[ aquarius records — Rock Pop Punk Hardcore ]

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Elsewhere on this list you'll find our two favorite Nomeansno records, Wrong and The Day Everything Became Isolated And Destroyed, both Records Of The Week, as they were destined to be, considering lots of us here consider those to be ALL time favorites, which makes it even weirder that some of those very same people had never even HEARD of Mama, also newly reissued. Mama turns out to be the very first recordings from the brothers Wright, before they added a guitar player, total proggy mathy poppy rhythm section genius, even back then, in 1982! If you think Nomeansno sound weird by early nineties punk rock standards, imagine a band like that in Canada in the early eighties, playing local clubs or bars, people must have been very very confused. Cuz even in these early recordings, the band is pretty much fully formed, pulsing sinewy basslines, mathy complex drumming, and the same sort of strange sung spoken vocals, the same snarky vocals, but back then there was also a bunch of keyboards, which added another strange vibe to their sound. And the funk element was way more in play, a few tracks are definitely flat out funky, but even then, the band twist it all up into something unique, although nothing here is really punk rock exactly. It's a cool glimpse into the sounds and songs that would eventually get transformed into the post punk math prog juggernaut that NMN would eventually become. We weren't sure what to think at first, but the more we listen to this, the more we're digging it. Tripped out, stripped down, sort of new wave. At least one of the tracks does get pretty fierce, and sounds like it could maybe be a demo for a track from the first record, "No Rest For The Wicked", fast and furious, buzzy, a little bit heavy, the bass already a force to be reckoned with, but then the track after sounds like some twisted cruise ship lounge band whatthefuck. Definitely confusing, but that's part of their charm. The four bonus tracks are from a 7" that preceded the release of Mama, and feature guitar finally, as well as sax on one song, and an early version of "Forget Your Life" which would later show up in a different version on The Day Everything Became Nothing, but this is the raw, original lo-fi version, and again, it sounds surprisingly true to the final version, except for some wonky keyboards, that we almost wish they had included in the new version. Cool stuff for sure, but definitely only for fans, mere dabblers should first pick up Wrong and The Day Everything Became Isolated And Destroyed, but trust us, you shan't remain dabblers for long.

MPEG stream: Living Is Free
MPEG stream: Rich Guns
MPEG stream: My Roommate Is Turning Into A Monster
MPEG stream: No Sex

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SORRY. Definitely the days of 'Wrong' or 'The Day Everything Became Nothing' are long past, but the Brothers Wright and co. can still pummel any of today's sorry excuses for punk into submission and admiration. Still maintaining the awesomely thunderous bass presence and sharp wit they're known and respected for. All hail the raging greatness of NoMeansNo. This is album #12. Still going strong and showing no signs of stopping. Includes covers of songs by the Ramones (heavy and sludge-y) and Miles Davis (long and strange).

When reviewing a record you've had and treasured and loved for years, or decades, the pressure to do it justice is immense, so much so, that it seems almost impossible. But once in a while you gotta try. So here we go. Two of the MOST essential punk rock / post punk records ever, recently remastered and reissued, which gives us the opportunity to not only gush about records that have been on constant rotation since we were in our early twenties, records that totally changed the way we listened to music, but to also hopefully turn on the few folks who may have missed out, or who may not have even been alive when these records came out. Nomeansno, from Canada, most folks know the name, but not everyone has actually heard these guys, but almost every single person we know who has, was never the same. The sound is super rhythmic and mathy, punk rock, but totally proggy as well, the focal point is on the bass and drums, manned by two brothers, Rob and John Wright, one of, if not THEE, tightest rhythm sections ever, the bass lines thick and throbbing and distorted, the drums chaotic but so tight and precise, the guitar, handled by a member who always remained unnamed - "Someone (but we're not sure who)" credited with "other things" on one record, or "none of your fucking business" on another - which is ironic cuz the guitar playing besides being BAD ASS was also so integral to the sound, they were a punk rock band after all. And the vocals, super high in the mix, dramatic, howled, crooned and yelped, melodic but raw and rough, sometimes sort of spoken, but always sharp tongued, spewing some of the best and funniest and intense lyrics. And as always, none of that would mean shit if the songs weren't great, and these songs are GREAT, so hooky and heavy and weird, a testament to these guys is that even the most obtuse tangled whatthefuck jam will stay lodged in your head forever. Then there's the funky aspect, which we had planned to discuss at length, but listening to this again, the funkiness is implied, subtle, based entirely on the fact that almost all the songs are bass driven, and some are weirdly stripped down to just bass and drums and vocals, but this is not bullshit funky, this is elements of funk used the way they were meant to be, mixed into a churning, super complex, angular, jagged set of songs that manage to be both heavy and crushing and confusionally complex while still being poppy and hook filled and so goddamn catchy. We tried to pick just one of these reissues to focus on, but eventually could only get it down to two, so both seemed like ideal candidates for Record Of The Week, especially considering that at least half of the folks here freaked the fuck out when we got these back in. We'll talk about each separately, but we have to suggest just buying both, you won't regret it, they're equally classic and timeless and heavy and catchy and far out and freaking awesome! The Day Everything Became Isolated And Destroyed is a compilation of sorts, collecting the album Small Parts Isolated And Destroyed from 1988 and The Day Everything Became Nothing 12" from that same year, but for most of us, these two have always been bundled together so The Day Everything Became Isolated And Destroyed plays like one long, surprisingly cohesive record. And right out of the gate it's a killer, with the manic bass heavy groove of "The Day Everything Became Nothing", with crunchy guitar and over the top vocals, and a dense super tangled arrangement, and seconds after hearing it for the first time, we knew these guys were gonna be our new favorite band, and other punk rock bands were gonna have to step it up a notch. We could seriously go track by track, it's been long enough now that every single track here is seared into our brains, the kind of record where even the spaces between songs are part of the flow of the album, but we can definitely pick out a few highlights. "Dark Ages" might just be one of our favorite songs ever, from its super mathy freaked out intro, to the loping hooky bass groove, the minimal guitar flourishes, the killer chorus, the super weird drum part, it's like some insane progged out punk rock opera crammed down into 5 minutes, just listen to the sound sample, if you're not smitten after this one, we might just have to give up on you! "And That's Sad" is a looping super complex rhythmic workout, with some cool, moody minor key breaks, that all gradually build right back up to the frenetic freakout that opened the track. If you slowed down "Small Parts Isolated And Destroyed", it would probably sound like Harvey Milk, a super spare, sludge-y stop start work out, that sounds like no other band at the time, or hell even now. "Victory" is a brooding drift of low slung bass, and muted tribal drumming, but as with all NMN, these long passages are separated by unbearably catchy choruses and here too, some tangled mathiness, that never seems showy or flashy or unreasonably complex, it's how these songs needed to sound, every part, no matter how weird or superfluous seeming, is perfectly places, and a few listens in no one could disagree. "Teresa, Give Me That Knife" is about as punk as these guys get, furious, frenetic, blasting drums, frantic guitars, with an insanely technical chorus, and a haunting creeped out prechorus, that is just as catchy as any other part of the track. And then there's "Real Love", most folks' favorite, a weird sort of heavy punk rock doom ballad, big crunchy guitars, long sprawling breakdowns, some crushing drumming, the chorus a lumbering almost waltz, with dramatic howled vox, which switch to a spoken croon in the 'verses', finishing off with a massive blown out super heavy sprawling outro, and again, the song, as unlikely as it maybe sounds on the surface, or with a glancing listen, is impossibly catchy, and somehow having heard it maybe hundreds of times, we're still not anywhere close to being sick of it. Easily an all time, lifetime, desert island top 10 favorite for sure. And thus, just about as recommended as a record can be!

