With their hybrid of technical punk and metal, Pour Habit are the right answer for those so-called new punk bands playing happy pop. Maybe heavy riffing won’t get you on the top of the Billboard but punk it’s not – and it shouldn’t be – about this.
Chuck Green – vocals, Eric Walsh – guitar/vocals, Matt Hawks – guitar, Steve Williams – bass/vocals and Colin Walsh – drums delivering fast, furious, but still melodic and catch punk rock with the heaviness and technicality of a speed metal band. Following and maintaining the tradition of Bad Brains and Suicidal Tendencies, Pour Habit are one of the most intense and explosive punk rock acts of the moment.
After self releasing their debut effort “Suiticide” in 2007, Fat Mike bring them in the court of Fat Wreck Chords and re-released the album in 2009. Read more Pour Habit – Got Your Back (2011)
Jello Biafra and tGSoM – Enhanced Methods Of Questioning (2011)
At the age of 52, Mr. Biafra is still fresh and biting while a bunch of kids calling them self “punks” still can’t have a hard-on.
In the twenty or so years since Dead Kennedys officially disbanded, Jello Biafra has made a career of spoken word gigs interspersed with musical collaborations, recording projects and touring with Melvins, No Means No, DOA, Mojo Nixon and Lard (with Ministry’s Al Jorgensen) among others have kept his “hardcore as political weapon” message sharp, but the lack of his own band made these collaborations usually short-lived and left Biafra with a ton of songs that had never seen the light of day. Inspired by Iggy Pop’s 60th birthday gig at the Warfield in San Francisco, Biafra laid plans for his own 50th birthday party and finally decided it was time to start a band of his own. Ten years before he had been attempting the same thing with the likes of guitarist Ralph Spight (Victims Family, Freak Accident, Hellworms) and drummer Jon Weiss (Sharkbait, Horsey). They had also previously worked with bassist Billy Gould (Faith No More) who was tapped for the new group. After cramming rehearsal for a month the four piece band known as Jello Biafra and the Axis Of Merry Evildoers took the stage in a sold-out two night stand at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall and subsequently spent the next 9 months in rehearsal for an album project. Before entering the studio guitarist Kimo Ball (Freak Accident, Carneyball Johnson, Mol Triffid, Griddle) was recruited. The quintet now known as Jello Biafra and The Guantanamo School of Medicine began recording tracks for the upcoming album “The Audacity Of Hype” slated for release in October 2009. Read more Jello Biafra and tGSoM – Enhanced Methods Of Questioning (2011)
PAIN – You Only Live Twice (2011)
Peter Tägtgren started playing drums at the age of 9 and later learned to play guitar, bass and keyboard. After he’s first band Conquest disbanded, he went to the United States where he became part of the death metal scene, participating in practice sessions with Malevolent Creation’s guitarist, Phil Fasciana. After spending three years in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Tägtgren moved back to Sweden in 1990, he formed the band Hypocrisy, at this time a one-man project, and played all instruments himself. Get the attention and signed a recording contract with Nuclear Blast and since released eleventh studio albums. Although Hypocrisy is his main focus, he has also worked on many other Swedish metal projects. These include PAIN (industrial metal), for which he performs all instruments and vocals and composes all songs, Lock Up (grindcore/death metal), in which he was the vocalist, The Abyss (black metal), where he performed drums, bass and vocals, War (black metal), where he performed drums, and most recently Bloodbath (death metal), also with him on vocals. He also appeared as a live guitarist for the bands Marduk and E-Type. Read more PAIN – You Only Live Twice (2011)
Slaves To Fashion – Artistic Differences (2011)
“Crossing Over†in 2007 was released under the name P:O:B. but despite positive reviews worldwide, no label could be found to push the self released album to a wider audience. The Norwegian rockers didn’t give it up, they change their name into the more remarkable Slaves To Fashion and continue playing a music that is actually very opposite of fashionable. STF merging metal and progressive hard rock with new, consistent sounds and for their new album, “Artistic Differences” they write some quite catchy and fresh themes and songs. Frank Jaeger, a German journalist and friend of the band, decided to take matters in his own hands and founded Hands Of Blue Records with one specific goal: to release this album. Read more Slaves To Fashion – Artistic Differences (2011)
Black Veil Brides – Set the World on Fire (2011)
Their video for the song “Knives and Pens” has gained over 26,000,000 views over YouTube, so, the group’s debut album “We Stitch These Wounds” released in 2010 and sold nearly 10,000 copies in its first week, ranking at #36 on the Billboard Top 200 chart, and #1 on the Billboard Independent chart. Having the look of the 80s Motley Crue and the sound of some emo/post-hardcore band, Black Veil Brides merging dark and heavy themes, balancing smoothly between the traditional heavy sound and the modern, grungy approach. Andy Biersack have powerful voice, he singing strong and catchy choruses, while the band delivering pretty intense metal support. The new set consist of 11 songs, shows a stronger and more determined, perhaps more mature band, somehow it’s quite a fracture between their look and their music. Read more Black Veil Brides – Set the World on Fire (2011)
Flogging Molly – Speed of Darkness (2011)
“We drink, we fight, we puke, we die…” In very few words, this is the essence of Celtic Punk. It might be funny once, it might be cool twice, but third time it’s boring and forth time irritating. “Revolution” talking about hot topics like loosing job, just like “Don’t Shut ‘Em Down”, it seems the global crises sneaked into the hearts of everybody, even into the life of the people from the ever-shining LA.
