FOR SCIENCE- TOMORROW'S JUST ANOTHER DAY

This is some nice, cleanly-recorded and produced pop-punk that never gets too polished to be annoying or risking the songs losing their sense of urgency and sincerity. The band is not well known to me but according to wikipedia they shared members with The Ergs and it definitely sounds like it. Short-ish songs, lots of lead-melodies and repetitive rhythms. I dunno... If you like pop-punk then you'll dig it but if not, this probably isn't the record to change your mind.

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GUIDED BY VOICES- TIGERBOMB

This is a Guided by Voices EP from 95. Of course people who don't know it look at the track listing and think "why would I want to listen to an EP with two songs that are already on Alien Lanes?" Well, because they're re-recorded full-band versions that absolutely dwarf the originals in every way. A good Toby song at the end and there it is. Six excellent GBV songs in one handy little 7"

p.s. The link also includes the Motor Away 7"

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PEDRO THE LION- CONTROL

This is one of those albums you want to listen to when you literally can't find comfort in anything. Not to say this is a happy album, it's very much the opposite, it's just the sonic equivalent of that feeling. David Bazan (aka Pedro the Lion) is a christian and a lot of his songs, on this album especially, are lent their fair-share of emotional weight because they're about the things that tempt him to sin, the things that have made him sin and feeling like shit. Something we can all relate to. Obviously this is uncool because Bazan is an outspoken christian and the music is definitely not edgy, falling somewhere between Low and Death Cab for Cutie's first few albums... but if sad, guitary and existential singer-songwriters are your thing then hey, I'm not stopping you.

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SAXON- WHEELS OF STEEL

I'm just listening to this record for the first time... HOLY SHIT! This rules so hard! you and your lame attitude don't even know. Saxon are always counted among the more important NWOBHM bands but clearly these guys are less interested in their contemporaries and more interested in sounding like a biker-obsessed version of the Scorpions trying really hard to sound like Van Halen! So good. If I had parties, I would play this record all night.

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TEENAGE COOL KIDS- QUEER SALUTATIONS

Poppy, catchy, raw, clever, bittersweet... just a few adjectives to describe this record. This band is hard to classify exactly because they combine a lot of influences that aren't incredibly distinct from one another when combined in the way this band is capable of. Superchunk, Guided by Voices, late 70's power-pop... Those are what I hear anyway... maybe some garage rock too but I hate that shit so I pretend it's not there. The whole thing easily sounds like it could have come out of North Carolina in 1994 but instead it's Denton, Texas in 2007. Oh and obviously it has cool guitar parts. Why else would I listen to it?

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INFEST

Infest are one of my favourite bands and even before I really knew much about them or had heard more than one song, there was this mysterious pull they had. The ultra-gritty xeroxed covers, the howling singer who sounded like John Brannon with the rage-knob on eleven and the fact that a punk band was willing to play such agonizingly slow breakdowns. Once I heard Slave, I knew I'd finally found the hardcore band I had been fantasizing about! Of course this band is insanely popular and I'm sure for most punk fans it's hard to hear something like this and see it as any different from the countless other bands that played this way... but that's beside the point!

Infest did this first. Siege? Sure, they were playing this fast in 84' but not with this precision, intensity or conviction. As far as I'm concerned, Infest were the final death rattle of american hardcore. After them there is nothing truly innovative or genre defining (maybe Feel the Darkness). There are countless great hardcore bands from the 90's and beyond but game-changing, they are not. This is where hardcore terminated. Infest killed it and they did so in the most glorious way possible. I hope I haven't set the bar too high but if you've never experienced Infest, you must do so ASAP. I've included links to my favourites of their catalog.

p.s. Don't talk to me about Fucked Up because I don't care

SLAVE LP

MANKIND 7"

NO MAN'S SLAVE LP

THE EAGLES- DESPERADO

Some things take a long time and for me, one of them was the Eagles. Marred by permanent uncool status by everyone, including the most ironic hipsters, (strange considering every douchebag with a mustache and a fixie will go on about how Fleetwood Mac is supposedly amazing but mention this band and you will get scoffed) the Eagles have never been given a fair shake by the music-snob types who decide what is and isn't good these days... if you are one of the aforementioned douchebags, I do not apologize because the Eagles and the Mac sound exactly the fucking same just the Mac have Stevie Nicks and her legendary cocaine-up-the-ass tales to boost them into hipster favour... fuck I hate cool people.

