Author: Bill Adams
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Long Range Hustle – I Am Alive But Only If You Say I Am LP
Long Range Hustle I’m Alive, But Only If You Say I Am LP (Sans Shoes/Anti-Fragile) While the nature of the album’s title seems inherently soft, on its face (most bands want to exclaim, “We are here,” but the title of Long Range Hustle’s sophomore full-length album seems to ask for the validation that most other…
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TK and The Holy Know-Nothings – The Incredible Heat Machine LP
TK and The Holy Know-Nothings The Incredible Heat Machine LP (Mama Bird Recording Company) It isn’t always easy for this writer to get into country music (there often has to be a “alt-country” plank in the floor to make it easier to enter on), but it didn’t take me long to find my way to…
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Booze & Glory – Vespa & Londonians 12” EP
Booze & Glory Vespa & Londonians (12”EP) (Pirates Press Records) Remember back in the early aughts when Fearless Records compiled a series of albums which found some genuinely great punk bands covering a multitude of different artists and genres – recasting them all in a punk context? Some of those covers were actually really, really…
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The Slackers/Sic & Mad – “Love I Bring” b/w “My Cat is on Prozac” split 7”
The Slackers/Sic & Mad “Love I Bring” b/w “My Cat is on Prozac” split 7” (Pirates Press Records) There’s little doubt that this review will sound dismissive – such is the most common byproduct of a release which isn’t very good. Now, it’s true that the governing wisdom in the music industry has always been…
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The Slackers – “Windowland” / “I Almost Lost You” 12” digitally-printed single
The Slackers “Windowland” / “I Almost Lost You” (12” Digitally-Printed single) (Pirates Press Records) It can be fun to write a short review once in a while and, when one addresses The Slackers’ newest single, “Windowland,” it’s impossible to not be brief. Clocking in at less than ten minutes total, the two songs on the…
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Grade 2 – Graveyard Island: Acoustic Sessions 12” EP
Grade 2 Graveyard Island: Acoustic Sessions 12” EP (Epitaph/Pirates Press Records) As someone wise once said, “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans,” and no punk band is making the best of a bad situation more than Grade 2 has, lately. The band had to put the promotional efforts behind their Epitaph debut…
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Lars Frederiksen – To Victory 12” EP
Lars Frederiksen To Victory 12” EP (Pirates Press Records) After a career spent tirelessly writing, recording and performing music with a celebrated list of bands on an incredible number of releases (to date, that list includes no fewer than forty-five releases recorded with bands including Rancid, Stomper 98, Old Firm Casuals, The transplants, The Bastards…
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T. Hardy Morris – The Digital Age Of Rome LP
T. Hardy Morris The Digital Age of Rome LP (New West Records) It’s weird to think how tumultuous a year 2020 was, and how that tumult was reflected in the music which was released at the time. Even if a band didn’t actually have a political streak in their hair or bone in their body,…
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Mastiff – Leave Me The Ashes Of The Earth LP
Mastiff Leave Me The Ashes of the Earth LP (Entertainment One Music) There has always been something which felt a little off about really aggressive metal (or Doom, or Sludge, or maybe Metalcore – pick your favorite undervalued sub-genre) – as greasy, heavy or dirty as it might get, there’s always an inherent clarity about…
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Plizzken – …And Their Paradise Is Full Of Snakes LP
Plizzken …And Their Paradise Is Full Of Snakes LP (Pirates Press Records) The fact of the matter is that, in punk circles, no one wants to be a “middle of the road” kind of band. Why? Well, as Dwight Eisenhower once said, “The middle of the road is all the usable surface. The extremes, right…