Formed in 1997 in Los Angeles, California, Flogging Molly is a seven-piece Irish-American band merging Punk Rock with Celtic Punk. Prior to forming Flogging Molly, Dublin-born Dave King was the vocalist for heavy metal band Fastway featuring guitarist “Fast” Eddie Clarke of Motörhead and bassist Pete Way of UFO in the early to mid ’80s. In the footsteps of The Dubliners and The Pogues, Flogging Molly fifth studio album keeps the tradition alive. Read more Flogging Molly – Speed of Darkness (2011)
themuztard seedz
I try to convince others to collaborate, create together. It seems harder than I thought, people mostly are preoccupied with their own shit. I can’t blame anybody, the world today is a pretty fucked-up place, and well, the worst is still to come I guess. Last year I put together a set of recordings with the core of the band Oedip Piaf and some contribution from Mr. Winteller from London, that was “Badtime Stories” (you can grab it for free, by the way), a noisy, gloomy, kind of experimental album which shifting between different genres from punk to free jazz and back to rock through psychedelic whatever.
The experiment still running, I write themes, song structures and I send the tracks around, anybody interested to participate, are welcome. I wrote this theme called “The Mustard Seeds”, Mr. Winteller and the guys from Oedip Piaf have their fun with it and send me back their tracks and I mixed them into one. This is the result: Read more themuztard seedz
Joy Division and New Order – Total (2011)
This is most likely an opportunity to discover Joy Division for those who one way or the other miss the end of the 70s, beginning of the 80s, rather than something spectacular for fans. Songs taken in chronological order and placed in the timeline since “Transmission” by Joy Division released in 1979 till “Krafty” from New Order’s latest album, “”Waiting for the Sirens’ Call”, released in 2005, plus a previously unreleased track, “Hellbent” from the same era. Joy Division enjoy the well deserved cult status while New Order gained eventually respect, otherwise many criticism being Joy Division minus the unrepeatable Ian Curtis. Joy Division were pioneers of the post-punk era, their gloomy, dark sound influenced considerably many following generation, they were quite “emo” long before “emo” was invented as expression and label. On the other hand, New Order get on a much more radio friendly and new wave path of the music… Read more Joy Division and New Order – Total (2011)
Peter Murphy – Ninth (2011)
Older dudes like me remember Bauhaus appeared during the opening sequences of the horror movie “The Hunger” featuring David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve, performing one of their most popular songs, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”. It was almost a lifetime ago, back in 1983…
Bauhaus were an English rock band formed in Northampton in 1978, consisted of Peter Murphy (vocals), Daniel Ash (guitar), Kevin Haskins (drums) and David J (bass). The band broke up in 1983 and reunited for a 1998 tour and on a more permanent basis in 2005. The group announced plans to disband again following the release of their album, “Go Away White”, in 2008. The youngest perhaps noticed Murphy while Bauhaus toured with Nine Inch Nails in 2006 and Trent Reznor, Murphy and other tour-mate musicians (TV on the Radio, Peaches, etc) were guests on several radio shows together, often performing three to four duets per radio show. Reznor – as many others – cites Bauhaus as one of his primary musical influences.
After Bauhaus disbanded in 1983, Murphy worked with Mick Karn of Japan (bassist, keyboardist, guitarist, saxophonist) and Paul Vincent Lawford (rhythm construction) in the band Dali’s Car and released one album in 1984 “The Waking Hour” before going solo and releasing several albums: “Should the World Fail to Fall Apart” (1986), “Love Hysteria” (1988), “Deep”(1990), “Holy Smoke” (1992), “Cascade” (1995), “Dust” (2002) and “Unshattered” (2004). Read more Peter Murphy – Ninth (2011)
Neil Young – A Treasure (2011)
“You can call me erratic,†Young said “but I’ve been consistent about it, consistently erratic.†This is a Live country album recorded with legendary band, The International Harvesters, on the tour in THE U.S. in 1984-1985, and contains five previously unreleased songs. Young says. “I hadn’t heard these takes in 25 years, but when we unearthed them co-producer Ben Keith said, ‘This is a treasure.’†Tim Mulligan mixed and mastered the tracks. At the time these songs were recorded, Bob Sterne was the tour manager, Tim Foster ran the stage, and Larry Cragg was in charge of the band’s instruments. Part of “The Neil Young Archives” which are divided into several series, “A Treasure” is “Volume 09” from the “Performance Series”. Read more Neil Young – A Treasure (2011)
