Issue 2

The second print edition of The Counterforce zine is out, compiling everything on the site into a pdf that you can print and distro yourself!! Just check out the zines page to get the PDF. Get in touch if you want to contribute something to the site and to be included in the next issue! We would like to see submissions from friends who share our mission from all over. Reviews, scene reports, how-to guides, letters... any pitch or submission or idea is welcome....

RSS is a system for freely subscribing to content online. Using RSS, you can build a feed of sources you want to follow – from news and blogs to podcasts and videos – without signing up for accounts and without using social media. You can receive notifications when anything new is posted, and keep track of what you’ve already read/seen. RSS predates social media, and although it’s much less popular now than in it’s heyday, it is experiencing somewhat of a resurgence among those who are looking f...

When we rented extra smoke machines for our last show, we just kept blasting THE NOT until they were completely wreathed in that foul cotton candy shit. It fit them perfectly - lead singer stalking the stage imperiously cutting through the fog looking roughly 6'11", drowned in squalls of feedback and pounding bass and drums. You know, a fucking band, right? THE NOT have been crushing sets in town recently, and now that they have recordings up we can hear the extremely solid songwriting underpin...

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...

Austin Texas boils to the top once again with this fast and furious, self described Street Punk(?) featuring members of GREEN JAG, IRON YOUTH (TX) and SAVE OUR CHILDREN, BEYOND STATE POWER gets right to the point with these 6 blistering anarchopunk anthems. Tight drums, gravely vocals that are just fuzzy enough to give them some bite and straightforward, ripping riffs. While not reinventing the wheel by any means, this is distilled punk at its finest; raw, politically charged and short enough to...

Contributed by F.A.R. COMPANY Doing a video promo for Roachy awhile back now I got given a glimpse into upcoming releases coming out on the ever so busy and consistent label from new york (Roachleg Records). In amongst this folder laid a folder called EVIL SPIRIT, ears pricked up like a scrap yard guard dog seeing an intruder on a Friday night when the tracks started to play. The sound quality was already sounding like it came from a boombox running on low batteries, so I was very keen to here ...

If the over the top album title wasn't enough of a big hit, INDUSTRY is finely distilled UK style anarchopunk that is sharp as a knife. Caustic yet clear vocals bark out politically charged lyrics, machine gun drums back tight, cutting guitar riffs and a never too slinky bass tone rounds out this debut from the Berlin based international crew. The second track "Totalitarian Domination" sums it up nicely with the repeated line "Look in the mirror and you will see a self-portrait at the stage of t...

Another Winnipeg, MB "USHC" band. Compared to HUMAN TARGET (who I saw/got a demo from at the same recent Legion show in Montreal), NUCLEAR TARGET seems a bit more "formulaic" when it comes to the self-applied "USHC" label. Which is not bad: the tones are dialed in, the lyrics are simple and hard to decipher (except for "Warhead": "NUCLEAR WARHEADS WERE ALL GONNA DIE"), the singer is some kind of hardcore punk cartoon character, the breakdowns are plodding and almost too slow. They know what they...

"Human target, I'm (on?) the target, you're on the fucking target, this is HUMAN TARGET." That's how the demo tape from this Winnipeg, MB band starts. An intro like that lets you know this is stupid music for stupid people. They were one of a pair of Winnipeg bands that recently played the first show in 10 years at the local legion here. This band self-identifies as "USHC" which might be annoying for some people tired of whatever trend that is, but this band was good. The riffs are stupid, the b...

Contributed by Harry Yams I got reacquainted with iPods right around the pandemic. I was working construction and so many times I would have my headphones in, high-up in a scissor lift, hands in awkward places or covered in something nasty. I would be listening to whatever late 90s / early 2000’s punk and Spotify would be like “oh you like this? Have you heard SCREECHING WEASEL?” It felt like the most punishing co-worker trying to relate musically but missing the mark. “Oh not that? What about ...

Contributed by Greg The Builder I am a furniture builder by trade. I mention this because the use of epoxy (with a Y) has become something of a plague to my craft. I fucking hate epoxy tables. Unoriginal, tacky bullshit. EPOXI (with an I) on the other hand, fucking rules. EPOXI is from Bloomington, IN and the label that put out their tape says they are hardcore that sounds punk and I'm inclined to agree. This is the type of ripping and raging punk I tend to associate with bands from the often ...