MPEG stream: Dark Ages
MPEG stream: Dead Souls
MPEG stream: Forget Your Life
MPEG stream: Teresa, Give Me That Knife
MPEG stream: Small Parts Isolated And Destroyed

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

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When reviewing a record you've had and treasured and loved for years, or decades, the pressure to do it justice is immense, so much so, that it seems almost impossible. But once in a while you gotta try. So here we go. Two of the MOST essential punk rock / post punk records ever, recently remastered and reissued, which gives us the opportunity to not only gush about records that have been on constant rotation since we were in our early twenties, records that totally changed the way we listened to music, but to also hopefully turn on the few folks who may have missed out, or who may not have even been alive when these records came out. Nomeansno, from Canada, most folks know the name, but not everyone has actually heard these guys, but almost every single person we know who has, was never the same. The sound is super rhythmic and mathy, punk rock, but totally proggy as well, the focal point is on the bass and drums, manned by two brothers, Rob and John Wright, one of, if not THEE, tightest rhythm sections ever, the bass lines thick and throbbing and distorted, the drums chaotic but so tight and precise, the guitar, handled by a member who always remained unnamed - "Someone (but we're not sure who)" credited with "other things" on one record, or "none of your fucking business" on another - which is ironic cuz the guitar playing besides being BAD ASS was also so integral to the sound, they were a punk rock band after all. And the vocals, super high in the mix, dramatic, howled, crooned and yelped, melodic but raw and rough, sometimes sort of spoken, but always sharp tongued, spewing some of the best and funniest and intense lyrics. And as always, none of that would mean shit if the songs weren't great, and these songs are GREAT, so hooky and heavy and weird, a testament to these guys is that even the most obtuse tangled whatthefuck jam will stay lodged in your head forever. Then there's the funky aspect, which we had planned to discuss at length, but listening to this again, the funkiness is implied, subtle, based entirely on the fact that almost all the songs are bass driven, and some are weirdly stripped down to just bass and drums and vocals, but this is not bullshit funky, this is elements of funk used the way they were meant to be, mixed into a churning, super complex, angular, jagged set of songs that manage to be both heavy and crushing and confusionally complex while still being poppy and hook filled and so goddamn catchy. We tried to pick just one of these reissues to focus on, but eventually could only get it down to two, so both seemed like ideal candidates for Record Of The Week, especially considering that at least half of the folks here freaked the fuck out when we got these back in. We'll talk about each separately, but we have to suggest just buying both, you won't regret it, they're equally classic and timeless and heavy and catchy and far out and freaking awesome! Wrong, from 1989, was the follow up to the life changing Small Parts album and The Day Everything 12" from the year before, and guess what, it too was life changing, managing to take the sounds and songs from the records before and make them heavier, more complex, more intense. The opener "It's Catching Up" is just so heavy and intense and brutal, the bass about as thick and distorted as it can get and still nail the flurry of rapid fire notes, the drums are devastating, not sure why this guy wasn't a drum god to all the aspiring drummers out there (although he was to Andee, who did get his autograph way back in the day), the guitars sharp and jagged, all wrapped around an insanely catchy hook, and somehow they manage to make it sound punk as fuck at the same time. "The Tower" might be our favorite here (amongst a record full of favorites), with its dirgey Black Flag vibe, more impossibly thick and distorted bass, and a weird staccato chorus, with one of the strangest and most anguished vocal parts ever, but so hooky, which leads right into a killer tangle of head spinning mathiness. Another favorite (like we said, they ALL rule), is "Rags And Bones", with easily one of the best bass lines ever, and some tangled complex drumming to go with it, some bizarre lyrics and a total pure pop chorus, of course doused in distortion and punked up a bit. "Brainless Wonder" is impossibly dense and heavy, like a skipping Black Flag record, before it slips into something a bit more groovy. "Two Lips, Two Lungs And One Tongue" is a short sharp blast of weird vocal / instrumental tangle, with the band locked into the repeated titular phrase. And then there's "All Lies" which is sort of the "Real Love" of Wrong, an epic punk rock prog rock sort-of-ballad, long sprawling moody breakdowns set between dense tribal math rock workouts, moving and emotional and dramatic, all building slowly to a killer super catchy stop start chorus. Phew, we're just about gushed out. If you can't tell, we love this record A LOT, and The Day Everything Became Isolated And Destroyed, both are easily all time favorites, desert island discs for you list making nerds, essential listening for anyone into punk rock, post punk, pop punk, heaviness, hookiness, great music... as we were listening to this again, Allan asked me why bands weren't good anymore, and I couldn't really think of an answer. Absolutely and totally and utterly recommended. This remastered reissued has two bonus tracks from a 7" released by Mr Wrong, aka NMN bassist Rob Wright, which sound a whole lot like the record proper!

MPEG stream: It's Catching Up
MPEG stream: The Tower
MPEG stream: All Lies
MPEG stream: Rags And Bones
MPEG stream: Two Lips, Two Lungs And One Tongue

This is easily one of the best new metal-core bands we've heard. We had a split cd of theirs a while back, but three songs wasn't nearly enough to realise what these guys were truly capable of. Certainly worthy heirs to the Coalesce/Converge/Deadguy throne. Super heavy and well produced. They actually kind of sound like a heavy metal Jesus Lizard. Distorted bass with lots of

RealAudio clip: My Bloody Clownsuit
RealAudio clip: Wave Goodbye

Thank you, Thurston! This cd of material by an obscure late '70s no-wave instrumental punk ouftit from Philly called the Notekillers comes to us via Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label, and it was Thurston's enthusiasm for the lone 1978 7" single by the band, specifically its A-side, "The Zipper", that eventually resulted in this compact disc release, and now that we've heard it too we can understand why he's such a fan! You'll find the "The Zipper" and its B-side "Clock Wise" and 13 more unreleased tracks from the band's reel-to-reel and cassette archives here, two of 'em studio tracks intended for their aborted second 7" release and the rest live/rehearsal/demo material. All of them have an aggro, alienated, avant-punk energy that reminds us of elements of a host of different bands from Pavement to Polvo to Stinking Lizaveta to Simply Saucer... The Notekillers were definitely forging their own sonic path and it's cool that finally the world gets to hear some of what they put down on tape. The liner notes from guitarist David First/Hirsch talk about how the band was all about pushing the limits -- *their* limits anyways -- and as difficult as that may have been for them back then, that struggle is what kept a bunch of musical weirdos in a Philadelphia basement going. Yet "only if we failed would we succeed" he thought. Well, now they've sort of done both and I hope they feel good about it, 'cause they should. This Notekillers record is one of those lost, buried "historical" releases that has been disinterred with a still-beating heart.

MPEG stream: The Zipper
MPEG stream: Ricochet

We Are Nots is the super-fucking catchy debut for this synth-punk quartet from Memphis. The Nots could be the kid sisters of Jay Reatard's Lost Sounds, cranking out similar tension of sci-fi campiness, black lipstick frowns, and full-throttle punk propulsion. Originally, Nots were a two-piece comprised of Natalie Hoffmann (guitars / vocals) and Charlotte Watson (drums), with the former yelping out epithets in lockstep staccato with the non-stop THUMP-THUMP-THAP from Watson. Bass, synths, and the occasional backing vocal were brought in to wisely color the primitive songs with radioactive neon and black leather grime. The opening cut "Insect Eyes" girds on a B-movie synth-line diving back to the Damned's Black Album for inspiration, with an air-raid siren of a guitar lead that bends neatly around the anthemic barking from Hoffmann. Her voice is so classically punk in its untrained sneer, rhythmic delivery, and upturned scratchiness of every final syllable on the lyrics - which taken to the extreme would become the emphatic slurs from Mark E. Smith or the sandpaper abrasiveness of Poly Styrene. Hoffmann may not yet have the charisma and magnanimity of those two punk iconoclasts; but she more than makes up for it with smash 'n' grab enthusiasm and urgency. Eleven tracks the rip through their monotone riffs with scabbed knees, bruised elbows, and sugar-high mania, coming to screeching halt some 25 minutes after blasting out of the gates. A great introduction to a band for which we've got high hopes!

