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.

Sex Cross-s/t EP (2012)

The goofy name is a dead giveaway that we're dealing with a goth band here. Unsurprisingly, then, these Jerseyites dish out three tracks of blackclad gloom, leaning on coldwave guitar  stylings like I'll be leaning against a wall to keep me on my feet as I puke in a few hours.

This brief EP has all the requisite components of a guitar-based goth ensemble: distant, chanted vocals; monotone drumming; a bass that's somewhere in there, probably beneath a black trenchcoat; and a taut, shards-of-ice guitar track. "Summer of Fire" is my pick, for the, you guessed it, guitar: once again, as I claimed in my Cemetery review, goth owes a lot to surf guitar riffs.

In fact, if you dig Cemetery, get yr hands (er, ears? Itunes files?) on this now-Sex Cross will tide you over til the next release by those Chicago glumrockers, and I'm looking forward to what these guys' mortuary operation produces next.

HERE. 

Modern Howl-Jasco C.W. EP (2012)

Kaliningrad's Modern Howl, composed of Mssrs. Paul Von Aphid and Speed Wulf, are decidely not yr average Drug Punk group. In place of buzzsaw howl or gurgling bloody messes, they present us with a few tracks of heavily processed electro-synth.

I'm having trouble classifying this, which is probably a good thing. What I hear are sonic collages borrowing from several genres. This is dance music for drugged out losers like myself who wouldn't be caught dead in a nightclub (like Mssr. Byrne said, 'this ain't no party, this ain't no disco!') and would rather nod out on Percosets to a beat that's only marginally funky than shake ya ass to whatever the kids party to these days.

 In all probability that's not the case, and I'm guessing people do indeed dance to this stuff at nightclubs. I just dunno nuthin' 'bout 'em. The tracks feature heavy sampling cut up and scissored together in a confusing way approximating aural assault.

The only ambiance I can conjure up for this EP is as follows: nighttime in a major city (say, Chicago). It's five a.m., you've been out all night raging it, and the sun is almost starting to peek over the horizon hinting at another broken day spent convalescing from your own self-induced abuse. Yr walkin' down a dark alley contemplating where the next beer or sleeping pill is whatever and suddenly a fucking goblin jumps out from behind that dumpster, sticks a scimitar in ya, and vanishes. Ya dunno what to do! Take that! Haha!

Download "Jasco C.W." here. Mssrs. Aphid and Wulf's label has a sick amount of stuff up, check out the other releases if ya dig this.

Happy New Year/Nite Fields split 7" (2012)

Bridging my current fixation on dreampop (guilty pleasure of the last two months 'round here has been the new Beach House LP) and my ongoing obsession with all things -wave, this split EP throws up two tracks of effects-laden dreaminess suitable for those who enjoy thinking about doom 'n' gloom gothiness when getting fucked up.

Happy New Year's "High Sea" opens with pensive, (melo)dramatic piano and distant, echoing gongs. The singer intones from a distance, her words lost on misty trails of cold ruin as the musicians hammer home a Gothic, lost-on-the-moors ambiance fitting for smoking a shit ton of weed and watching "Game of Thrones" with the sound off, to better absord Happy New Year. Y'know, wizards and death and swords 'n' shit.

Nite Fields' "Come Down" picks up where Happy New Year left off; the song picks up after the swords 'n' dragons battle to dwell on a ruined, haunted landscape. The drums are propulsive but heavily treated with echo, the singer sounds like he's singing from a ship passing in the night, his words vanishing into the ether.

Last night I tripped over some goth girl's 12-inch black docs while walking out of a bar-it seems like goth is back in a big way in Portland, so all you ultra-cool West Coast kids, be sure to pick up this piece of Australian glumrock, pronto.

You can do so here, courtesy of Lost Race Records. Listen to it before ya buy it, over at soundcloud.

Ultratumbados-MMVII demo (2007)

Ultratumbados was just getting started when I left Chicago for sunnier climes, and I only saw 'em a coupletwotree times. They killed it, always.  I first heard them mentioned as "that band that just does Warsaw covers," and they shared members with Population.

This demo contains nary a Warsaw tune, although there is a sick take on my favorite Eskorbuto song. This, their LP-length demo, still surprises me three years later for its snotty, fresh blast of songwriting and how well these guys threw '77 punk and goth into a melodic stew all their own. My faves iz "Soy un Elegido," with its pummeling drumwork, and the hollow guitar tones on "Desnutrido Como un elefante."

Peeps dis shit if you like your punk melodic, your goth rockin', and/or your guitarists large.

Mierda! Only fifty copies of this were made, but contact the band here, and you should be able to find copies of their 7" and, I think, LP(?).

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.