Midwest Waste- Four song demo review

Techno, digital hardcore, house, electronic…  Where one begins and another ends, I don’t really fucking know.  Enjoyable electronic music is what this demo is- a partnership of highly entertaining electronic…music.  A mix of funny, pointed commentary on modern culture and digital music expertise, this is one of my favorite pieces of local music, for both reasons.

First is a song called “Adderall Lavigne”, a dark-ish tune about the wonders of being on Adderall all night long, an experience I am all but familiar with.  It’s an anecdotal annotation of club life and being pumped on speed while the rest of the world sleeps.  The mix of different kinds of digital noise is a rather interesting, euphoric experience; main musician Mike Burridge is a master of his art, no doubt.  The next song is “OH! HOE!”, a social critique of the blatantly promiscuous and mentally disingenuous women peppered around the earth (with notable bases in California and New Jersey).  Singer/ secondary musician Lisa Jones takes a contrary stance to these aforementioned “hoes”, deriding their stupidity and vanity as the disgrace it is.  There is also some hip-hop influence, with the line “wastin’ all your flavor while I’m tastin’ snow” incorporating this influence most directly.  It’s also a definite Midwest product, using the line “stripper accidents, they happen all the time”, a reference to an urban legend known primarily to Detroiters.
After this was third song “Supermoving”, the most eclectic and strange song by the group yet.  It is an upbeat and happy tune, no doubt, but I couldn’t tell you for the life of me what it’s about.  I’m guessing it’s like a lot of the early 2000s pop rap that was on the radio- it’s just a word used only in the specific context within which it’s given by the narrator/ singer.  In other words, it’s a made-up term defined by the meaning given to it by the person who made it up.  Strange to the nth degree, but I still got down with the beat of the song; I’d be lying if I said I didn’t dig it.  Lastly was the song “Scone Party”.  I had to look up exactly what the fuck a “scone” is, and truth be told, I’m still not entirely sure.  It looks like some bagel or pastry treat from the U.K.- fucking weird.  How one has a party surrounding this food, or even tells someone “We’re goin’ to a scone party, you’re not invited” and expects disappointment from the recipient of the message befuddles me.  I wish the song had more lyrics and better expressed the meaning behind the song; however, the music is addictive, almost reminiscent of some Sega Genesis video game music (namely Streets of Rage 3, for anyone who remembers that old-ass game).  Being a fan of some old video games and the music that came from them, I really enjoyed that incorporation into the sound.

It’s the weirdest and best piece of non-punk I’ve come across in a long time.  Get your hands on this demo ASAP, and spread it to your local dance club.  Maybe some non-hipsters will begin their infestation of the clubs; we can only hope.

-Aunty Social

Hellkrusher- Doomsday Hour LP review

I didn’t know what this band was like, and I am still not quite sure how to describe them.  It is… dark, apocalyptic, angry British anarcho crossover.  There; that’s the best short description you’ll get of this band.  However, there is a lot more to it than just that.

The guitars on this album are so down-tuned that this band could be a doom metal band if they played slower; luckily for the rest of the world, they play some sincerely insane crazy crossover thrash.  For the high end of the sound, it’s really low; the guitars are very ominous-sounding.  The bass is even lower than that, and it works well, keeping the beat and accompanying the most excellent, tuned-to-be-finesse drums that side of the Atlantic.  The drummer beats the living fuck out of his drums, to a great rhythm.  The singer’s deep British voice is the essence of this album, with his anger barking, not burning.  In addition to all of this, the band has the best chorus (or at least the most relevant and direct one) I’ve heard as of late:  “Fuck you, get out of my way, you’re scum, FUCK YOU PAL!”  Nothing quite encompasses the essence of my life, my existence (and the lives of my colleagues and friends, to be sure) quite like that.  This album is worth it for just that one song; but, there’s fifteen more, lucky for us.  Go out and buy this album already, pal.

-Aunty Social

Bubblegum Octopus- The Album Formerly Known As 8-Legged Dance Moves review

Usually I strive to cover punk from Detroit and Michigan, but occasionally, other genres, different bands, and groups from other cities warrant sufficient notice from me, and deserved attention from readers; this is one such occasion.  I’ve never understood why, but along with punk, I tremendously enjoy electric music (Nintendocore, 8-bit, techno, whatever M.S.I.’s genre is called, etc.) and the work of Bubblegum Octopus is one of the highest points (no pun intended for video game lovers) for electronic music yet; though not perfect, it is definitely damn near.

