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Every year, I organize a March Mixtape Swap where two-dozen or so of my friends contribute new mixtape and receive different mixtapes in return. This year my friend Jay submitted the "Ancient Texts" mixtape. This mixtape has an origin story. Montreal's DEADBOLT had recently played a set at 2024's Montreal Madhouse that include a cover of WARZONE's "As One". The crowd response for the cover was so disappointing that the singer, Julia, admonished the crowd: "You all need to go study your ancient t...

NO FUTURE from Perth, Australia have put out a masterpiece of noisy hardcore punk with their Mirror LP. The bass and drums are way out front on this mix and its well deserved, the noisy guitar tracks cut through perfectly when they are needed and the vocals are super powerful with maybe the perfect reverb balance. The lyrics are poetic and center around struggling through life in this corrupt immoral capitalist world. This LP rips and I hope I get to see them live cause if it's anything as ragin...

This was day 1 of the Noise Not Borders curated shows at the Suoni Per Il Popolo fest. This was a fun goth punk dancey show in the sweaty Sotterenea basement. LAURA KRIEG opened and I have never seen her perform before. It was a very 80's vibe, dancy synth tracks with vocals, and the occasional guitar lead. HRT set up on the floor and played a new set tonight. Super powerful industrial influenced noisy beats and hard vocals. Their set started a bit rough, but it all came together once the sound ...

This was day 2 of the Noise Not Borders curated shows at the Suoni Per Il Popolo fest. This was a big weekend for shows in Montreal, with multiple shows Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Just a regular Montreal summer-kickoff weekend. I didn't want to miss any of it so I got there early and had a nice time hanging out out front of the venue. This venue has a sub stage that gets set up on the floor for smaller shows and it was placed in front of the main stage, like a short runway jutting out. It mad...

Contribute by F.A.R. Company The term 'noise not music' gets thrown up these days like a cheap beer full of cigarette butts and usually by bands you can still hear the riff in a coherent way. Which is always kinda annoyed me, the amount of records I have taken home expecting the 'raw noise punk' label to actually produce a proper fukin racket just to chuck it on the player and find out it was actually a 'well cooked coherent punk' record done in a studio made by a music chef of some fancy sough...

This is a discography/retrospective tape for Florida's MAUSER. Their releases are presented in chronological order, starting with 2010's "End Of The Line" and ending with a 2013 live set recorded at Portland's Black Water. Everything has been remastered by Will Killingsworth. MAUSER plays a typical raw hardcore d-beat punk. Lots of booming tom rolls. Mostly fast, sometimes midtempo, sometimes really fast. Raw and harsh yells are delivered through some cave reverb and/or delay at different times...

Contributed by F.A.R. Company Spicy opinion, but sometimes it helps to judge the book by its cover... In a world where even your average jock hardcore band is using that blown out photoshop 'xerox' filter on there covers it can be hard to sought out the good and the bad. But thankfully las DUST COLLECTOR take the guessing work out of it for you. With the help of a good close friend to F.A.R. Company and obviously DUST COLLECTOR guns, Insane Moblish from Mexico doing the artwork, you can automa...

Clocking in at just 10 minutes, UMBRO's 2024 demo solidifies Japan's reputation as a powerhouse in the punk scene. UMBRO delivers chaotic, disparaging noise, but not in the way typically associated with Japanese punk outfits. Instead, they create a soundscape that's both abrasive and dissonant, setting themselves apart in the noisy punk genre through their use of a chorus pedal and inconsistency in tempo. While the chorus pedal in hardcore punk isn't for everyone, UMBRO's gritty vocals distingui...

Contributed by P-lou I've been putting back on writing this review for a while now. Not that it's a very intricate or complicated release, I’ve just been having an awful time lately preventing me from doing anything really. That was until I decided to listen to this demo again after a period of time of feeling overwhelmed by the smallest tasks. I got back to it and it clicked, it did exactly what it was made to do. "DEMONSTRATION" 2024 is tough love on tape. From the beginning, the demo starts...