Point is, this is some golden 70's rock n' roll right here. Due to all the bullshit, I basically never gave the band a chance until finally one night my friend and I were driving around at 2AM and he says "hey, I know you hate the Eagles BUT you should give this album a listen. It's a concept album about two brothers, one good, one bad and their trials and tribulations!"... Don't ask me why, but I felt compelled to just sit back, turn up the volume and listen without prejudice. Long story short, this album is great and so are the Eagles. Still too douchey to give em a chance? Fine, I'm sure there's some great new minimal-techno from France that's just begging to have its ass sniffed

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PAILHEAD- TRAIT

Cold saturday, sitting at home watching playoff football after walking to the gym with my dad only to realize it closes at four on saturday. Somehow along the way, the intro to Pailhead's "I Will Refuse" got stuck in my head, probably because I've watched Misled Youth about a million times... and musically speaking, the coldness of that song matched how my body felt while wearing shorts in three-degree weather

For those who don't know, Pailhead was a one-off collaboration between Ian Mackaye and Al Jourgensen... but do not fear, this isn't any of that "Jesus Built My Hotrod" bullshit Jourgensen is known for. This sounds more like Ministry's "Stigmata" with Ian Mackaye and a lot of reverb. Six songs and it's done so even if you hate it (which is likely) you won't feel like you could have spent your precious minutes listening to some Japanese hardcore or some shitty garage-rock.

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BURZUM- FILOSOFEM

Nothing I will say about Burzum or his music hasn't already been said. He used to be a nazi and still espouses racist ideologies through his music and writings. As a result of tensions between he and a bandmate, he stabbed said bandmate 23 times and left him to die in the stairwell of his apartment. He very likely burned down several churches in Norway in the early 90's. He is a genuinely fucked up human being and luckily for us relatively normal folk, he is one of those fucked up people that happens to enjoy creating music we can listen to from a safe distance.

This album is one of his most bleak efforts, yet it still retains some semblance of black metal (after this he went to jail and solely made music using keyboards for racist reasons... I'll let you figure that one out). I do enjoy listening to Burzum's music for it's extremity and atmosphere however, I do not condone his actions or see any logic in his beliefs. I know it's cool to listen to music made by morally depraved people (Death in June, Anal Cunt, GG Allin, etc) and Burzum definitely falls into that category but don't be just another hipster turd who pretends to be a moral nihilist that thinks racism is "soooo funny" or whatever shit will make you seem mysterious at art school this week... be someone open minded enough to listen to music made by extreme individuals for music's sake... not for fetishizing that extremity as some personal badge of intellectual superiority. this has been a poo

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D.Y.S.- BROTHERHOOD

Well fuck. It's been a long time. I've been going through some hellish personal stuff in the last month and for some reason writing about records that have already been written about more times than necessary just didn't seem all that important, but... Here I am alone at 11:44 PM, jacked on coffee, listening to DYS and looking at that little tab on my browser that reminds me I have a music blog that I haven't done anything with in a long fucking time...

so back to what's important in life! D.Y.S. were part of the militant Bawston crew of the early 80's and I'll SS your D if you don't think they sound a hell of a lot like their brethren in Jerry's Kids and yes, SSD. Maybe a tad more sloppy than those bands so they end up sounding a bit more fun while still preaching the values of the edge... bro. If you don't like hardcore bands with "youth" in their name, then you won't like this but hey, if you don't like Youth of Today then you don't like hardcore.

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