MPEG stream: Insect Eyes
MPEG stream: Strange Rage
MPEG stream: White Noise

Second Load release from this dark and weird instrumental band from Norway featuring our pal Kjetil Brandsdal, whom the more 'experimental' among you might know as a solo drone musician. But playing bass and baritone guitar in Noxagt he makes a much more *rock* racket. Actually Noxagt are hard to pin down, surely fitting in among the other Load label misfits while doing something unlike anyone else. That's because their sound has evolved from the short sharp 'Nor Wave' punk fuckery of their earlier releases into something...folky. But very heavy. The instrumentation is key. Along with Kjetil's bass, and the drumming of Jan Kyvik, what stands out is the viola (and violin and piano) played by Nils Erga. The Iron Point is an album his of cyclic string drones wedded to crunching, spronging bass and sometimes almost black metallish blasting drums. With sudden prog-rock changes, punk/metal urgency, and the aforementioned folkish melody...all instrumental except for the vocals of guest Hagbard Heien on traditional tune "Kling No Klokka" which is a fine surprise. Speaking of surprises, the disc concludes with Noxagt covering "Regions of May" by Tom Rapp of Pearls Before Swine! Gentle yet bomastic, it's lighter than what's come before yet totally fits in on an album that overall we think is Noxagt's best yet, wherein they've really developed into something more melodic, more 'folky' yet even heavier and more focussed than before. And, continuing a tradition begun on their last album, there's smart ass liner notes courtesy of noted British smart ass Stefan Jaworzyn (ex-Skullflower). Also, again production by noted producer Billy Anderson, who knows as much as anyone about heaviness. (Nice cover/design by the way -- you can tell Kjetil is a big record collector.)

MPEG stream: Acasta Gneiss
MPEG stream: Svartevatn

The return of our favorite faerical blasting punk rockers, France's new wave black crust dynamic duo Nuit Noire. We went nuts for this band the first time we heard them, expecting some sort of grim black buzz, seeing as they were signed to a black metal label, were distributed by black metal distros, etc., but instead we had our blocks knocked totally off, by their furious short sharp bursts of super tweaked angular riffing, flurries of chaotic drumming, and some of the most tweaked damaged whiny yelpingly brilliant vocals ever! All tangled up into a confusional blackened aggro metallic pop, part punk rock, part grim buzz, part no wave, part new wave. In the past we described Nuit Noire as sounding like a black metal Rudimentary Peni, but we're also hearing plenty of Christian Death, Joy Division, Crass and weirdly enough, on this new one more than ever, the Toy Dolls, mostly due to vocalist Tenebras' voice which is a dead ringer for the Toy Dolls' Olga. This new disc is half new tracks, half older classics recorded live. All of em fantastic of course. The new tracks are even shorter and poppier and more fucked up than before. Take the second track "I Am A Fairy", a crusty gloomy jam, with a killer main riff, streaks of high end new wave squiggle, and the vocals, just repeating the title over and over and over, super fast, then drawn out and crooned, while the music beneath shifts from hooky and poppy to blasting and buzzing. Or how about "I Love You", another furious eighties crust punk jam, but with some black buzz spread over the top, and a totally strange, but incredibly catchy vocal line, sung sort of like "I love yooooooooooooo, I love yooooooooooooou". The rest of the tracks range from loping eighties grooves to washed out dreamy murk to chaotic old school punk rock to full on lo-fi grim black metal, usually all in the same song. It's really hard to describe the sound, we're pretty surprised this stuff appeals to black metallers at all, there is some buzz and some serious riffing, but it's way more punk, and way more new wave, and the vocals are so strange and high and hysterical and freaked out and over the top, they sort of define Nuit Noire's sound, and are definitely the element that will make it or break it for you. The live tracks are awesome. And if we didn't know it would have been hard pressed to even realize they were live. Almost the exact sound quality (maybe they're just live in the studio, but then why re-record old songs?) heavy and buzzy and furious and catchy as fuck. Even a wicked version of their "Faeries Of Paper" a song we proclaimed to be one of "the best songs EVER" with one of the greatest catchiest weirdest riffs we've ever heard. A few of the other live tracks we hadn't heard before and are just as good, if not even better than the songs we already loved. Need more reasons to love these guys? Howabout the cool pencil drawings of the band members, one depicted as a huge monster-armed drumming demon, head cloaked in shadow, the other a faerie, in tunic and cape, big eyes and pointed ears, mic cable wrapped around a broadsword stuck in the ground. Or howabout the photo on the back of the cd, a very skinny, nearly naked band member, clad in a loin cloth and a cape, holding a guitar aloft in one hand, a sword in the other, cape spread out like the wings of a bat. C'mon!!! How much more perfect can a band be? So goddamn recommended.

MPEG stream: Les Fees Volent Dans La Nuit
MPEG stream: I Am A Fairy
MPEG stream: Fantomatic Plentitude
MPEG stream: Nuit Blanche

We love this band so much. We were never able to get enough of their last record to list, but now that the new one is here, it's time to finally share our crazy love of this band with the loyal AQ faithful. Ostensibly a black metal band, but sonically anything but. Imagine a super lo-fi, sort of new wave, gothy crusty punk rock band but with buzzing insectoid riffing and occasional furious blast beats. Sort of like a black metal Rudimentary Peni, with a vocalist who sounds a bit like a cross between Roz Williams of Christian Death and Mark E. Smith from the Fall. Whiney and snotty, super dramatic and over the top, even at their most buzzing and black, the vocals kick in and the band is transformed back into some crusty black new wave weirdness. And the guitar parts are super weird, strange harmonies, a little new wave, but a little NO wave as well. But the band themselves don't consider their music to be black metal anyway. A quick look at their website reveals the fact that they consider themselves "faerical blasting punk!" Just check out the note from the band on their website: "Nuit Noire is the only faerical blasting punk band in the world. The music comes directly from the depths of the night, where the fairies stay hidden from the humans. We love them and they love us." Woah. Just one more reason to love these guys. Weird angular guitars, fucked up arrangements, damaged new wave riffing, some black blasts, a demonic shriek here and there, all that and faeries too!!

MPEG stream: Creatures Of The Night
MPEG stream: Are You Ready For The Night?
MPEG stream: Turn On Your Light
MPEG stream: Enfant Spectre

The return of our favorite masters of faerical blasting punk! Who else could it be but Nuit Noire? We just raved about their most recent disc, the brilliantly titled Fantomatic Plentitude, and were already hankering for more when what should show up, but MORE! This split 7" matches up Nuit Noire with Italian noisy new wavers His Electro Blue Voice, who end up being a perfect match for the Nuit Noire. What can we say about Nuit Noire that we haven't said before. A blackened buzz wrapped around spiky crusty new wave-d punk rock. A blackened Rudimentary Peni. The guitars kinetic and buzzy, the drums rapid fire and frenetic, the vocals a wild caterwaul. These two new tracks are awesome. Crusty and catchy, lo-fi and super rocking. The opener is mostly instrumental, an epic extended intro, leading up to what could very well be the NN theme song: "Faerie Punk", ultra catchy and with some of the best lyrics EVER: Stardust all around the drums Stardust all around the guitar Stardust blown away from the high speakers Stardust everywhere on stage Faerie punk in the moonlight Faerie punk in the starlight Faerie punk far in the night Faerie punk on stage tonight Hell yeah! The lyrics just reaffirm what the music is already saying. Wild forest faerie freaked out black new wave crusty punk pop madness. So who could possible share a split with these guys? His Electro Blue Voice are up to the challenge, and are a pretty good match, their moody bass heavy new wave post punk, perfectly balancing NN's high end howl. Their sound is very 45 Grave, like some band you might have seen play the Scream in LA in 1985. Murky Joy Division riffing, wrapped around lugubrious Cure rhythms, the vocals a throaty gothy croon, the first track playing out lie a more metal Smiths, the second, some sort of dark doleful surf rock, with a Dick Dale riff stretched across and expanse of moody melancholia.

