords and the HB Strut, by 1980 Middle Class was already jettisoning the hidebound hardcore formula.

1980's "Scavenged Luxury" EP is one of the most interesting American attempts at working through the Martin Hannett sound, without, for a moment, simply aping it. The first track, "Home is Where," is the real transition from the hammer blows of hardcore to the wider horizons of post punk: the drumming is clipped and measured, superseding the frantic double-time of "Out of Vogue;" the guitar echoes off the bass, which sets the tone for the rest of the band. Jeff Atta's vocal style hasn't really changed: he declaims more than he sings, and the hollow, aloof tone fits the band's new, measured sound. 

   If 1978's "Out of Vogue" EP was about claustrophobic compression, "Scavenged Luxury" is self-consciously expansive. This really becomes evident on the second track, "Blueprint for Joy," where a razor-wire guitar note shimmers through the mid-tempo bass-drums combo. Combined with Atta's fragmentary phrasing, the tune has a furtive, twilight quality to it. "Last Touch" is built around a guitar line that crescendos in a repeated bass/drum lead, while "Introductory Rites" brings the whole show to a grinding halt. The track is jerky and the clean guitar sound has an echoing quality to it.
             
 Middle Class was clearly groping their way towards something new with “Scavenged Luxury,” and it’s a real midpoint between the sonic hurricane of “Out of Vogue” and ‘82’s “The Call” LP, which sometimes sounds like a sleeping pill. Throw this on at your next hipster dance party, and show all those assholes what the soundtrack to their late night coke binge should be instead of the Bloc Party (do people even listen to those guys anymore?).

*Frontier put out a good collection of the early Middle Class material a few years ago, from whence I culled the "Scavenged Luxury" EP:  http://frontierrecords.com/middleclass.html*

*Edit, 9.10.12: reup'd the file. Download SL HERE. * 

*EDIT, 1.5.14: Re'up'd it again. AGAIN.*