I may as well clear out the potential negativity immediately; the lyrics are irreverent and bizarre to the n^th degree (which may be good or bad, depending on who you are) and the lyrics are lacking in the packaging.  Though not relevant, I still like to what the lyrics are attempting to communicate.  However, these minor shortcomings are far overshadowed by the unique blend of styles of music, with an overtone of electronic punk-y goodness.  In at least a few songs, it sounds like Koffin Kats front man Vic Victor is singing portions of the lyrics (in a few parts of the songs sung in…baritone?); strange indeed.  Otherwise, the vocals usually alternate between a false falsetto/ high-pitched style and a deep death-metal-growl style.  The pace is always changing- it goes anywhere from mid-tempo to powerviolence-beat fast.

On top of all of this, the music is highly inspirational; the factors of how and why remain a mystery to me to this day, but it matters not.  The music is undoubtedly some type of an osmosis device, influencing listeners beyond the point of just listening.  Personal anecdotes are not relevant to this review, but it is safe to say that this record has influenced me to think differently, act differently, exist differently; barring any of that, this album is the ADHD sufferer’s greatest dream.  It’s energetic, fast, continuous, the lyrics aren’t too deep, and every bit of the sound is in a state of constant flux.  Do some speed and enjoy.

-Aunty Social

Napalm Raid- Corruption of Their Little Minds 7" review

I saw these guys live in Detroit (Hamtramck, actually) and was pretty pleased; though that was almost a year ago (the show was August 13^th, 2010, the day of this writing being July 9^th, 2011), I still remember this band and how well they performed onstage.  At Mid West Hell Fest a couple of months back, I grabbed this EP and set it in my “to listen to” collection of records, CDs, tapes, and downloads that has been piling up for quite some time now.  I finally got around to listening to it the other day…

I dig the noisy crust attack sound that this band from Nova Scotia; the music is tried-and-true crust.  Down-tuned guitars, D-beat influenced hardcore drums, and bumping bass.  However, the vocals are always different with each band, this one being no exception.  Though these songs are barked, they are unusually cacophonous (even for crust), and sometimes it drives me nuts.  I almost wish they sung a little more clearly.  The band, regardless, is tight, and those six songs very clearly well-rehearsed and fester deep in the hearts and minds of the members; it seems almost trivial to criticize the vocals in that circumstance.  The clarity of the message is important, especially for anyone without the benefit of a lyric sheet, and I would hate to see the band suffer because their message isn’t being heard, because this band is crust punk, exactly as it should be.  It’s loud, it’s sometimes annoying, it’s different from the norm, it’s worth the listen.

-Aunty Social

Suppressulant- Powercore EP review

How rare is it that a fanzine such as this one (or one of this size, so to speak) gets a review project mailed to it?  It’s rather rare, but this was the first of two CDs mailed to me from just across the border.  Do the Canadians do everything better than the Americans?  Well, not everything; they did not succeed in trumping our armed forces or our bacon.  However, they have us beat for maple syrup and not pissing the rest of the world off.  Can they beat us for punk rock?  Perhaps, perhaps not.

If this EP were indicative of Canadian punk, I would relegate it to be inferior to American punk, and it would not be a close call.  No, this isn’t god-awful or dick-shrinkingly bad, but it leaves one wishing for more.  The sound is a little too lo-fi (it’s hard to hear much of anything) and the songs didn’t grab me.  I don’t know, maybe I totally missed something; I just didn’t get it, it didn’t attract my attention the way a good punk record usually does.  Vocals are very low-pitch and scruffy (which is awesome if you can hear it), guitars were low-tuned and choppy (again, not horrible), and the rhythm section kind of bumped along, keeping pace.

Overall, nothing stood out and I was left unimpressed.  Granted, this was a first EP; I hope the band steers themselves in a more positive direction, as I would like to have a good reason to cross the border more often than never.  Not indicative of castrating horror or orgasmic awesomeness, this falls into my “Meh.” pile.

