Deathcharge-The Hangman 7" (2006)

If you read DrugPunk, you're probably aware that one of the latest crazes in underground rock is fusing punk, deathrock, goth, and all things -wave. The result is typically a blackclad stew of chugging Motorhead-inflected riffs, ice-cold synthesizers, and brooding lyrics about death, et.al. If you're new to the genre, today's post serves as an introduction to the sound; if you're a bitter old crank like myself, Deathcharge's third 7" is simply a classic and trendsetter for those of us who like The Mob or Bauhaus as much as GBH and the Germs.

Well, Deathcharge was way ahead of the curve on this whole trend. They started cranking out fairly pedestrian Discharge-carbon copy tunes in 1997, and along with fellow Pacific Northwest bands like The Spectres, Bellicose Minds, and Arctic Flowers, are the best that this darkpunk revival has to offer. They were doing D-beat when bands like Earth Crisis were still big, and when they dropped "The Hangman" in 2006, everyone else was busy aping the D-beat style they had already abandoned.

Anyways, this album really threw me for a loop when I first heard it in 2006. I was expecting more D-beat massacres; instead, what you get is a brutally monotonous drumbeat that is synced perfectly with a colossal guitar riff that chugs along at a glacial pace. The singer's voice is halfway to the grave; he alternately mumbles, gurgles, and howls in resigned disgust as he awaits the noose. Midway through, the guitar drops out and a voiceover whispers in the background; it makes the song that much more effective when the guitar comes squalling back to life. It ends abruptly, with a strangled grunt. "New Dark Age" is more of the same: a massive, doom-struck guitar riff that steamrollers the band along. The singer sounds like he's at the bottom of a well, or drowning: bitter, ugly, incoherent mumblings more than lyrics are what you get with Deathcharge. The guitar riffs in the bridge are to die for: wailing brutality that sounds like Motorhead slowed down and flattened out.

Like I said, if you're new to the dark side of punk, start with this. It's one of the best punk records of the last decade, easily. Souciant did a great survey article on this sorta music, which it's labelled "G-Beat,' which is well worth reading. Check out Deathcharge on facebook for show dates, tours, etc.

Trauma Harness-The Way You Press On Harder CS (2012)

Trauma Harness, from a 'burb of St. Louis, joins the contingent of recent bands worldwide mining the darker edge of British anarchopunk (Rudimentary Peni, The Mob, etc.) and guitar-based darkwave on this, their first full length after 2011's Trauma Demolitional demo tape.

 I'm completely ignorant of musicianspeak, but it sounds like Trauma Harness is using multitracking and delay to good effect here. The guitar creates a cavernous circuit for the drums and wobbly, wailing singing. "Pearl Moon" is the poppiest tune here, but "poppy" in the way the 4 Skins were: just when you think the band's gonna jump into a super-catchy hook, the music jerks back on itself, and the whole thing's over before you've really gotten yr bearings.

"Frances Bay" is the other standout here. The guitar really makes this tune: Trauma Harness could probably have played this at a senior prom ca. 1983 and gotten away with it, while the drummer  deftly mines Stephen Morris' cymbal/snare technique. Sure, dood is singing about (I think) the death of a loved one in oblique terms, but then, what is high school if not a theater of sadism and slow social death?

"Blue Flames" coulda been released on one of those Mortarhate compilations that Conflict put out back in the early '80s: mindlessly repetitive synthesizer bumps into and around a subdued guitar riff.

Trauma Harness is a good soundtrack for all you Midwesterners out there, as a sweltering summer morphs into a grey fall and savage winter. The only quibble I have is the recording quality: I couldn't make out the bass, to the extent that I didn't realize it was even in the mix. Whatever, it's a postpunk cassette.

Listen to the tape, then BUY IT, HERE. Doods even include a pin with it.

Rosenkopf-Dispiritualized CS (2011)

As most of you know, cold wave, deathpunk, and all things vaguely cold, melancholic, chilly, and synth'd to the nines is in vogue these days. Most bands stripmining the early 1980s for stolen sounds go straight for Joy Div, Brigade Internationale, Chromagain, and such Eurosounds for "inspiration." The result is pretty hit or miss.

Lately, however, some bands have started stripmining American stylings such as WaxTrax et. al. for said inspiration, and Rosenkopf does it pretty well. "Dispiritualized" offers four tracks of synth-heavy, glacial misery. "Burning Spirits" is built around monotonously fixating synth lines and handclaps, with echoy, reverbed howls; the live mix is even more agonizing. "Heed" is similarly numbing, in the way that too many nights spent chainsmoking and staring meditatively at David Lynch movies is.

Anyways, Rosenkopf would fit in well with recent heavy hitters such as Cemetery or Crimson Scarlet. As it happens, they're playing Chaos in Tejas on the Ice Age/Xeno & Oaklander bill. Any cute goth girls who wanna do the deathdance with me, consider yourself cordially invited. I'll bring the beer, you bring the mirth.

Listen to it here. Check out Rosenkopf's website for info on the Chaos bill, show flyers, etc. Rosenkopf's debut LP is dropping on the 15th, which you can purchase at WIERD REX.

*Edit, 10.18.13: I re-up'd the file, so get it here. *

Aliosha Give me a chance!-s/t EP (2012)

Even for a blog that specializes in weirdo, left-field eccentricities, Aliosha, give me a chance! is pretty fucking bizarro. These Belorussian punks burble out seven tracks of longform, clanging, relentless glum rock, and in the process manage to turn a Bob Dylan song into something approximating the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray." Which they also cover, incidentally.

I'm usually pretty down on bands that record covers, especially if the covers constitute most of a release. How hard is it to scrape together original material? Apparently Aliosha began as a Sex Pistols cover group(?!?), and morphed into a real band when they started playing real drums instead of books (?).

