Legendary skateboarder Duane Peters has yet again picked the crème de la crème of punk rock in this lineup which includes: Bad Lieutnants, Die Hunns, Briefs, Prima Donna, The Bones, Angel City Outcasts, Turbo Negro, Black Halos, Epoxies, The Lizzies, Ducky Boys, U.S. Bombs, The District, Amazombies, Mad Sin, Street Dogs, River Boat Gamblers, The Deep Eynde, The Duane Peters Gunfight, Civet, The Addicts, The Worthless, The Skulls, Hollow Points, Blood For Blood, Roger Miret & The Disasters, The Stitches, The Orphans, R.X. Son, and The Kings Of Nuthin’. To have legendary bands as well as new up and coming bands together on one cd gives you the best of everything. 30 rare songs from both known and underground punkrock bands make up this compilation of songs that dare not disappoint. This CD gives you a sense that punk rock is alive and well despite all the top 40 playing itself off as punk rock these days; forget about MTV punk (and all that is commercial punk), this album is truly underground and straight true to soul. In this compilation, The Hunns cover the classic Van Halen track “Ain’t Talkin bout Love” making a classic into a true creation, trading vocals between Duane and Corey throughout the track. Other highlights include the Briefs “Human Thermometer” and The US Bombs “He’s The Man” as well as the David Bowie Styled “Baby Black and Blue” sung by The Lizzies. Don’t bother picking up anything else this year until you’ve heard this CD.
Strike Anywhere’s third full length doesn’t just sign the passage for these five Virginia punks from Jade Tree to Fat Wreck Chords, but also from a new dimension of hardcore punk. While on their first EP “Chorus Of One” and album “Change Is A Sound”, the band used to deal with hard themes such as police injustices and rebellion with a furious sound, on the new record Strike Anywhere still deal with those themes but with a more poppy sound. Produced by Brian McTernan (Thrice, Hot Water Music, Snapcase), “Dead FM” is a collection of tracks made to make the listeners think. Songs like “Speak To Our Empty Pockets” is about how politicians/religious men speak to people with the same rethoric; “Hollywood Cemetery” is a nice “fuck you” to false idols and people who think they’re better than others, while the classic socially aware themes come in such songs as “House Arrest” (which is maybe the most poppy song about such a hard theme) and “Gunpowder”. “Dead Hours”, which is the song that gives its title to the album, is all about propaganda, and how people who control the media can make you see what they want. “Dead FM” is a very melodic punk album, a step forward for Strike Anywhere, who might look like rockstars but are still your simple guys from the streets.
Fronted by Australian pro-surfer, musician, artist and film-maker Ozzie Wright aka “Fang Fite Ozzie Wrong, The Wizard of Death”, The Story of Dead Barbie & Ghost is produced by Ian Pritchett. The album features 16 tracks each as varied as the band members themselves. With songs ranging from surf punk to hard thrashing horror pop anthems to lonely mellow beatnik poems to uplifting neon folk. The only way to explain this music is Sonic Youth with a spoonful of surf-punk.
The Goons of Doom are: Ozzie Wright, Bang-Bang-Bunny-Fang, Cut-throat Cowboy, Vaughan Dead, and Killa Whale. A group of friends, The Goons formed their band in 2003 while playing the part of a band in the indie cult surf movie classic Doped Youth. Within five days of buying instruments and practicing, the band was taking from the screen to the street, playing their first party.
After filming of Doped Youth ended, The Goons decided to continue to be a real band and started consistently playing parties and bar shows before landing a proper tour with fellow Aussies, The Beautiful Girls. In the fall of 2005, the Goons of Doom released their first EP, Bikey Zomby, which debuted at number 18 on the Australian Independent Recording charts and have since toured the US with the Aquabats and label mates Valient Thorr and ASG.
“Dead Barbie and Ghost” has a great sense of humor in lyrics with surf-punk music underneath it all. “My Song” seems to have Sonic Youth influences, and is probably my favorite track on the album—totally off key vocals with doped guitars makes for great sound.