-Aunty Social

Live to Kill- Humanity's Slaughter EP review

Grinding thrashy peace punk from beginning to end, this is a great improvement for the band, the guitars, drums, and vocals are much more clean, compared to their previous releases (which are The Last Thing You See Won’t Be Beautiful demo CD and the Four Track Attack cassette).  The vocals alternate between the higher-pitched screams of singer/guitarist David Sams and the guttural, lower-pitched growls of drummer/ singer Kyle Collins; while difficult to discern the lyrics, cacophony is better served here than clean singing would.  The guitars are steady, lower-tuned punk rock- good old anarcho punk, just as I remember it.  The drums show a higher degree of expansion; one can hear all of the drums, not just the bass and snare.  It’s a great change-up for Live to Kill.  On top of this, the tracks are… just good.  This EP belongs in the mid-1990s, alongside Aus-Rotten, State of Fear, Devoid of Faith, and the likes of many of those Profane Existence and Havoc Records bands.  Luckily for us, they are in Detroit, right now, grinding away just as well as they would have if they were around then.

-Aunty Social

Social Outcast- T.V. Casualties 7" review

Peace punk, or anarcho punk in the style of original hardcore and UK 82, got its start in the late 1980s are Mortarhate Records started exporting their anarchist noise to the States, introducing a foreign audience with different interpretations of music, values, and morality to their sound.  With this, the slower, doom-laden Mortarhate bands were fused with the fast-paced American hardcore bands, and thus contemporary peace punk (or at the very least, a prototype) was formed.  Nausea, Jesus Chrust, Anti-Product, A.P.P.L.E., Destroy, and Misery make up just some of these early peace punk groups.  Another such one, one that happened to come from Michigan, was a band called Social Outcast.  Though this band released material before this record was made, this is their quintessential release, and possibly their most well-known one as well.

The first track “Vivisection II” starts out with a gnarly bass intro, setting the moody tone for a song against animal experimentation.  The guitar grinds away and moves up and down as the drums pounce into rapid-fire mode, with singer Jason Outcast shouting and growling away.  The vocal duties are traded off between Jason Outcast and Roger Outcast (that’s how they were credited in another such release), the two vocalists who split the duty with one another for the extent of the band’s lifetime.  The chorus slows down the tempo as both singers chime in with a triumphant, protesting shout “Animals for clothing, animals for food, animals for research, fuck you!”  This is a very intense song all around.  The next song is “R.S.A.”, and it starts out with a riff that sounds eerily similar to the song “Astro Zombies” by the Misfits.  It works better than would any other riff for the song, however, so it’s worth overlooking.  It’s a song about drunken, rich white folks who love to fight; for a historical perspective on those who are unaware (I was too, until Jason told me a few stories):  These kinds of flag-waving, patriotic Oi-boys and their macho-man vibe were the norm in the mid to late 1980s, whereas this anarchist protest music was considered “Commie faggot shit”, as was put by Jason in an interview conducted in early 2011.  While bands like Almighty Lumberjacks of Death, the Allied, and others like them have their value and their contributions to be made, their fans leave much to be desired, both then and now.  The drunken fervor brought on by national pride and alcohol creates thoughtless, useless proles, the same ones from the pages of Orwell’s classic “1984”.  In other words, how will the world ever change when so-called punks are doubly intoxicated and unable to make a real difference?  That’s the question R.S.A. poses.

Moving to the opposite side of the wax, the title track of the EP kicks in, with Jason bellowing like Big Brother on the loudspeaker, “From the writhing pain of a disemboweled child, for you it was so comparably mild, cause it didn’t seem so real on the TV screen, when the bombs were dropped and the children screamed”.  His commanding, accusatory roar is haunting; David Petraeus, take note.  The song chugs along at a mid-tempo pace, playing in the same Oi!-influenced style that they had finished lampooning only minutes ago; perhaps a nod to irony, or maybe a stylistic choice.  This song is the finger-pointing one, as indicated by the line “From the couch it seemed like such a little scuffle, cause you didn’t have to see the bodies buried in rubble”.  This serves to point the responsibility of action to the listener, essentially saying, “No matter how small, one person can make a difference, and it’s your responsibility to do so!”  This is also the only real anti-war song of the 7”, which positively shows the diversity in topic range, further increasing my enjoyment of this album.  The 7” closes with the track “Oil Slick Dicks”, the most memorable, sing-a-long sort of track of the record.  The memory-chiming line is a dual-vocal shout that starts off and ends the song with “We, must, stop them now!”  The song is about the oil spills that the likes of ExxonMobil, Marathon, and Koch Industries are responsible for.  While a cry for help, the song, too, is a scream for action, positive action, against the tycoons who believe that money (an artificial, conceptual idea) is worth as much, if not more, than irreplaceable natural resources (water, soil, air), which are tactile and exist in our real world.