Usually when the description of a band is too good to be true, it actually is. We can't even count the times we've gotten descriptions of bands to check out that read like "Nirvana, with John Bonham behind the kit, playing ELP style prog epics, but in the style of Sabbath, all remixed by the Caretaker", okay, that actually does sound amazing, but our point exactly, that's not even remotely possible, and if it is, we promise to listen to nothing else forever! But in most cases, that hyperbolic and entirely inaccurate description ends up being essentially worthless, as not a single part of the description, applies to any element of the music. So when this long lost slab of classic California post punk was described to us as Chrome's Half Machine Lip Moves meets Brian Eno's Here Come The Warm Jets, we were most definitely suspicious, and skeptical. And when we threw it on, we were even more confused, the record opening with a track called "Bach Variations", which is in fact Bach, but played in the midst of a wild thunderstorm, pelted with crashes of thunder, wreathed in the sound of rainfall, lots of tape hiss and sonic detritus, it's weird and not a little bit Caretaker-y, and then "Japanese Forest" comes in, and while we're no less confused, we're into this big time. No surprise that this had been making the blog rounds for ages. Apparently this was Null & Void's third record, and was rejected at the time for being too weird, which is tragic, cuz it's so good, but they were right, it IS weird, seriously warped and gloriously fucked up. "Japanese Forest", adds a distinctly Asian melody, to moaning slo-mo synth throbs, and a laconic laid back vocal, the result is haunting and beautiful and darkly poppy. But then as soon as "When I Fell Down" started up, that whole Chrome/Eno thing didn't seem so far fetched, we'd maybe throw in some Bowie as well. Glammy and swaggery, fractured and lo-fi, total warts and all recording, streaks of feedback, sudden stop/starts, all adding a distinctive whatthefuck factor to the proceedings. "Einstein's Theory Of Relativity, No. 2" is another creepy industrial sci-fi glam ballad, that has a total Eno / Chrome / Bowie vibe, and is laced with awesomely weird bursts of white noise static, disrupting an otherwise sweet slab of garage glam swagger, which then slows down into a woozy washed out psychedelic echo drenched dirge, before big booming drums start things up again. Check out "Our New Life", which might be the 'hit' here, way better produced, and with a killer pounding new wave / punk rock vibe, with swirling synths and fuzzed out bass, the song splintering into a weird sing-songy sort-of-chorus part way through, the buzzing synths mirroring the vox, before the whole thing explodes into a serious chunk of blown out Warm Jets style blissout, before a final bit of drum driven glam rock croon. So twisted, and so fucking great! And it never lets up, the rest of the record flitting from classic glammy weirdo pop, to groovy, almost funky grooviness, to almost Suicide like drone-pop, to free form synth freakouts, to violin flecked classic rock super jams, rife with progged out organs, tangled psych guitars, and shredding leads, before finishing off with the three part songsuite "A Dream Wah!", which begins as a piano ballad, before splintering into some sort of avant glam-psych breakdown, before shifting into a garage rock shuffle, all soft focus jam band groove, which quickly devolves into a dark sprawl of ominous crooning, only to blossom into one more glamrock stomp, before fading into a weird collaged outro, sort of bookending the rainstorm outro, all tape hiss, and found sounds, murky melodies, and mysterious voices, disappearing into the background of hiss and hum. Reissue of the year hands down!!! Absolutely essential and totally recommended!!!

MPEG stream: Bach Variations
MPEG stream: Japanese Forest
MPEG stream: Einstein's Theory Of Relativity, No. 2
MPEG stream: The Motorcycle Song
MPEG stream: The Philosophy Song

We know, we know, it's too much to hope for, and it's never gonna happen, but somehow we just can't seem to stop thinking about it, and we're sure these guys are sick of hearing it too, and will no doubt be annoyed that it gets mentioned in ANOTHER review, but heck, that's what happens when your frontman fronted one of the greatest post punk bands of all time! And yeah, we're talking about a Drive Like Jehu reunion, and yeah, we called them post punk, cuz what else do you call a band like that, a band that is essentially sounds like no one else. But whatever, we're wiping it from our minds. Then though, there's Hot Snakes to contend with Rick From Jehu's post-Jehu and pre-Obits combo, who were nothing like Jehu, but instead were a raw, sloppy, garage-y ball of super rocking fire. Which brings us to the Obits, who on first listen do in fact sound quite a bit like the Hot Snakes, due in no small part to the fact that it's Rick Froberg (or as Rick From Jehu as he's still know to many) singing and playing guitar, but this is altogether something new, a bit more refined and perhaps, a little like an older wiser Hot Snakes maybe, where the Hot Snakes were all pent up aggression, and wild thrashing garage stomp, the Obits traffic in something much more measured, but no less rocking. Still garage-y and super stomping, but tighter, more varied. Froberg sings as much as he howls and wails, the guitars here don't just crash and clang, they shimmer and twang, there's definitely a surf element, the drums crisp and tight, the guitars spidery and crystalline more than crunchy and heavy. These guys played at our SXSW showcase and were awesome, so kick ass and energetic, and so so tight, taking that garage rock thing they have down pat and adding in all sorts of unlikely -other- stuff, some Beefheart bits, plenty of Mudhoney rawk swagger, but all filtered through the Obits unique take on rock and roll, and that's basically what this is, rock and roll, not punk rock, not post punk, not post rock. Just rock, or okay, maybe RAWK. Needless to say, if you're a fan of any of Froberg's bands, especially Hot Snakes, this will definitely hit the spot. But even if you don't know what the hell we're talking about, Jehu this, Hot Snakes that, as long as you're into bad ass rock and roll, groovy garage, indie jangle, or any combination thereof, you should definitely check these guys out. Cool packaging too (Froberg's an incredible artist as well btw!), all vintage and old comic book looking, the cd is in a cool Japanese style mini gatefold jacket with an equally cool (sort of creepy) printed inner sleeve, the lp similarly housed...

MPEG stream: Widow Of My Dreams
MPEG stream: Pine On
MPEG stream: Fake Kinkade

It's really kinda hard to know what to say about Obits, when we first HEARD ABOUT the band, we were basically already primed to be blown away, c'mon, this was the new band fronted by Rick Froberg, he of late great math rock/post punk masters Drive Like Jehu, not to mention the mighty and mighty missed Hot Snakes. Froberg's guitar playing and super distinctive wail (rivaled only perhaps by his labelmate Mark Arm of Mudhoney) are indie rock underground treasures, and wherever they end up, you can bet, we'll be there front and center, digging the sounds. And we are digging this new Obits big time, it's not a huge departure from their Sub Pop debut I Blame You, which already was a bit of a shift from the looser, more rocking Snakes... Obits offered up the same sort of garagey rock, but maybe it's that the band was no longer youngsters, in fact most were married with kids and thus, the sound was way more mature, in a good way, the songwriting concise and tightly wound, and if anything, they continue to shift in that direction on Moody, Standard And Poor, the sound still low slung and swaggery, stomping and propulsive, but even more broody and dark, the sound much more stripped down, a serious Wipers vibe to these ears, that same sort of classic songsmithery, wreathed in more modern post Stoogesy stomp. And the songs here are fantastic, they suit a more minimal approach, it's like a modern punk rock take on classic rock, harkening back to a time when bands were as concerned with songs as they were with songs, and thus, these are the kind of songs that will remain lodged in your head. The sort of record, that sounds pretty great on first listen, but by listen 10, and then 20, and beyond, well, then it gets harder and harder to imagine listening to anything else. Easily one of our new favorite records. So good. (PS comes out Tuesday, so you won't find it in the store 'til then, but you can certainly order it now.)