Survive is the sophomore album from Chicago’s Much the Same. Produced by Cameron Webb, and set for an August 29th release date, Survive is a return to the fast melodic punk sound of the 90s without sounding nostalgic or derivative. Alongside their Nitro Records label-mates: A Wilhelm Scream, No Trigger, and Crime in Stereo, Much the Same are doing everything they can to bring back substance over style to the underground. The band has played with the likes of Bad Religion, Rise Against, Thrice, Strike Anywhere, Anti-Flag, and A Wilhelm Scream.
“What I Know” hits deep in the heart to any romantic, explaining “I hate the thought of living life without you, even though I’m not afraid of being alone…every dream will be about you and that’s one thing that I know…forgive me if I can’t just let you go…” Anyone who’s ever been in love will seek recluse from this song. The lyrics, although sad, are offset by the pounding drums and upbeat rhythm.
“Take What’s Yours,” is something anyone can relate to, having been in a situation where someone has told lies to your downfall. McGrath explains “…you cant deny you’ve ruined everything with all your lies…while you manipulate your friends and think no one can see…you can talk behind my back if that’s what gets you by…you almost broke me down…you can play your game, but you don’t fool me anymore.”
I love how Much the Same is turning back to get in touch with where punk started, instead of being cliché like a lot of new punk bands out there *cough* Good Charlotte *cough*.
“Living a Lie” is a good lesson for anyone who’s gone out of their way to please people to their own detriment. McGrath sings: “It’s a shame that you think you have to try to please everyone else when you don’t even please yourself. Now isn’t that the worst kind of life? Why do you listen to what all those empty people say? You don’t need them around, they just wana keep you down.”
Just because a band is making waves, it doesn’t mean their latest album is any good—in this case the stories are true, as “A Beat Missing or a Silence Added” is one of the must listen to albums of the year. Hailing from Cleveland, Ohio, The Vacancies’ give their fans nothing but high energy and the love for what they do is highly reflected in the music they create and in their live performances. Their presentation is honest and raw, piercing your heart with their profound brand of punk rock. Produced by Joan Jett, this is their sophomore album, and first album for Joan Jett’s Blackheart Records label.
My favorite song on the album, Radio Revolution, explains how corporate big wigs spoon feed the masses with a smile while collecting their checks, whereas classic rock radio was more organic. Live Fast Die Young (LFDY) is a non-stop adrenaline high with fast paced music, underlying fervent vocal delivery. LFDY is destined to be an underground punk rock classic.
Punk rock has gotten so generic lately, but you’ll find none of that here. Touring with The Adolecents this summer, and coming back this fall on tour with Joan Jett, The Vacancies are destined to become a staple in the punk/hard rock community, keeping it real and creating albums and high energy shows that consistently deliver classic hard punk that loads up the scene with truth.
Inspired by the writings of William Faulner and filled with pop rock hooks, the music of Colour Revolt can be best described as a mix of Emo with the capital E. Formed in Mississippi by Jesse Coppenbarger, Jimmy Cajoleas, Drew Mellon, Len Clark, and Sean Kirkpatrick; their last EP was released back in 2005 and I am so sorry I discovered it only now. After a brillant debut LP entitled “Friends Don’t Speak”, this new EP was produced by Clay Jones, who already worked with the likes of Elvis Costello and Modest Mouse, among others. Well what can I say? Colour Revolt is the perfect mix of what I’d call indie pop, with music created by catchy guitar melodies, soft vocals fused with screams and some rhythms reminiscent of post-hardcore. It’s like a cross between modern bands like Settlefish (on Deep Elm Records) and Sigur Ros or Explosions In The Sky. Songs like “Mattresses Underwater”, with its dual souls or the softer “A New Family” are clearly showing that Colour Revolt is the most promising indie label around so I’d prey record labels to be aware that these guys can change the indie music for good. This EP will anyway be re-released on September 12th on Tiny Evil, an imprint of Interscope Records. (Ps: seriously, I am pissed with modern bands, these days I am listening only to old Bad Religion records and this EP).
