Punk - Hear
HEAR is the enema your iTunes needs. Bringing you the most thought-provoking and up-to-date music reviews this side of Lester Bangs, HEAR sifts through the ever growing mountain of press releases and promos to only feature albums, EPs, LPs and mixes that we want to, not that we have to. Also, we try and make things make sense in 200 words or less so that you can just listen to the music.
Insurgents, 'Fad Cash'
Since starting out with some Circle Jerks and Bad Brains covers, a couple of demos and a seven inch, these Brisbane punks have been slurping on the 1.5 litre Haterade and are now hitting red on the rageometer. The result is Fad Cash – four tracks of blistering and intense hardcore.
A line from the first song 'Vermin's Tain't 'Why regain consciousness?' sounds a lot like 'so why Reagan consciousness?' It's just coincidence but their ultra-fast, ultra-pissed-off hardcore is reminiscent of much of the punk blasting from Reagan's America in the early and mid eighties.
Titus Andronicus, 'The Monitor'
Chucking on VHS tapes of The Civil War miniseries was a Year 12 History lesson back in the day, watching countless photos of dead Yankee and Confederate soldiers scored to mournful violins and rat-ta-tat drums. Titus Andronicus' album The Monitor charges out the gate with a new soundtrack to the American Civil War, trampling any armchair historian underfoot with its literary-punk-rock-thunder.
Deaf Wish, 'Reality and Visions'
Introducing a cold, hostile battering courtesy of Melbourne's Deaf Wish. This is out-there punk raised on a noise diet of Black Flag and Sonic Youth, and everything inbetween. ‘Bad Water' lures you into the swamp for a deranged punch-up before ‘Gentle Mental Illness' slows things down to a nauseating crawl; the chanted title lyric probably serves as group therapy for these sick gentlemen.
Eddy Current Supression Ring - 'Rush to Relax'
As soon as the first cut on Rush To Relax kicks in, it's unmistakeably Eddy Current Suppression Ring: manic vocals, a rhythm section busting with barely-contained urgency, and those prickly leads being wrenched out of a clamorous $200 guitar. Intelligent songwriting and a raw delivery that echoes early Australian punk.
Stroke: Songs for Chris Knox
The history of punk and DIY music is super inspiring, and songwriting is fucking tough.
These are just two reasons why Chris Knox is revered not only in his native New Zealand, but worldwide. In 1979 he formed Tall Dwarfs with Alec Bathgate, helping to pioneer a lo-fi, DIY aesthetic that combined punk's simplicity and disdain for musical virtuosity with home-recording experiments, cryptic lyrics, introspection, and the ultimate rebellion in counter-culture circles - admitting to love pop songs and hooks.
RIP Jay Reatard
"I tend to think it's that I'm out of time, I'm racing against time. A lot of it's the fear of death too. I know I'm not going to be able to make records when I'm dead. I'm not dead right now so I want to make records, it's that simple really."
If punk wasn't already dead, then it definitely is now.
Pop Crimes, Rowland S. Howard
And that is the beauty of this album. The interplay between the classic pop stylings of the songs and their darker underbelly. The danger presents itself almost as much in what is absent as in what is on display.
Howard expounds upon traditional rocknroll themes like love, religion and loss, across a series of songs that take their cue from such diverse sources as 60s girl groups to spaghetti westerns.
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