There are not too many 7” records that are better than this one; four stellar songs, all with a different, equally important point to be made, and some killer artwork and packaging that goes with it.  If it weren’t for my USB turntable, I don’t think this would leave my turntable’s side.

-Aunty Social

N.M.A.- s/t EP review

Powerviolence is one of those extraordinarily touchy things:  It can be too epic (Mind Eraser), too straight-edge (Crucial Unit), lacking a bass player (ironically, the band being reviewed here), or too elusive (XBraniax).  Though I love all of these aforementioned bands, it’s rather difficult to get past some of these shortcomings.  However, I will periodically discover a good powerviolence band, one that breaks away from these negative attributes and manages to pound (grind?) out some snappy, short sonic bursts.  This is one such band.

On an alternative note, it seems that there is a growing powerviolence and grind scene here in Michigan, and to a greater extent in the Midwest.  How the hell so much work goes into such short songs confuses me, but I shall relish it nonetheless.  Anyway, onward with the review.

N.M.A. (short for Negative Mental Attitude) is a three-piece group based out of Jackson.  Though they are somewhat new to Michigan’s punk scene, they’ve already gained a reputation (good or bad reputation, you decide).  Though this E.P. clocks in at just over six minutes, it leaves one feeling satisfied, fulfilled, and beyond.  The guitars are down-tuned as hell, and it sets the ominous tone of N.M.A.’s angry anthems; it chugs and grinds as is appropriate for the speed set by the drums, which is bass-heavy and snare-plenty, so to speak.  In fact, the bass drums are a bit too heavy, overcompensating for the lack of a bassist.  The vocal point of N.M.A. is a bulldog roar, frequently indecipherable and always powerful.  Lyrical content is only describable as pissed off; it lives up to the name N.M.A. well.

I was pretty impressed with this E.P.; the passion, lyrics, and music, it’s all there.  Given a bass player and some higher quality gear to record with, this band would absolutely be vinyl worthy.  It’s also worth mentioning that N.M.A. is a great contrarian take on the “PMA”; the positivity of a “PMA” is generally overshadowed by the laughably stereotypical nature of those who use the term.  Remember, it is a negative attitude that prompts the discovery of life’s problems; it is the positivity that solves them.

-Aunty Social

Public Sex- the How Vulgar EP review

80s hardcore never died, despite what some people will say.  It has never been as much of a popular movement as it was when it started, but still it persists, much to my delight.  There are notable resurgences in places like Toronto (Molested Youth, Hazardous Waste, Urban Blight) and Minneapolis (Triple Crossed, In Defence, Question); however, what about the hometown of the ever-worshipped Negative Approach?  Are there still enough pissed-off kids to get together and make some music that they enjoy and everyone else hates?  My confidence wavered for a while, since it seemed everyone liked a specific sub-genre and ran with it.  These kids, though, have their own little slice of 80s hardcore to offer in 2011, and it’s as raw, real, and pissed as it was understood by 15-year olds back in the day.

It was recorded in a goddamned basement, and despite the obvious rawness to the sound, it works very well for them.  It is 80s hardcore as it was fucking intended:  misanthropic, dirty, misunderstood, and more real than most music produced, then or now.  The sound has unlimited potential, as even this basement EP smokes the shit out of any wall-breaking or floor-punching hardcore.  Soon, this band (if they stay on track) will be one of the tighter, (hopefully) more prolific groups out of Detroit, despite being kids from downriver (not that there’s anything wrong with that).  The best song on the EP is “Personal Damage”, and the band does justice to the three covers they do, putting their own spin on “Ugly Bastards” and satisfactorily covering “Ready to Fight” and “Minor Threat”.  Already, a ten-song EP (yes, covers DO count), and only one live show (at least, at the moment this was written, Nov. 12^th, 2011) under their belt, this band knows and understand that there’s work involved and for Public Sex, it will surely be worth it.