MPEG stream: You Gotta Lose
MPEG stream: I Want Results
MPEG stream: I Blame Myself

At this point it seems like weirdo psychedelic noise rockers and aQ faves the Puffy Areolas must be done for, cuz PA drummer Lamont Thomas, aka Obnox, can't seem to stop releasing records, it seems like one every couple months, and not just that, but every single one of those records RULE. Not to take anything away from drummers, but holy shit, who knew what this guy had up his sleeve when he was back there bashing away. Now we all know, a dizzying barrage of soulful garage noise and hip hop flecked psych rock, a clutch of wicked songs, and some seriously and deliriously wacked out covers. And while we often reach a saturation point with some bands, we're not even close with Obnox. Boogalou Reed explodes right out of the gate with some blown out organ drenched groovery, that sounds like some weird alien proto metal, Deep Purple via Castle Face or something. And it just never lets up, the songs doused in distortion, the recording super hot, but the vocals surprisingly melodic, in fact, the awesomely titled "Cynthia Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" sounds a little like Purling Hiss mixed with Malachai, which makes no sense, but somehow it DOES. In fact a lot of Boogalou Reed reminds us of the weird retro psych of Malachai, albeit delivered via face melting amplification, and rickety drum kit, captured on a busted 4 track, and blasting from a shitty car stereo as we ride shotgun, white knuckling it while Thomas does his thing. And while it's all gloriously and rambunctiously noisy, buried amidst all the noisiness, like on past records, are the sorts of jams, that are damn near timeless/classic ("Too Punk Shakur" sounds like some old soul song sped up and doused in distortion, while the title track gets all spaced out and seriously trippy). Not sure what else to say about Obnox that we haven't already, other than he rules, and this rules, and you should buy everything you can get your goddamn hands on. Includes a download too.

MPEG stream: Cynthia Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
MPEG stream: Boogalou Reed

Latest from Mr. Lamont Thomas, aka Obnox, former member of the Bassholes and This Moment In Black History, current member of Puffy Areolas, Corrupt Free Enterprise his EIGHTH release in 3 years, a sprawling double lp that finds Thomas, a drummer, who only recently taught himself to play guitar and all the rest of the instruments here, kicking out some of the sweetest jams of his brief solo career. After a clutch of killer singles, and a handful of full lengths, Thomas delivers a mighty blow in the form of these four sides of howling, super distorted, soulful garage punk bash and howl, crunch and buzz, the whole of the A side a blown out blast of furious pound and stomp, in the red and doused in distortion, some seriously fierce noise rock garage pop crush, it's not until the side closer that some of that soulful side that popped up on past singles surfaces, with Thomas getting all woozily groovy. The B side begins with a blast of distortion drenched hip hop, all blown out beats and echoey vox, groovy and soulful for sure, but also raw and lo-fi, which leads directly into a handful of covers, all delivered Obnox style, including a totally reworked version of Tom Waits' "Way Down In The Hole", doused in buzz and noise and transformed into some seriously psychedelic garage noise, and rendered nearly unrecognizable, but holy shit, so rad! And so it goes, the second lp delivering track after track of gristly, speaker shredding garage punk, and fuzzed out noise pop, with the occasional bit of soul infused into the proceedings. Like all the Obnox before, totally recommended! Packaged in a super heavy full color gatefold jacket, with printed inner sleeves, featuring photos, liner notes and lyrics.

Garage punk from Denmark sounds like a mix of early off-kilter Talking Heads and the ferociousness of the Cramps. Limited supply!

Any one familiar with Mick Barr, most likely knows all about his dense, insane shredding axework and super obtuse metalisms in groups like Crom-Tech, Orthrelm, Octis, Krallice and of course Ocrilim. This super deluxe, super limited boxset collects three out of print cd-r's, and presents them on vinyl, and all three taken as a single body of work might just comprise the most listenable stuff we've ever heard from Barr. Annothrith Hymns is the prettiest of the bunch, a collection of short form solo guitarscapes, ostensibly black metal, but just the guitars, loosed from any griminty and instead allowed to soar majestically, layered and lush and lyrical, the sounds pulse and undulating, the tremolo picked riffs blurred into sweet soaring ur-drone epicness. Somehow buzzy and metal but still ethereal and mesmerizingly dreamy, even the Xasthur cover is transformed into something more crystalline and lovely. Ixoltion immediately sounds like some epic, Norwegian style black metal, until you realize, that once again, it's just guitar, and the sound is not so much buzzy, so much as again, like the first lp, soaring and majestic, single riffs expanded to fill up a whole side, sprawling riffscapes that manage to remain black metal, while becoming something completely other, some sort of mesmerizing, looped, minimal blackened riffdronebuzz bliss out. Heavy sure, maybe, but more hypnotic and trancelike. Finally, Sacreth, which complete the trilogy, and in some weird way, sounds like the first two combined, this is actual black metal, blasting and buzzing, but still minimal, the programmed beats proggy and intricate, matching the unlikely riffing, super hypnotic, the arrangements quite strange as well, lots of stop/starts, super mathy and complex, but still remaining epic and majestic, and weirdest of all, seriously melodic and poppy. It's almost like the three records are a slow build to Sacreth's black metal, but each part functioning fantastically on its own. So good. And even those of you who might have been put off in the past by Barr's gnarled noisy metallic tangle, this might surprise you as much as it did us. LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. Hand screened, hand glued silkscreened sleeves in a silk screened cardboard box, the records pressed on 180 gram vinyl, with a silkscreened insert, handnumbered.

We've never listed anything by SoCal psych ensemble Octagrape before, but we sure couldn't pass this one up! How cool is it, that they've made the alliterative choice to cover songs by these four quasi-obscure bands: Major Stars ("Syntoptikon"), Mayyors ("Ghost Punch"), Dymaxion ("Verfremdungseffekt"), and Marble Sheep ("Melted Moon")?! Now that's some big indie garage psych collector geek taste cred right there. Not sure which is the most surprising choice, who has covered any of those bands before? I guess we're most impressed with the choice of the Mayyors, good to be reminded of that short-lived, utterly amazing fuzz punk noise rock combo from Sacto (who played one of the SXSW showcases we did with WFMU a few years back). The Mayyors, damn. And Octagrape do a 'grape' job on all these tracks, getting wild and woolly as necessary to live up to the originals; their cover of the Mayyors is appropriately loud and distorted (the lo-fi recording on Octagrape's "little 4-track" of course helps here), their take on Japan's Marble Sheep is perfectly plodding and howlingly spaced out, the Dymaxion one nicely quirky-jerky, and Major Stars are also done justice, their howling riff-fest bathed in hella distortion too. It's pretty freaking epic (all 15 minutes of it, outdoing the original by almost 5 minutes). Was the Major Stars' version even this good? This 12" this makes us want to check out some of Octagrape's own songs too, someday...

MPEG stream: Syntoptikon
MPEG stream: Verfremdungseffekt

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.

Everyone's always saying they just don't make punk rock like they used to, and for the most part that's pretty much true. But, these guys do. Really. Just like the old days. In fact, if you didn't know better, you might find yourself wondering what old SST 7" this is playing, or thinking it must be produced by Spot, assuming they're probably from Hermosa Beach, pretty sure we saw them open for Black Flag, the record probably has cover art by Raymond Pettibon� well ONE of those is true (the cover art), even though this record sounds like they ALL must be. Off! is most definitely a punk rock super group, Keith Morris (Circle Jerks, Black Flag) on vocals, Steven McDonald (Redd Kross) on bass, Mario Rubalcaba (Earthless, Clickitat Ikitawi, etc) on drums, and Dimitri Coats (Burning Brides) on guitar. Sort of an unlikely lineup, but you'll only think that until you hear these guys play. Blasting, hooky, three chord old school hardcore / punk rock, 16 songs in 18 minutes, originally released as four 7" singles, these songs are short and sharp and are dead ringers for all the bands we loved back in the day. Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Redd Kross, Fear, the Germs, listening to these totally brings all that right back, Morris' distinctive yowl (sounding more and more like Jello Biafra), those killer riffs, the pounding propulsive drumming, the lo-fi production, and the songs, simple but catchy as hell. The jams KILL. Awesome Pettibon cover art just seals the deal. It's been THIRTY years since the Decline Of Western Civilization came out and introduced punk rock to a whole new audience, and Western civilization is still in decline, and this shit still sounds better than most of the music released over the last three decades...

MPEG stream: Black Thoughts
MPEG stream: Poison City
MPEG stream: Panic Attack
MPEG stream: Fuck People

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.

