What's new?

Recently I was in NYC and stopped by Peace Of Mind HQ where I was gifted a few of their recent releases. Willow filled my bag with copies to take home, exclaiming "we don't care about making money, we just want to put our friends bands and get their music out there." Besides the LOVE AND COMPASSION tape, everything I was given has not yet been reviewed here. So, I present a roundup review: MMI - Imminently Perilous To Life Demo Tape As of writing, the newest Peace Of Mind release. Opens with ...

Ghas of A World Divided bring us this interview with Charged Can, founder of Wargasm Records/Fest based in Istanbul. Ghas: Hey Can! Tell us about your current projects, I know you’ve been busy! Charged Can: Hi Ghas, DIE IN VAIN and REASON WHY, my two sibling bands! Happy to involve with those bands because we're doing our favorite two era of punk rock. G: I saw that you have been touring across Europe in the last few weeks. Can you tell us about that? CC: Yes! We were on tour with DIE IN VAI...

Hardcore punk should make you feel like you're losing brain cells with every passing second. And let me tell you this POISON SPEAR release has my brains leaking out my ear while the grin on my face gets more deranged. No gimmicks, no complicated riffs and snotty but guttural vocals make zero compromises. Plus the title track Institutional Trust is a drawn out mosh part that'll have you slamming from side to side, getting low and slow or getting swept up in the feverish sweaty energy of an overca...

Hailing from the gloomy western lowlands of Glasgow, WARBITCH brings us just over 15 minutes of metal punk chaos. Clear and concise gravely vocals bludgeon us with adages of nuclear fallout, the horrors of war, and the eternal wheels of oppression grinding our bones. WARBITCH takes the blistering attitudes of "war bad" raw punk and brings an element of metal that will likely keep the HM-2 distortion fans happy. There's even a breakdown midway through "radiation zombie" that adds a bit of tempo v...

January 2025 marked Maximum Rocknroll's 500th "Issue". The print run of MRR ended with Issue #432 in May 2019, but online "Issues" are still published on the Maximum Rocknroll website. Every months-worth of reviews are still batched together on the site and given an issue number. Print issues have also had all their reviews digitized on the site and organized by issue. If you didn't know, you should check out their archive of reviews! I've been working on this quietly for a few months, but in h...

Courtesy of the punks in Dog City, USA, we have several new zines you may print out and distribute on the ZINES page. ...

JETSAM are a drum + bass + vocals powerviolence three-piece from Montreal. In the few short years they've been active, JETSAM have played shows in nearly every corner of the local scene. Recently, they went on their first small tours out of the Toronto-Montreal-Quebec City corridor, and if you haven't heard of them already I expect you will soon. Jack (vocals, they/them) and Neon (bass, she/her) answered my questions by e-mail in January 2025. Martin Force: What is the story of JETSAM? How did ...

The first time I heard of MEM//BRANE was when my dad saw them listed in the Bellingham weekly paper. At the time they had only put out their demo but I was hooked from the start. I love this band. Every release has gotten better (the David Wojnarowicz speech that intros their Subcutaneous EP gives me chills every listen). If you start at MEM//BRANE’s demo and work through their releases, you can hear the maturing of their sound and songwriting, this S/T record feeling like a culmination. The re...

Over the past year or so, I’ve taken an unprecedented hiatus from punk. Sure, I’ve had my occasional months-long breaks, but this one has dragged on longer than I’d like to admit. Thankfully, ZYCLONE, is the band that’s finally breaking my silence. Visions of Impending Death marks ZYCLONE’s debut self-release. Clocking in at under 7 minutes, the demo is a surge of aggression, holding a sense of urgency essential for any hardcore band worth their salt. This is fast-as-hell D-beat hardcore, firml...

The fourth print issue of The Counterforce is here, featuring all the year-end lists from our contributors, plus a few extra reviews and A Punk's Guide to Printing Zines (relevant!). Grab the printable PDF of this issue, previous issues, and more on the Zines page....

It's the first end-of-a-year for The Counterforce (although only our 8th month anniversary), so this is our first time doing Top Tens. We've got a lovely selection from many of our regularly contributors as well as some first timers....