Issue 8

Contributed by Ben Rudolph, guitarist in STRESS POSITIONS The first show of our fall tour was at Cobra lounge in Chicago. A nice and early all-ages gig on a beautiful, late summer Thursday. I pick up Steph and we head down to the venue. We are chronically on time to pretty much every gig we play. Jono, Russell and Danny are there to meet us for load in. After an hour or so of mulling around and hanging out with the other bands, people start showing up. Mostly young-ass kids who are stoked as he...

A reportback from 2025's Bread and Roses festival in NYC....

Punks like black shirts. This is an irrefutable fact. As a food spilling person, I am of the same mindset and will always choose a shirt in the punkest shade over any other color. But is there an unknown cost we have all been paying while hiding pit stains?...

The title says it all… I went out of town, and my cat-sitter’s boyfriend left a small stack of records for me. I’d never heard of any of the bands, so I was excited to dive into them....

A first column in which I look at the current landscape of bandcamp alternatives and how to DIY punk music online. ...

BOOT (or B.O.O.T. ?) is a bit of an Ottawa supergroup. Ska Jeff (needs no introduction) joins Will from GERM ATTAK (and countless other bands) to provide the rhythm section. The guitarist Greg was also in a local-secret screamo band in Montreal in the 2010s called KALE (it was better than you're thinking). Normally I wouldn't be that excited about another band influenced by the current Oi!/skinhead trend, especially with a name like BOOT. But... BOOT is good! There are the simple guitar melodie...

First, this is the best sounding DEADBOLT recording so far. I've seen DEADBOLT a lot but it's rare that their live sound lives up to how hard this recording sounds. Maybe we need to get Seb a second guitar cab? I feel safe in saying that DEADBOLT has finally slotted into the power vacuum left by GAZM and formerly occupied by OMEGAS. Few bands can straddle Montreal's punk and capital-H-hardcore scene without being trapped by whatever current trends are stagnating each one at any given time. Soni...

I was handed this demo tape at the recent Search For The Sun festival in Montreal. It's dark anarchist crusty punk. It reminds me of earnest political early 2000s crust. The lyrics The first song ends with group vocals chanting "Can you small the oil seeping from the spoiled ground?") but musically it's not as melodic. These demo songs are pretty straight forward, unrelenting pots-and-pans d-beat, no breakdowns or octave leads. But there is an acoustic/clean guitar intro to the last song. Maybe...

Disappointed some months (pushing a year?) ago at the various reactions and soundbites regarding Hardcore Band A and Hardcore Band B doing "Hardcore Band" things, I incurred the memetic damage and ruminated, holistically speaking, and now, a scant 8 months later......

If you didn't experience the ANSWERING MACHINES at least once in 2024 (or 2025, for that matter!), I truly don't know where you were or what you were doing (nowhere, nothing). A band so good they set up franchises and I've been fortunate enough to catch (yes pun, no pun, whichever way ya like it) both the Chicago and Tejas rosters during my fleeting time upon this dying orb; one runs shop a bit looser, the other tighter, both command the time and space they inhabit totally. And the biggest catc...

Maybe 10, 15 years ago, the memetic monks of the d-beat worldmind fired their decree down the psychic wire: "ALL D-BEAT MUST SUCK!" And, it must be said, some heretic hold-outs scattered throughout Latin America and Japan notwithstanding, the shoe-string antennae picked up the frequency and a resonant harmony was mostly achieved. They let Washington DC and, eventually, Florida splice in endless breakdowns, and the vocal delay got cranked to indecipherable levels. The writing on the wall and the...

Meaner, heavier, angrier, and tighter than their 2023 Blood Oath CS, PURE TERROR's "Ehteram" EP is an escalation in nearly every regard. Like the bastard child of Amy and Roger Miret (Psych, they were married! Their brood would be blessed, truly, the Romeo + Juliet of your parents' time!), this is a record that could only come from New York, a brooding combination of classic NYHC crunch and grit with the art damaged crust of the Vermiform/Gern Blandsten contingent. Released by Toxic State Recor...

Wouldn't particularly consider myself a nostalgioid, but at least I can always go back and listen to the "More Hardcore" LP. While they still earn the "Speed" half of their moniker, they seem much more interested in following through on best-laid "Plans" with each successive release, chipping away at the more free and unhinged inclinations of the previous outing in favor of a more sanded down and sculpted vision, just outside my field of interest. A technically good and thoroughly competent re...