What else needs to be said about these guys that we didn't say first time around? A kick ass punk rock super group, featuring members of some of our favorite bands, doing pitch perfect eighties punk rock / hardcore, that sounds EXACTLY like from back in the day. Dimitri Coats from Burning Brides, Keith Morris from the Circle Jerks and Black Flag, Steven McDonald from current AQ Record Of The Weekers Redd Kross, and Mario Rubalcaba from Earthless, Clikatat Ikatowi, etc. all kicking out the jams, short and sharp, swaggery and snotty, brief blast of serious punk energy, catchy as hell, check out "Wiped Out" which is a dead ringer for Black Flag's "Nervous Breakdown", and really you might find yourselves constantly casting back to classic punk jams and/or experiencing a permanent case of sonic deja vu, which in this case is not a bad thing at all.

MPEG stream: Wiped Out
MPEG stream: I Got News For You
MPEG stream: Elimination
MPEG stream: Cracked

You know the drill by now. Dwyer and company kick up some fuzzy, distorted lo-fi sixties pop infused garage rock that totally rocks. Crunchy, distorted, fuzzy, groovy, doused in reverb and delay, the vocals a distorted yelp, the guitars all jangly, this time around there's even some harmonica, stomping and hooky and kick ass. That's just the A side. The flipside just might be one of our favorite Oh Sees jams yet, all brooding and power poppy, reminding us of the Wipers, but with strange bloopy keyboards, and a weary washed out minor key vibe, so super catchy, we find ourselves humming it through the days, and running to the front of the store when it gets played. Awesome. Insanely limited, to only 638 copies, we got about 50, which is probably all we'll ever get. Hand screened covers, in all sorts of different colors and variations, same with the vinyl, white, black, pink, blue, green, and all sorts of marbled in betweens, it's random though so don't ask, you'll get what you get, and it will be cool. Includes an insert with original Dwyer art and of course each one is hand numbered!

Latest from SF garage pop wrecking crew Thee Oh Sees, originally meant to be released as two separate eps, and presented here as a sort of two on one, it's another killer collection of crazy varied weirdo pop radness from John Dwyer and his compatriots, opening with what might be their most classic sounding pop jam to date in the form of the first ep's title track, all driving wandering bassline, echoey vox, simple shuffling propulsive drumming, and Dwyer's distinctive croon, not to mention all manner of tangled guitar melodies, and a bit of sax skronk right at the beginning, which leads right into a fat fuzzy chunk of Stax infused organ driven fuzz rock that kills, the trippy vox transforming it into something that could only be Thee Oh Sees, with a cool sing along chorus, and some seriously fierce guitaring, in fact, this is one of the best sounding Oh Sees records yet, thick and crunchy and fuzzy. But like all their records, the sound veers dramatically all over the place, "Robber Barons" is all lush and fuzzed out, almost shoegazey, the sounds blurred into a hazy back drop for some surprisingly sweet vocals, and with a killer main melody, which leads right into the punky pop stomp of "Chem-Farmer" with its organ stabs, loping bassline and big drums, it's like the 'break down' of some classic sixties soul groover transformed into a whole song, and finally Carrion Crawler finishes off with a short blast of killer fuzzy psych pop. Which is where The Dream takes over, ep #2, and while they were both recorded during the same session, we were maybe expecting something totally different, but it's like Carrion Crawler part two, the opening title track another winner, with Dwyer going full falsetto, and the organs buzzing all over the place, the sound getting seriously sixties for sure. The rest of The Dream seems to be a bit more lo-fi and reverby, "Crack In Your Eye" might be our favorite, reminding us of the Crystal Stilts, that sort of dour organ driven downer pop, but Thee Oh Sees add some extra tangles of psych guitar, but keep it droney and fantastically hypnotic, before finishing off with "Heavy Doctor" a fuzzy jangle fest, based around a wicked riff, and some more of that super active driving bass, Dwyer's vocals riding above the crunch and buzz, with some super catchy melodies, and some seriously rad psychguitar. What more to say? Fans already know they want this, and odds are, even if you've never heard these guys before, once you do, you'll be a fan as well...

MPEG stream: Carrion Crawler
MPEG stream: Contraption / Soul Desert
MPEG stream: The Dream

After a self released 7", and a split single with recent Record Of The Weekers, weirdo biker metal ne'er-do-wells Satans Satyrs, Canadian noise rockers / metal punks Ohmwar deliver their first full length, and it's sonically quite surprising, super polished and all over the sonic map, taking the Maiden / Motorhead / Speedwolf sound of their 7" and infusing it with a surprising amount of poppiness, crafting a record that manages to be heavy, and punky, but also impossibly catchy, the opening track begins with some chiming Sonic Youth like guitars, and thick fuzzy bass, before eventually erupting into something more punked out, and that's not even mentioning the strange almost reggae sounding outro (!)... The second track starts off crazy poppy too, with some almost NWOBHM sounding guitar harmonies, which blur into feedback drenched tones wrapped around some galloping punk rock crush, peppered with little blurts of tangled progginess. And it really doesn't settle into a single sound for the rest of the record, although in not settling, they seem to be defining their own super distinctive sound, a dizzying hybrid of post punk poppiness, mathy metal, and fierce punk rock stomp. Tracks like "Blithe Reaction To An Unfortunate Life", begins all slow burn majesty, and almost Godspeed like slow build, before transforming into a strange (at least for metal/punk) bloopy guitar melody, draped over another galloping rhythms and some thick, rumbling bass buzz, the guitars then splintering into atonal/angular shards of keening high end, the sort of sound that at a slower tempo, minus the gruff vox, could easily end up being some twisted avant art rock, and even in its punkier incarnation, much of that art rockiness remains, and then mid song, there's a killer little guitar lick/melody, that will stick in your head like crazy. And so it goes, most of the songs clocking in around the two minute mark, but these guys cramming as much as they can into those two minutes, with almost every song offering up some sort of unlikely sonic surprise, transforming, what could have been straight ahead metallic punk, into a way more twisted and progressive record, pop punk collides with chugging metal, nineties style math rock bleeds into pounding hard rocking, Refused sounding anthemic post-hardcore mixes with straight up heavy pop, all wound up into something pretty goddamn great. Awesomely over the top, black and white Nick Blinko style cover art, but Blinko by way of Bosch, a twisted punk rock underworld of mouse headed hipsters, people with exposed spines, astronauts on rafts drifting across lakes of blood, insects on swings, man eating fish, alien swamp sound systems, wheelbarrows full of teddy bear skeletons, creepy cave eyes and more. Includes a massive glossy, fold out poster/lyric sheet, with more of that gloriously gruesome and garish artwork.

MPEG stream: John Boy
MPEG stream: Earth Angel
MPEG stream: Blithe Reaction To An Unfortunate Life
MPEG stream: (Some Kind Of) World(')s End

From our pal Mike at the amazing Sleeping Giant Glossolalia comes this latest blast of gnarled metallic guitar heavy whatthefuck from long time aQ fave Mick Barr (Krallice, Ocrilim, Octis, Orthrelm, Crom-Tech) who in Oldest, is teamed up with Brooks Headley (Born Against, Universal Order Of Armageddon), who besides being a rad drummer, is now a fairly well known pastry chef! However, as curious as we would be to hear/see Headley's pastries combined with Barr's axe-work, it is in his role as drummer, that he completes the Oldest duo, which Barr describes as sounding like Voivod meets Darkthrone, but which in fact sounds a lot like Barr's late great Crom-Tech combo. A wild mathy tech metal grindpunk noise-prog blowout that finds the duo unleashing frenzied stretches of tranced out guitars, frantic riffing, the melodies angular and atonal, the drumming dense and complex, the arrangements fractured and fucked up, the vocals a punkish shriek. Intricate and heavy, dizzying and chaotic, the songs super fluid, droney, cyclical and near static one second, lurching stop/start stutter the next, slipping occasionally into chugging classic metal mode or soaring blackened buzz, but always returning to that distinctive twisted technical grinding math/meth metal crush that Barr seems to have a lock on. Fucking awesome. And not even really out until next month, so for now, an aQ exclusive!