Anyway, I will say that this thing is a partial exception to the anti-covers stance. The only one remotely close to the original is the "Sister Ray" version, and, as noted, they morph the other covers into droning, humming, bass-driven torment closer to Throbbing Gristle-style industrial misery than good-times rock.

"All I gotta do" scratches out an almost-danceable beat in the midst of xylophone- and bass-driven torment. Forlorn words float in and out under the din, and the end result is the sort of dance music that PiL specialized in ca. 1982: yes, one could dance to this stuff...if the Black Death was the only other gig in town, y'dig?

I have no information on this group beyond their facebook page. I really am at a loss on this stuff, but it's interesting enough to keep me coming back to it, again and again. With no firm conclusions.

DIG IT...or not.

Crimson Scarlet-Sanctuary 7" (2011)

The idea of a goth punk band like Crimson Scarlet hailing from Santa Barbara is wildly implausible-isn't it too nice out for the black rain jackets, most of the year?

Whatever, Crimson Scarlet cruises through two tracks of crisp, well-constructed death rock/goth/whateverthefuck on this 7". I'm not really an expert on the genre-really, the Mob is where it starts and ends for me-but the record's a good argument for quality over quantity: "Sanctuary" has a driving, catchy surf riff, and "Two Kinds of Red" goes in for a dirge-y somnolence that for some reason reminds me of Southern Death Cult, despite the female vox.

Fans of Cemetery will prolly dig this album, which you can hear and buy here.

The Observers-So What's Left Now? LP (2005[?])

"I was a teenage zombie...." pt. 4 (in a semi-occasional series)

The following account may or may not be a conflation of two different events. Don't make no nevermind nohow, noways....

Mid-way through high school, I fell in like with a well-read (she knew of Burroughs!) girl from Chicago's south 'burbs. All I knew about the south 'burbs back then was that Screeching Weasel was from the general vicinity, so she musta been cool, right?

Naw, no dice. First time we did an all-day hang, we wandered around Chicago, so young and uncool, we couldn't even score street drugs. What a dismal situation...ended up making out by the river. Don't ask which one. We were stone sober. The next time we hung out, we went to the beach, then to some rich kid's house by the beach, where  I proceeded to get so bombed on downers and anti-depressants that this girl  made out with a friend of mine (I think...I was on A LOT of vicodin and xanies)for 15 minutes while I sat across from them, so wasted I couldn't move, let alone protest. My friend drove me home that night with the counsel of "dude, forget about it." Words of wisdom.

Awhile later, we were hanging out at a friend's house. Shit was ok...she wasn't making out with my friend, right? Wrong. We smoked a spliff, drank some wine...did some dancing, even! Washed Out, Okinawa Lifestyle, all that good shit! Talked about life, love, and other such hippy nonsense....by time we got to the bar, I was 2 grams and a bottle 'n' a half of wine into the evening. By the time she disappeared with a different friend, I was too wasted to do other than lean against the bar's wall, chain smoking and incoherently mumbling self-pitying garbage ("why does HE get to have her...but I don't?!?") to a friend who courageously heard me out. I vaguely remember passing out to Pink Reason blasting from my speakers at full volume, dreaming of Xanax. Hey you! Got some Xanax?

This is probably the best punk LP of the '00s. It has everything: heroin-level addictive hooks, brutally introspective-yet-social lyrics, jaunty bass lines....Fuck you! Like it!

*EDIT, 1.5.14: Re-up'd the LP, get it HERE.*

Cemetery-demo CS (2011)

Ok, so I'm obviously re-posting this from Terminal Escape, but it's justified for two reasons: 1) I've known the singer since high school, which means cronyism demands I draw attention to this; 2) this is one of my favorite demos of 2011.

Awhile ago, I was ranting about the sad state of neo-post-punk. Death/goth punk has also been making a massive comeback lately,
and Cemetery knows their history inside and out, but this isn't a mere nostalgia trip. These hard-drinkin' dudes from my hometown drone out 6 tracks of grinding, lightly distorted and atmospheric death punk a la Christian Death, et. al. "Reptile Walk" is a blaring, hellishly well-done call to arms for all of you who rock bullet belts to the goth prom. "Voices in the Ceiling" and "Voices in the Walls" nicely cap off each side with atmospheric, synth-drenched mood-setters.

What really sets Cemetery apart from the competition is the songwriting. These guys have constructed 6 tight, remarkably well-executed songs, not just a squalling mess dumped on cassette tape. The guitar is especially cool, confirming my suspicion that guitarists in this genre owe a lot more to Dick Dale than, say, Tommy Iommi.

GET INTO IT! Hang out with Cemetery here. Stay tuned for info on their first record....

*EDIT, 10.10.12: Reup'd the demo, get it HERE. *

*EDIT, 7.30.13: FINALLY GOT AROUND TO RE'UP'ING THE DEMO (AGAIN, FUCKERS): HERE *

Population-demo (2010)

Thinking it was Thursday evening here in Rome, I was going to write something longer about Population, but then I found out it's Friday, which means I have a date with my good friend Limoncello, so this'un's a quick'un.

Population and their brethren band, Ultratumbados, were just getting started when I moved away from Chicago a few years ago, and I remember playing both bands for people on the West Coast only to be told that they were in fact Paralysis Permanente. I'm not making this up. Infer from that what you will, point is, Population excels at the sort of downcast, eyeshadow-drenched post-punk so popular with the youth these days. The stand out track here is "Waltzing a War," with a delightfully understated synth line punctuating the funeral procession riddim.
 So throw on that black raincoat, lace up your twenty-eye black docs, and groove to the gloom! Peeps 'em live if you're in Chicago.