The powerful feeling after a good punk show is undeniably one of the best feelings you can have. This previous month I went to some shows that I enjoyed a lot, and I returned home a few times thinking that punk is amazing....

A Varning from Montreal Festival is basically Christmas for Montreal punks – a highly-anticipated tradition, an international punk family reunion, and a huge party. Now in its 17th edition, it’s currently our city’s longest-running punk fest....

I don't care about Halloween. It's not part of my culture and I don't want it to be part of anything around me. I openly hate the North American/British culture, which, for some reason, is cooler than our traditional celebrations that are old (very old) and beautiful, normally related to nature. The only good thing about this cultural colonization is that I can speak and write English, so I'm able to communicate with many people that I couldn't otherwise. But why is English the global language a...

Photos by Joe The Photo Guy Another humid mid-atlantic August means another Skull Fest in lovely steel city, Pittsburgh, PA. I know, I know, “another fest?” How many fests do we really need? I don’t really know, but for me at least, Skull Fest feels like the one that breaks the mold. Instead of being a weekend of punk and hardcore curated by one person’s taste, Skull Fest is a true collaborative effort. You get a mix of punk that is sure to hit all your sensibilities: punk, hardcore, hardcore p...

It's four things at once on my mind at 5am, dispatching, as we are, LIVE from the 3rd stage....

Some interview I read made them seem real self-conscious about their "More Hardcore" LP, but this release sounds a fair bit safer and codified than the slab I first slobbered over. All of these got rerecorded for their big Convulse debut, so we'll see how the finished product holds up, but I can't imagine revisiting these renditions ever again. Released by Kill Enemy Records, listen here: https://killenemyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/speed-plans-tape Speed Plans Tape, by Kill Enemy Records3 trac...

YMMV on the cover art and you'd be forgiven for guessin' the whole presentation'll getcha some post-hockey jock, pre-jarhead Triple B Records flower-era BS, but goddamn. The kick off is an absolute mind-worming ass-shaker, plucked straight from the back half of a BROWN SUGAR rekkid and pulled forward into the NOW, the remaining 6/7s is pure punk rock n roll a la RADIO BIRDMAN (which they dispute, but come the fuck on), PAGANS, or that time the REPOS covered DEAD BOYS. Released by Kill Enemy Rec...

Been a GUNN truther for a minute, and the half of this that sounds like BATTALION OF SAINTS, you know that sneered-up, black-leather-in-the-hot-sun type Cali shit, easily clears the mental-mythical madness I ascribe to the Shooters in question. Mixed up in all that is a bit too much post 7"-era CÜLO. Still, half is more than most may muster, and, paired with a sense of humor, moronic (complimentary) cover art, and well-curated samples, this is worth a spin or two. Released by Going Underground ...

Ur-crust perfection. The only time spent in the stadium is burning the fucker to the ground. Self released, listen here: https://earnthedirt.bandcamp.com/album/all-paths-lead-to-darkness All Paths Lead to Darkness, by Barren Soil3 track albumBarren Soil✶ sarubert...

Zillennial MASSHYSTERI, which was Xennial BURNING KITCHEN, (and the millennials skipped a gen toiling away in the mysterioid sex pest dungeon and/or KCMO glue dens), which is to say this is very good, very catchy. Repetitive (in a good way) vocal hooks, great melodic guitar work that occasionally makes way for SEEMS TWICE by way of CRASS Records no-punk diversions. Very Euro cover art, as bad as the HONDARTZAKO HONDAKINAK LP cover, both of which risk consigning an otherwise great release to barg...

A harsh judgment, perhaps, but knowing some of these players from well-played but firmly "not-for-me" pop punk outfits, I just didn't know they had this in them. Sounds like: Earth-2 ARTICLES OF FAITH's debut 7" "What We Want Is Blood." Feels like: a brick and a knife and a boot to the temple. Looks like: Chicago still likes hardcore. Self released, listen here: https://ritualcross.bandcamp.com/album/ritual-cross Ritual Cross, by Ritual Cross5 track albumRitual CrossN0VA...