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.

Alone & Forsaken VI: November.

I've been wired on cheap speed and bad beer and worse coffee for the last fort-eight hours. So I hereby legally and officially disclaim any responsibility for this post. It's all on you, as Bane said in some shitty song about unit pride I loved when I was a teenager (I wish mofos on livejournal had catalogued their show in Chicago in 2003...stagedives and bro-downs with bullet belts, eat yer heart out!).

Some of y'all might take offense to the fact that Beirut is included on this mix, and follows Joe Strummer, nonetheless. Fuck you. I ain't comparing Zach Condon to the venerable Strummer legend, far from it-no one's gonna match Joe. He's a hero in deez heer parts. I just happen to think "East Harlem" sounds real good. Deal.

Go away, blow your brains out!...November.....

1. Pink Reason-Winona
2. Tom Waits-November
3. Grazhdanskaya Oborona-Ej, babica blevani!
4. Joe Strummer-Good Times Role (Rude Boy outtake, Joe Strummer solo!)
5. Beirut-East Harlem
6. Glass Cake-Friend Forever
7. The Mekons-Garage D'or
8. The Scrotum Poles-Night Train
9. Elvis Depressedly-Turn Blue
10. Dirty Beaches-North West Sea
11. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis-Moving On
12. Popol Vuh-Selig sind die, die da hungern
13. Eluvium-Requiem on Frankfort Ave.


p.s.-Bands/musicians that have been sending me stuff-I'll post reviews of your material soon, shit's been hitting the fan here at Drug Punk HQ lately.

Brainbombs-Urge to Kill LP (Load, 1999)

"I was a teenage zombie..." pt. 3

My first year of high school was noteworthy for the cast of freaks, druggies, and general n'er do-wells whose constellation I entered immediately upon matriculating from Catholic elementary school. I was a spry young lad with brain cells to spare, and boy, was I sparing with them that first year!
One of these characters, whom I'll be referring to as Ally, was extra-special special. She had arrived in Chicago from Nowheresville, Midwest (i.e., Indiana), and alighted upon my fair 'burg with a vengeance. By which I mean, this girl raided her father's medicine chest each morning for a cocktail of...what didn't she have? Codeine. Valium. Adderal. That antihistamine that rednecks use to make meth. Dayquil. Nyquil. Oh, and just for good measure, a Sunny Delight 20 ounce screwdriver.

Sometimes, Ally would share her bounty with me. One sunny Wednesday morning, we got started early. Popped some Valium at 10 am, an Adderal each at 11, and split the screwdriver over lunch. By 12:30, life was melting all around us. Nothing the teachers said made sense, the other kids kept telling us to stop drooling, and apparently Ally started nodding off in the midst of a chemistry set while I was ranting like a machinegun about Jorg Haider (yes, Jorg Haider). This merry day was brought to an end when Ally swandived into a bleacher during gym class. I made my escape out a back door and spent the rest of the afternoon hiding in the bathroom, mumbling to myself about globalization in a drugged fog.

The Urge to Kill LP is the history of that day on record. I just didn't realize someone had predicted it so accurately, a year before it happened! Listen to this and understand Billy Bao.


Mass murder on a scale you've never seen.  Dee Brainbombs lives here. You can buy this LP here.

*Edit, 12.10.13: I finally got around to re-upping the file. You can now revel in Brainbombs' majesty HERE *

Layne L'Heureux/Blood Noize split CS (2011)

First of all, I apologize to these guys for taking so long to post this.

After several listening sessions, each of which left me more conflicted than the last one, I have decided that I like this recording. But it's a weird sorta liking, lemme tell ya....:
Layne L'Heureux's three tunes sound like they could have been recorded in a Seattle/Portland/Olympia basement ca. 1993. "Disease" is almost as good as the Dinosaur, Jr. song I think he ripped off. I will be listening to these for a long time.

-Blood Noize is a different beast altogether. The first two songs sound like each band member is playing a different song at the same time. It's hard to listen to music that's going in three directions at the same time. They almost pull together a real song on "Water Visions," and finally get it together for Billy Bao-esque noise slop on "The Eagle Strikes at Dawn." In fact, the singer gives Mattin a run for his money: he sounds like a goblin being kicked in the ass by a swamp witch while mucking out her privy.

 The entire Blood Noize side sounds like each band member came into the studio with a different idea of what each song sounds like, refused to listen to the others, and resolutely insisted on playing their own version, until they all lost interest and stopped playing. It's the most amusing piece of dumbness I've heard in a long time.

Dive in and swim. Check out Blood Noize's inspired stupidity here. Layne L'Heureux's rex live here.

Monogamy-Posture Smiles Upon You (2011)

Since the advent of the internet, everyone's been talkin' tall shit about overconnectivity, there's no new ideas 'cause we steal 'em from the interweb, blahblahblah. Well, lemme tell ya: isolation fucking sucks. It leads to all sorts of neuroses and it's not something to fetishize.

Enter Monogamy, a one-person project outta whereverthefuck Michigan. The recording is monotone, and dude's deliberately skewed warble prevents you from understanding him, but what kinda dumbass looks for texture and baroque vocalizing from bedroom music? My fave track on here is "She's Wierded Out" [sic]-it has a mean, urgent guitar note that counterpoints the relentless drum machine nicely. If this was recorded in the '70s, I'd say it was the product of a kid freaking out on Lester Bangs, Ziggy Stardust, and too many Quaaludes; as it is, I'm looking forward to what dude produces next.

We mean it, man! You can buy the physical product from the Rok Lok Rex distro; dude also has a website. Rad, man!