MPEG stream: Survivalist Compounds
MPEG stream: Incessant Mortal Creation
MPEG stream: Tower Mockery

This one is a total mystery. Not sure where they're from (New Zealand we guess) or what their story is, other than the fact that it was released on Campbell Kneale's (Birchville Cat Motel) Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label, and that it is one seriously blown out punked up slab of garage-y scuzz and roll. Heavy and noisy, spastic and sludgy, when this was playing in the front of the store, Allan went up to see what black metal record was playing if that tells you anything. Filthy and crumbling ultra distorted guitars, boy girl vocals WAY down in the mix, riffs that go from paint peeling shred to gut churning rumble. Some ungodly hybrid of vintage Dead C, the Butthole Surfers, The Germs, Flipper, recent AQ faves the Violent Students, and recent Siltbreeze noisemakers Times New Viking. This is definitely punk as fuck, but wrapped in layer after layer of guitar grit and broken amp splatter, classic punk rock swallowed whole, chewed up and spit out in huge sludgy gobs of grrrrr and rrrroooaaar. Epic sludgescapes of pound and churn, showered with wild lightning bolts of squealing feedback. There seem to be pop songs in there somewhere, but don't even try to dig that deep, you'll just end up bruised and bloodied, or you'll lose a hand or an arm. Best to just lay back, close your eyes real tight, clamp your hands tight over your ears, let these noise rockers just back their ten ton punksludge steamroller right over you and pray you survive.

MPEG stream: We've Got TV
MPEG stream: Fire Down Below
MPEG stream: My Head

Initially we were mostly intrigued by this new ep from Italian punx Thee Oops, cuz the six year old daughter of a friend of ours, has a band called the Oops, where she and her same aged friend, each sit at a drum kit, and try to hit all the drums without hitting the cymbals, and every time they do, they both shout "OOPS!" This record is by no means as cute as that, but then what really could be? Instead, these guys have tacked on an extra E and delivered 10 short sharp blasts of furious, catchy as fuck punk rock, nothing twisted or weird or experimental, just three chords, pounding drums, yowled vox, and hooks galore. Like all the best punk rock, these songs are essentially pop songs, super charged, revved up and let loose. Opener "1994" has been stuck in our head for weeks, even after only a handful of listens, and the more we listen to this (ten songs in a little over 12 minutes, so it's a lot!), the more it's true of pretty much every song here. Wild little squalls of lead guitar, crazy catchy choruses, some kick ass riffs, the songs flitting from anthemic singalongs to crunchy almost metallic punk to J-Church / Jawbreaker style pop punk to fuzzy midtempo UK punk rock to Toy Dolls style hyper pop. They even do a Beastie Boys cover (as in old punk rock BB!!). So great! Vinyl folks, fyi, this will be coming out as a double 7" sometime soon.

MPEG stream: 1994
MPEG stream: Happy Charlie
MPEG stream: Global Warming
MPEG stream: Hope You Die Tonight

Orchid has to be the best of all the emo / screamo / math metal / hardcore bands around. Or -were- the best, they seem to have hung it up recently (some of the guys went on to form the brilliantly monickered Bucket Full Of Teeth). Furiously heavy, super dense sound, HUGE guitars, killer riffs, impossibly complex songs, and somehow with all that going on they manage to be one of the catchiest heavy bands EVER. Not poppy or hooky exactly, but every convoluted riff, every unlikely memory sticks in your head like crazy. When people salivate over bands like the Locust and the Daughters, as much as we like those bands, the Orchid totally crush them, heavier and catchier and weirder (without being gimmicky). Hard to explain exactly why this stuff is so good, it just sounds so fucking huge and heavy, all the best parts of punk rock and metal wrapped up in a big spiky fiery ball of pent up aggression and musical brutality. Often referred to as chaotic emo grind, and we're not sure we could come up with anything better or more accurate. Totality collects all the long out of print seven inches, splits and compilation tracks, all on cd for the first time. Packaged in a cool silkscreened red jewel case.

MPEG stream: New Ideas in Mathematics
MPEG stream: She Has A Cold, Cold Heart
MPEG stream: Panopticism

Second release from former Crom-Tech guitarist Mick Barr and Josh Blair (of ABCS) following their debut on Tolotta. Ninety-nine tracks fly by at a warp speed twelve-and-a-half minutes. Naked City meets Yngwie Malmsteen gone hardcore pretty much sums it up.

RealAudio clip: Track 99
RealAudio clip: Track 97
RealAudio clip: Track 79
RealAudio clip: Track 66
RealAudio clip: Track 4

Ok, we were wrong back on AQ-L 117 when we said that former Crom Tech guitarist Mick Barr's Octis project was "the polar opposite" of his other band, Orthrelm. For some reason we had gotten the idea that while Octis specializes in short, fast, squiggly guitar

RealAudio clip: track 2
RealAudio clip: track 7

Orthrelm spells...? Not relief from headache, that's for sure! Notorious guitarist Mick Barr (ex-Crom Tech, and of Octis and Flying Luttenbachers infamy also) and drummer Josh Blair continue their assault on musical sanity with Ov, newly released by Mike Patton's envelope-pushing Ipecac label. Ov leaves the envelope pretty much pushed beyond what most people can take -- it will be quite the endurance test for some, but pure bliss for a select few. By the end of this review you should know who you are if you don't already (owning other records involving Barr is one clue). Way back when we reviewed Orthrelm's debut ep Iorxhscimtor, we admitted that we'd been under the mistaken impression that Orthrelm was supposed to be "some sort of droney, doomy thing with super-long songs". It wasn't... but now it is. Sort of. Unlike previous Orthrelm releases (and Barr's other project Octis), Ov isn't about a million trebly tracks of stop-start skronk. No, here the duo's frenetic drumming and insidious ADD guitar squiggle are harnessed into a single, 45 minute long track of intense, almost metallic, repetitive minimalism. A high-pitched, note-dense, trance-inducing (maybe seizures too?), insectoid symphony that slowly shifts gears and builds tension but offers little respite or resolution until its 45 minutes are up or your ears/speakers/the disc iself shatters from the stress. Yet, if you can take it, Ov's continuous rumble of drums and precision frenzies of tinny guitar shred also create a thing of static, maddening beauty. I think...or maybe I've lost it. Am I crazy when I think that some of the feedbackier parts remind me of moments of the Boredoms' Super Ae? Or that this is not entirely unlike something that Boris or SUNNO))) would do... but with a million times more emphasis on the high end, and the notion of motion on the micro if not macro level??

MPEG stream: "Ov
MPEG stream: "Ov

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. Look out, here's a split release from two off-the-hook instrumental rock duos, Orthrelm and Touchdown. Both bands tend to get described with ridiculous hyper-hyphenated terms like avant-thrash-free-jazz-math-rock. New Jersey's Orthrelm -- spasmo guitarist extraordinaire Mick Barr (Octis, Quix*o*tic, ex-Crom Tech) and human drum machine Josh Blair -- contribute four tracks of gnarly, twisted stuff with maddeningly fast and convoluted squeaky guitar and hectic stop-start drums, but perhaps more in the way of actual song-structure than on previous outings. Now, probably either you're already an Orthrelm fan (or you can't stand 'em), but this is a fine example of their art for newcomers and fans alike. Touchdown, from nearby Brooklyn, are a two-piece a la Orthrelm, but with bass instead of guitar. Their nine songs here represent their recorded debut. They do sound a lot like what you'll hear earlier in the disc from Orthrelm, but with the high-end guitar replaced by equally busy low-end bass (which makes 'em sound a bit Ruins-like). Short-attention-span post-hardcore madness to massage your brain and bother your housemates. If this split was a contest, I'd have to award the prize to Orthrelm, for their more metallic, more manic, totally fucked attack, but that's just me. Do you like insects buzzing in your ear?

