Tag: punk rock
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Old Firm Casuals – s/t EP (12” picture disc reissue)
By the time Lars Frederiksen unveiled Old Firm Casuals in 2010, the singer/guitarist was already very well exposed in the punk rock community. He had already cut his teeth with U.K. Subs in 1991, gained pop (and pop-punk) stardom with Rancid beginning in 1993 and “gone solo” with The Bastards in addition to taking a…
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Gang Of Youths – Go Farther In Lightness (2LP)
For the nearly half-century since the genre’s inception now, one of the few steadfast foundations upon which punk rock has stood has been nihilism. Consistently, the spirit of punk has been one of “Fuck it all – strip the music down to the barest essentials and get emotionally dark and bleak – at least that…
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Ford Madox Ford – This American Blues LP
Remember a couple of decades ago when, against some fairly long odds, The Blasters managed to cross-wire punk rock and Americana/roots music? The results were pretty cool – the group actually did manage to break onto the popular radar for a minute (with some help from Quentin Tarantino and the soundtrack from From Dusk Til…
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Hashteroid – self-titled
I gotta hand it to this Vancouver outfit—as far as stoner band name puns go, Hashteroid is a pretty good one. But if you’re looking for Weedeater and Bongzilla worship from this trio’s debut, you might be mistaken. These guys take a faster-paced, punkier approach to stoner rock, more along the lines of The Shrine,…
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Melvins – Pinkus Abortion Technician
The Melvins are to bassists what Spinal Tap is to drummers. After recording with no fewer than six bassists on their last album, fittingly titled Basses Loaded, they’ve now employed two permanent four-stringers on this release—Steven McDonald of Redd Kross, who was part of their last tour, and Jeff Pinkus of Butthole Surfers fame, who…
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Vamos – 1,2,3 LP
The problem with every great music revival is that, as energizing and exciting as it might be, there’s a certain safety and security in knowing that the ideas involved have worked before and can work again in a walk – if enough people believe in it. Such thought processes have worked well several times over…
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The Struggle – Endless LP
At this point in music history, surf rock’s impact on punk has really been downplayed with more attention put toward the more obvious, poppy turns that the music has taken – especially of late. That’s the first thing The Struggle fixes on their new album, Endless. From front to back, The Struggle mixes melodic hardcore…
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The Complicators – Wake Up (7-inch single)
Now that punk rock has gone around the block a few times and collected little generic influences like a lint brush, it’s understandable how some fans may be hard-pressed to recognize it anymore. That’s why a release like The Complicators‘ “Wake Up” 7-inch is so refreshing though. It grunts, it grinds and it stomps but,…
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Roadside Bombs – Best of the Best / 45
It’s pretty uncommon for a punk band to publicly praise a music journalist (not that it NEVER happens, just that it doesn’t happen regularly) so when Roadside Bombs doesn’t just praise a critic, they put his face on the A-side of a single and publicly promote him as being “The Best of The Best,” it…
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This Means War – S/T 10” EP
The catch, when it comes to trying to be in a good melodic hardcore band, is that trying to navigate the waters of punk rock is fraught with risk because the region is so over-populated. Unfortunately, there are lots of “melodic hardcore” bands which aren’t particularly melodic (read: the singer can’t carry a tune on…