Tag: punk

  • Gateway Drugs – Magick Spells

    Gateway Drugs – Magick Spells

    It’s hard to believe how long punk has been a musical idiom. For the sake of argument (because it’s hard to get many people to agree on when punk rock became recognized as a musical form), let’s say it started in 1969; that’s when MC5 released Kick Out The Jams. That’s a time period of…

  • Anti-Flag – American Spring LP

    Anti-Flag – American Spring LP

    It might sound a little silly to say, but the first great thing about the vinyl pressing of Anti-Flag‘s ninth studio album, American Spring, is the scale of the presentation. Before a note is heard, those who buy the vinyl will get an eyeful of the bright and beautiful album cover which looks like an…

  • Reducers SF – Essentials (4 Colored LP set)

    Reducers SF – Essentials (4 Colored LP set)

    Looking back, it’s pretty incredible how fertile punk’s creative soil was in the Nineties. Sure – everyone knows the mid-Nineties as being the period which broke punk into the mainstream (pop punk) and made bands like Lagwagon, Propagandhi, Green Day, NOFX, Offspring (I’ve written this list out several times before) and innumerable others household names…

  • Round Eye – s/t LP

    Round Eye – s/t LP

    While the debate over which recorded music format is superior (vinyl, CD and digital download, at least for right now, are the top contenders), no one who has heard it will argue against the fact that Round Eye‘s debut album was designed specifically to be experienced on vinyl. The hints are actually on the CD…

  • Rancid – …And Out Come The Wolves (5 x 7” vinyl set)

    Rancid – …And Out Come The Wolves (5 x 7” vinyl set)

    It sounds a little sensationalist to make this declaration but, of the albums which really sparked the punk revival of the 1990s (including – but certainly not limited to – Punk In Drublic by NOFX, Stranger Than Fiction by Bad Religion, Dookie by Green Day and Smash by the Offspring), it was Rancid who ran…

  • Anti-Flag: Against The Odds

    Anti-Flag: Against The Odds

    It seems deliberately discordant in many ways, but some bands need to fight their battles on an uphill incline in order for them to produce their own best selves. These kinds of bands are the sort which need to feel as though they have something to prove because they’ve been knocked down or counted out,…

  • Connoisseur – Stoner Justice

    Connoisseur – Stoner Justice

    Pretty sure I reviewed this when it was just an EP—but I can’t seem to find that write-up anywhere on the site. Anyhoo, Connoisseur is a marijuana-themed crust-punk outfit from Oakland—or Smokeland, as they call it, and with song titles like “Circle of Heads,” “I Am the Weed” and “Full Blown Marijuana Addict,” you can…

  • Anti-Flag – American Spring

    Anti-Flag – American Spring

    Remember what punk rock looked like in 2001? The landscape was very different from how it is now, that’s for sure; back then, melody, speed and punk sensibilities all went hand-in-hand, and the one thing that most everyone could agree on was that metalheads didn’t fit in. Now – as Epitaph seems to be making…

  • Rise Against + Will Potter – The Eco-Terrorist In Me 7”

    Rise Against + Will Potter – The Eco-Terrorist In Me 7”

    At first, it might be easy for the format fetishist who is searching for the great “find” or “must-have” on Record Store Day to overlook Rise Against‘s contribution to the festivities. On the surface, it doesn’t really stand out at all; the band put a song from the album that they released last year (The…

  • Round Eye – s/t

    Round Eye – s/t

    Wow. A band grabbing listeners and shaking them by the head just to see the confused look on their faces isn’t a particularly common occurrence anymore (the Mothers Of Invention used to do it, Butthole Surfers were really good at it, Flaming Lips have had some great moments in the mindfuck field too), but no…