RealAudio clip: track two
RealAudio clip: Low Pressure Storm System

The latest (posthumous?) single from local noise pop geniuses the Ovens, fronted by Tony Molina of the Tony Molina Band, and if you've been digging Tony's recent solo lp, and have yet to hear the Ovens, prepare yourself for some seriously mind blowing pop overload. This single is untitled like the last two (and the cd on tUMULt) and like those records, this new (old) 7" is another dizzying survey of this group's impeccable pop chops. Eight songs in about 6 minutes, equal parts Weezer, Guided By Voices, Teenage Fanclub, the Beatles, the Fastbacks, Dinosaur Jr, plenty of fuzz and crunch and jangle, glorious harmonies, some shredding leads, laid back laconic vox, and as always, hooks galore, oodles of catchiness crammed into seconds. These tracks were recorded back in 2008, and this 7" is meant to be a sort of companion to the last single on Catholic Guilt. The sounds is a bit more lo-fi, but there's no disguising this sort of utter pop mastery. The only frustrating part of these micro-missives is that you'll find yourself flipping this single over and over and over and over and over, every three minutes...

MPEG stream: Left Behind
MPEG stream: Talkin' Shit
MPEG stream: Alone Again
MPEG stream: I'm Not Insane

If someone had never heard San Francisco's Oxbow before, and knew nothing about them - or for that matter knew nothing about Sammy Davis Jr. either - we wonder what they'd make of that album title/cover art? Definitely wouldn't help 'em guess what sort of music lies within, some of the earliest and insanest stuff by an AQ fave band we lovingly call "fucked rock geniuses". If you are one of those innocent souls who have never heard Oxbow before, well, dive in here and see if you can take it. And needless to say, if you are already an Oxbow fan, of course you NEED this if you don't have it already, which you might not, since until now Oxbow's 1991 sophomore album King Of The Jews has never been available as a domestic compact disc release. It has been paired previously with their 1989 debut Fuckfest as an abridged single cd, and then later as a double, both imports long out of print, as are of course the original vinyl lps on Oxbow's own label CFY Records. And this new Hydra Head reissue is the most deluxe and definitive, packaged in a nice paste-on mini lp-style sleeve, and enhanced with four bonus tracks, three of 'em previously unreleased. Back when we reviewed Hydra Head's similarly presented, equally essential reissue of Fuckfest in 2009, we said that when they did King Of The Jews, we'd probably just write more or less the same review, that is, saying that this record also displays all the elements of Oxbow we appreciate: primal swampy skree and atmospheric loud-soft dynamics, lumbering slide guitar sickness and singer Eugene's regression therapy vocal histrionics... it's part Scratch Acid (or Jesus Lizard), part Butthole Surfers, part Birthday Party, part Cormac McCarthy novel, part primal psycho-sexual cabaret, part utterly alien WTF?! This album's special guest star Lydia Lunch joins the madness on 2 of the cuts, "Daughter" and "Angel", utterly subsumed into the crazy, kecak-y, confusional handclap chaos of the former (what an album opener, damn!!), adding extra drama to the latter. Not that Oxbow needs much help in the drama department; Eugene's bedlamite mewlings and mutterings amidst the band's desolate atmospheres and sudden rock spasms are both bizarre and intense and go way beyond mere music-as-entertainment that's for sure. Oxbow has been keeping rock weird for a long time now, and this is one of the most crucial documents in their entire discography. It'll clue you to the Oxbow formula of lots of tension, not so much release, though there's more of the latter here than on some other Oxbow outings... Highly, highly recommended!

MPEG stream: Daughter
MPEG stream: Angel
MPEG stream: Cat And Mouse

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. There are rumors flying around that the Arab on Radar side of this record is in fact the Oxes paying a very convincing tribute to the Providence, RI quartet (which it is in fact!!). The fact that the recording is inconsistent with past AoR efforts, not to mention the similarities between the two bands' recordings here, plus the fact that the photographs on the front and back of this lp are of the same band (the rear being a mockery of AOR live -- most notably the drummer walking away from his kit in a state of disarray) furthers those rumors. A wonderfully annoying record nonetheless.

Full length number two from this mysterious cinematic lo-fi synthscaper from the Pacific Northwest, whose first record was a surprise hit around these parts. A surprise in part because of the strange band name, that didn't and doesn't even begin to hint at the creepy synthy bliss that lurks inside. And if anything, this new one takes everything we loved about the first tape, and shapes it into something less lo-fi summer-synth party jam, and more haunting John Carpenter style cinematic 8 bit mood music. And holy shit is this stuff good. All the bands out there peddling their particular brand of retro futuristic synthesized sound, would do well to keep an eye on this guy, cuz if this stuff gets the attention it truly deserves, the rest of the synth wranglers out there are really gonna have to up their game. Needless to say, if you're a fan of folks like Gatekeeper, Bitchin Bajas, Xander Harris, Nightsatan, Stellar Om Source, Umberto, Majeure, Roll The Dice, Solar Bears and all the rest, then odds are you're gonna love this. But Oxykitten definitely has his own take on that sound, adding flurries of old school 8 bit bleepage and bloopage, or some darkly propulsive krautrock groove, often in the same song. Robotic space funk turns into alien eighties soundtrack turns into droned out analog kosmische drift and back again, "Nar Nar Dargarstar" might be our favorite, a buzzy creep, with dense swaths of thick low end buzz, warped minor key melodies, and cool little high end trills, like the soundtrack for the NES version of Deep Red Or Suspiria. AWESOME. Includes a download code as well.

MPEG stream: Nar Nar Dargarstar
MPEG stream: Black Light Ejaculation
MPEG stream: Standing On the Edge of Getting On the Verge

Everything about this cool little tape that showed up in the mail one day hit the spot, the bright red tape, with silver metallic lettering, the eye popping crocheted cover art... Everything that is except the band name, not sure why, but the name Oxykitten just had us imagining the music would be way too twee, to cutesy, too fey, a sort of Hello Kitty vibe, but in the interest of not judging a book by its cover, or a tape by its band name, we threw it on, and BAM. Or POW. Or KABLOW. Or whatever sound would indicate you that you just stumbled on the bad ass, old school electro synth lo-fi party jam of the summer. Or whenever. The opening track is a killer, with super buzzy synths, some simulated 'meow's, retro drum machines, thick deep ominous synth basslines, the melodies weirdly haunting, a weird combo of mysterious and groovy, creepy and funky, with some rad squiggly synth freakouts, very soundtracky, or like the music to the best video game you've never played. The closest reference might be Black Moth Super Rainbow or Tobacco, that sort of lo-fi 8-bit bastardized hip hop, but the sound here is way more retro, and weird. That aforementioned opener throws in some creepy John Carpenterisms too, as if Carpenter had scored Castlevania for the Sega Saturn. The rest of the record definitely mixed it up, from super stripped down electro grooves, to goofy vocoder driven electropop, to fuzzed out Ed Banger style synth blowouts, to full on 8-bit videogame music, to wild and seriously damaged eighties party jams, to awesome, creepy soundtracky creepscapes, and on and on and on. Definite contender for party jam tape of the year, odds are a bunch of these songs will end up on summer fun mix tapes, or get blasted at full volume from car stereos, or at the very least, get pumped through those headphones, rollerskates, parachute pants and satin jackets optional. Bright red cassette, full color eye popping covers, and a download code for those of you who no longer sport that walkman clipped to your belt...

From Cleveland, the land of Pere Ubu and The Electric Eels, comes the Pagans, totally essential, completely awesome late seventies scuzzed out punk rock. Noisy and sloppy and snotty and totally catchy. The lp includes 2 unreleased songs and two demos, one exclusive to the lp. The cd includes 3 unreleased tracks (as opposed to 4 on the vinyl) and tons of live stuff from 1979-1983

From Cleveland, the land of Pere Ubu and The Electric Eels, comes the Pagans, totally essential, completely awesome late seventies scuzzed out punk rock. Noisy and sloppy and snotty and totally catchy. The lp includes 3 unreleased tracks and 2 super rare tracks from 1979 including the studio demo of 'She's A Cadaver' which is only on the lp. The cd includes 4 extra studio tracks (as

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.