Misfits – The Devil’s Rain
This album is clearly all about re-establishing the Misfits as a creative entity and that focus is plainly apparent from the moment the album’s title track crashes to life and opens the proceedings.
Black Flag
Rodney “Anonymous” Linderman of The Dead Milkmen: The Hellbound Interview
Rodney “Anonymous” Linderman is on the phone. And he’s not sure he’s reached the right Hellbound. “I’ve looked at your website and I just see death metal bands” he says. “I don’t want to be a Justin Bieber in a group of Glenn Danzigs.” Hellbound assures him he’s reached the right publication and that we want to speak to him. And why wouldn’t we? As vocalist and keyboardist of The Dead Milkmen, Linderman played a key role in 1980s American punk rock and was among the first underground artists to be featured on MTV. He dissed Motley Crue when glam ruled metal and made subversive songs that somehow got radio play.
Descendents/ OFF! @ Yonge Dundas Square, Toronto ON, June 16 2011
“While this bout of First Gen punk rockers strutting their new stuff (OFF!) or taking a skank down memory lane (Descendents) was clearly not about to grab Southern Ontario by the short and curlies, with enough bodies filling the concrete lawn to instigate agoraphobia, it was clear that Southern Californian punk rock has clearly grown in appreciated stature over its three decades.”
Keith Carman reviews the June 16th outdoor performance by Descendents and OFF! at NXNE in Toronto. Live photos by Heather Carman Ostrander.
Devil – Magister Mundi Xum (Demo)
By all means, Magister Mundi Xum is hit-and-miss – when it does hit, it’s pretty damn fun. Look past the recording quality, the at-times downright-goofy lyrics, and you might dig this as much as I did. Will be interesting to see what they come up with on their upcoming full-length.
STAFF PLAYLISTS: March 2011
Back by popular demand, here are the Staff Playlists for March 2011!
OFF! – First Four EPs (4 X 7” Box Set)
This is the kind of punk rock that makes a fan for life because the sentiments are real, relatable, accessible (for the right kind of mind) and genuine; no punk will be able to miss any of that. This is not music to buy jeans to, it’s music to live by.
Coliseum – House With A Curse
Is this what happens when hardcore grows up?
Cancer Bats – Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones
With a swinging and universally mean attack, Cancer Bats set fire to much of their own past as well as a significant number of the bands that would pretend to be their peers as they find the best possible middle ground between old school hardcore (like Black Flag) and Seventies/Eighties-era metal (think Judas Priest), and throw in something that loosely resembles the raw energy of skate punk for good measure.
Virulence – If This Isn’t a Dream… 1985-1989
A pretty cool find from a band on the cusp of the post-hardcore movement—especially considering the direction its members went afterwards. I guess they didn’t start smoking reefer till they moved away from their parents…
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