Challenger is more that the side project of Al Burian and Dave Laney from Milemarker. This trio brings back not just the true indie rock sound, but they also play quality punk rock, more in the attitude than in the music maybe. With influences ranging from Husker Du to New Day Rising and Queens of the Stone Age, the ten track album “Give People What They Want In Lethal Doses” is a record that will make you love this band for what they represent and for what they play: songs like “Death Museum”, “Sweet Vaccine”, “This Is Only A Test” and “Crushed City” are just the best examples to get to know Challenger and what they are all about: playing post punk rock with cleverness and true feelings of loving music. The music is pure, the artwork is great, the band rocks so I wonder why you should not buy this.

Hella is a duo that plays fierce math-metal that simply destroys your ears. Underneath the blurring chaos is a beautiful noise built upon gymnastic drumming & virtuoso guitar rhythms: dark, prog-metal with hardcore overtones. Most of the times I feel like I’m listening to Lightning Bolt imagining mid-70s King Crimson, but Hella is quite an extraordinary thing, at least if you love indie rock.

The latest signed band on Burning Heart comes out with a debut EP made for all of the fans of good Sweidsh hardcore punk music. Between Us is a young band that mixes elements of East Coast hardocre ala Sick Of It All, Gorilla Biscuits or the newer Raised Fist, with more post-hardcore stuff like Refused. Hard to imagine? Well the six songs on “Regrest & Apologies” should help you getting in the mood of this band: fast riffs, screaming vocals and a lot of “let’s play this song fast” attitude. The EP is a nice way to discover this new talented band from Europe, even tough it’s still not enough to say if this band will actually be great, maybe we should wait their debut LP on Burnin Heart. Anyhow I am enoying myself with the EP, which is by far the greatest hardcore stuff I heard on BHR since Nine and Section 8.

The fifth installment from the Fat “Live In A Dive” series comes from a non Fat band, English punk rockers Subhumans. The live record, recorded in California during the band’s last US tour in 2003, is filled with 26 tracks from all of the band’s discography, plus one new song, “This Year’s War”, about the situation in Iraq. The CD, recorded by Ryan Greene, displays one real great production, and even tough Subhuamns clarly play in a pure punk way, the thrill you feel from the show is quite real, the same one I felt on the Sick Of It All “Live In A Dive” record. Now, naming songs would be useless, the disc features really anything you could want from Subhumans, so, if you’re a real punk, get this.

The new Seattle’s sensation is named Emery and the band’s new and debut record for Tooth And Nail, “The Weak’s End” is what will make you realize how emo hardcore should be real played. The ten track record is filled with rock songs that truly amused me, from the first “Walls” to the last “The Secret”: the six piece plays rock tunes with some more hardcore riffs put in some parts and some duo-vocals, a melodic one and a screaming one, that fit perfectly in the mood of the record. Dark harmonies leave sometimes place to more solar and positive reflections, and songs like “Fractions” and “Bloddless” are really a manifesto of what Emery is all about: playing good rock music with emotive attention for the listeners’ feelings. When you put the CD in your stereo, be prepared to hear sounds that you almost never heard anywhere else, because yes, Emery has got talent.

The Pale debut on SideCho is that record that either you will love or that will grow on you. Basically I loved it from the first note. Reminding me of such bands as The Rocket Summer, The Get Up Kids, Death Cab For Cutie and Copeland, The Pale has got the quality to play catchy song that stick in your ears since the first time. With power pop guitar hooks, a super melodic piano that plays catchy soft notes, The Pale’s songs are a compisition of soft pop chords, piano harmonies and guitar riffs. Influenced by artists like Wheat, Ben Folds, Elliot Smith, Paul Simon, and the Pernice Brothers, The Pale plays spirited, punchy, and surprisingly moving pop-rock. They play pop music with brains and brawn, and their unique mix of fun and substance is winning the hearts of giddy teenagers and jaded indie rockers alike.

A Small Victory debut with a six song EP on Lobster, and this is a good way to get to know these five Georgia natives much better. The songs remind me of something like a cross between Taking Back Sunday and Yellowcard, with a lot of melodies, both in the vocals and in the instruments, and some screamy choruses sung all-along by the guys in the band. The rhythm of the EP is fast, and “Hammer Strong”, “My Sweet Explosion” and “Taste The Mercury” are good examples of how A Small Victory combine elements of pop punk with some more hardcore vocals. The fact is that six tunes are not too many to judge a band, so I think we shall all wait for their upcoming debut LP to have every major label A&R say :”Hey have you heard A Small Victory?I think we should sign them”.

After seven years of silence, the inventors of pop punk are back! Yeah right, the Descendents are back with a new record, “Cool To Be You”, which will be out in March 2004, after their “Everything Sucks” some years ago. Fat Wreck is releasing a month before, a four song EP in order to check out two new tracks off the new full length and to get two new songs that you won’t find anywhere else. This is cool, as the EP has got a bonus track as well. The new songs are in the classic Descendents style, or, as Fat Mike himself said, “this is the fastest band I ever heard” and this so true. The tunes are fast, melodic and catchy as hell, not to mention, have got the classic Descendents humour, plus some more melodic hardcore influenced stuff as on “I Quit” or “Here I Am”, the two unreleased songs on this EP only. “Nothing With You” and “Merican”, recorded in 2002, are the classic pop punk songs you’d expect from these four dudes: the fast chords of Egerton, the faster drumming of Stevenson, the crazy bass lines of Alavarez and the awesome vocals of Milo. Do you need more? No, for sure, this stuff rules.

After three EP’s, Roy release their debut LP on Fueled By Ramen; “Big City Sin and Small Town Redemption” is a great rock record and maybe even too “creative” to be understood by the average hardcore punk fan. With a line-up of “old school punks” such as Brian Cook ( from Botch, These Arms Are Snakes), Ben Verellen (from Harkonen), Dave Verellen (again, another one from Botch) and Mike Cooper (from Deathknight), you should be sure not to expect a metal-core record, not something like Botch at least. The LP features sweet Americana-jangle and hookey guitar fuzz, clever hooks, plaintive lyrics and country-punk gay-identity anthems. The songs are catchy and clever, something like a cross among The Weakerthans, Sebadoh, and Uncle Tupelo.

The sophomore LP on Equal Vision by Coheed and Cambria signs a change in the band’s music and a change in the underground rock world. Well maybe not in the whole world but at least in my world. “In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth:3″ is an eleven track record that is not even possible to describe, but, differently from their previous album, this time the band really shows originality! The fact is that every song of this album is different from each other, the music changes from soft pop catchy harmonies to more hardcore riffs, with singer Claudio Sanchez’s voice that is always at its finest. The record, which is supposed to be a concept album, really stands above the average or the album that came out last year, and the main reason is that Coheed & Cambria knows where its at: playing rock music that is innovative, original and talented. We warned you.