-Aunty Social

Vivisect/ Black September tour show review (Scum, Perversion, Shitfucker, Black September, Vivisect) at the C.A.I.D., August 13, 2011

It’s pretty rare to come across a new venue and a relatively new bands; though I won’t invoke the classic static versus fluid existence (in this example, whether bands and venues should be changing or unchanging), but that’s what it boils down to.  Sometimes it’s the same bands at the same venues; though I love these venues and bands, they grow dull through prolonged exposure, and soon lose their charm.  So this opportunity was not one to miss; three bands I had not seen yet (granted, one was a band no one had seen yet), and two I’ve seen just once before.  It was time to open up a punk rock investigation…

First on the line-up was newcoming/ freshman band Scum, who has members of Live to Kill and Cocaine Orgy.  These guys are traditional, stereotypical, (yet) awesome D-beat straight out of Europe (Sweden, Britain, Japan, they’re all better at D-beat than the U.S. is), at least sound-wise.  Half of their set were covers, half originals, all done with the angry energy D-beat requires.  To top it off, the band is new, and NOT played out enough to get boring.  I hope they never get boring, because if this set is anything like the future for them, I’m looking forward to seeing a resurgence of anarcho, crust, D-beat, and DIY punk rock return to Detroit, both in touring bands and hometown ones.

Second was local blackened thrash-tards Perversion.  Once a four-piece that had disbanded a couple of years ago, they returned as a three-piece only recently (within the last year or so).  Sounding like a mix of early Venom and early Sodom, with a shit-ton of reverb, the band is pretty tight musically; it’s a headbanger’s heaven for those who enjoy the double bass drums with echoing vocals and ricocheting riffs.  Though the band doesn’t play out often, members are often seen at local shows, and the band has begun (in the last few months) to incur some hype; suffice it to say that all hype is well-deserved.  Perversion is a blackened thundering cloud ready to unleash a fierce windstorm, and now is sudden drop in temperature before a storm is unleashed on the unsuspecting world.

Next was local metal-punk group Shitfucker, who have released a fresh 7” on Black Shit Noise called “Sex Maniac”.  With nods to black metal, old-school D-beat, and Japanese hardcore (G.I.S.M. being a strong, apparent influence), Shitfucker is a strange, yet highly enjoyable and euphonious group.  Singer/ bassist Dik-Beat mixes European D-beat and black metal, and adds reverb to his vocals, uttering the occasional grunt and the ever-favorable false falsetto.  To sum it up in short terms, the band is very bass-heavy, opting to use Tim Shagrat’s guitar sounds for background fuzz as the thumping bass guitar and rolling bass drums take center stage.  Oddly enough, this band has a very dedicated out-of-area fanbase; though still a major player in the Detroit crust and punk scene, the higher numbers of their fans and the strength of their fanbase is undoubtedly outside of Michigan.  Very entertaining, somewhat sloppy, and approved by me.

Next on the bill was Black September, a group of Chicago crusty black metal-heads.  They took after Shitfucker’s sound, in a way, as their sound was incredibly cranked on the low end, on every cylinder.  The female vocals, the guitars, the (probably single-bass) drums, and the bass guitar, all were cranked on the low end of the heavy metal spectrum, like most black metal.  However, much has been done to separate the band from most of the black metal “scene”; though the songs are very epic, the sound very dark, and the band very blackened (in terms of dress, they are not dissimilar from metal-punk crusties minus the studs), something is just different about them, and it makes the band work.  Most notable about the band that clicks is the female vocals that are not too much higher than standard male vocals; there’s a sense of pissed-off-edness only able to emanate from a female with something to say, and that is definitely a positive trend-setting action for both crust and black metal.

Closing a show at 2:15 am (holy shit, work in the morning, Batman!) was Texas anarcho (not peace) punk group Vivisect, whom I had inadvertently met three months earlier at Midwest Hell Fest as attendees.  The heavily…heavy British-style anarcho punk kicked into gear, and the first four songs were definitely ragers; their anthem “We’re Keeping Our Teeth” is the ultimate mission statement, one that goes in the right direction for anarcho punk as a whole.  “This ain’t peace punk, we mean war!”, uttered in the guttural vocals styles of the bassist and drummer (who switch off lead vocals), is the ultimate fuck you- a declaration that something needs to change in the way that we try to bring change.  It’s got both middle fingers firmly pointed at the conventional normality within punk AND within the normal society with which most are accustomed.  In any case, after four songs, I noticed it was 2:30 am, and having to arise at 9:30 to be a worker be once again, I high-tailed my lethargic ass out the door, not far behind those in the more adult world of punk rock.  Still, the band was fucking sweet just for those four songs; I’d like to see more shows like this pass through Detroit, since we clearly have the space to host them.  Profane Existence bands, heed this call:  come to Detroit, the land of wasteland anarchy!

-Aunty Social

My photoblog

A good amount of the pictures I have taken at local shows is here.  For anyone interested, click the link.  Photos are my property and may not be used without the expressed consent of the photographer (me), blah blah blah just ask if you want to use the photo, and credit me if and when you do.