All Time Low is a band that debuts on Hopeless Records with an eight song EP made of powerful emo pop, after releasing some self-produced stuff back in 2005. The new record “Put Up Or Shut Up” features new recordings of some older material, refined and updated to meet the band’s current music taste, and this EP was mixed by Zach Odom and Kenneth Mount at Tree Sound Studios in Atlanta (Outkast, Cartel). Even tough I almost do not listen to this music genre anymore (both because bands break up in two years and because most bands are boring, too), I must say I was really impressed by the great catchy harmonies on this album and in particular on such anthems as “Coffee Shop Soundtrack” and the brillant “The Party Scene”, which is a tribute to having a lot of fun making loud chaos. The rest of the EP is more than average, and if you have been disappointed by bands like Yellowcard or Motion City Soundtrack, these guys from Baltimore, MD can surely become your new favorite band, they just need some time to stop touring, sit down, and write one great catchy disc.
Against Me! gets ready for their major debut on Sire leaving their last independent label Fat Wreck Chords with a jam: an album recorded live in London (here’s the tile!). The disc features 18 of the finest Against Me! tunes, most of them taken from their Fat Wreck carrer and albums like “Searching For A Former Clarity” and “As The Eternal Cowboy”, with anthems like “Miami”, “From Her Lips To God’s Ears” and “Unprotected Sex With Multiple Parterns”, while they only play a couple of songs from their earlier material as “Reinventing Axl Rose”, “Pints Of Guinnes Make You Strong” and “We Laugh At Danger And Break All The Rules”. The show was really intense and you can hear it from the recording (the final mix is due to J.Robbins): there is not a moment of pause and contrary to most bands that likes to joke around between songs, Against Me! sound like they are in a hurry to destroy the crowd with their punk anthems. The disc is also accompanied by a huge booklet filled with pictures taken from that night: it was great the idea to put the faces of Against Me! right before and after the show: you can see the difference! Plus, this CD is enhanced with a live video of Problems and it comes with a new unreleased song entitled “Americans Abroad”. I don’t know about you, but I will get my hands of the double vynil as soon as it will come out.
The third full lenght album by Underoath is a revolution. After changing and developing their style over two albums, the first more experimental than the second, which was more poppy, on “Define The Great Line” Underoath changes their style. If you expected catchy anthems like “Reinventing Your Exit”, you will find screaming tunes like “You’re Ever So Inviting” and “In Regards To Myself”. The six piece has got the guts to change, because this is what the story of Underoath is all about. With dark atmospheres created through hardcore guitars and rawing vocals, the album does not live a dull moment, because every song sounds like a part of the same “opera”. If I ever had to choose the best Underoath album, the one with the more experimentation, the one where the band put the most effort, I’d say “Define The Great Line” is that album.
When I got the new Latterman CD, I thought “finally a REAL punk rock band”. It is sad to see how these days (punk)rock bands just sound so fake and unreal. But with “…We Are Still Alive”, the third album by Latterman in four years, you can catch the sweat, the live power, the energy and the fury of a punk album recorded to be played loud. This new album, made of 10 songs ( I know, not many songs but in pure punk style: live fast die young!), on which Latterman show what they can do best: pop punk melodies fused with a strong approach for punk themes. “I Decided Not To Do Them” and “If Batman Was Real, He Would Have Beaten…” are just two examples of how this four piece is able to make you feel like you were there with them playing, throwing sweat through your stereo. “This Basement Gives Me A Fucking Headache” is maybe the Latterman manifesto, with lines like “and I swear I’m gonna run into these mountains and I’m never coming back. moving on is the only option I have left” that sum the whole punk attitude this band has. Lyrically, they deal with a of personal issues that then become “political”, such as alienation, frustration, and the basic idea you feel in a place you do not belong to. “…We Are Still Alive” is a top serious punk album: true, short, pissed off and played with the heart.
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