Dirt Cult Indierock | Alternative 12 Items

X was formed in Sydney, Australia in 1977 by Ian Rilen (Rose Tattoo), Steve Lucas, Ian Krahe, and Steve Cafiero. After the sudden death of Ian Krahe in 1978, the band pushed on with a few other guitar players but struggled to find their footing. Then in late 1979, just a few months after singer Steve Lucas first picked up a guitar, the band recorded what would become X-Aspirations as a threepiece in 5 hours. Legend has it that the band went into the studio expecting to record a single. Once they loaded in, they decided to record every song they knew how to play and then pick a single from there. Most of the songs were first takes and they figured that the end result was good enough to release as an LP. In true DIY fashion, the band released the record on their own in early 1980. The album went on to be listed as one of the 200 Greatest Australian Records of All Time and called "one of the best punk records of all time" in Maximum Rock'n'roll. It's not often that those two publications agree, but it's hard to argue otherwise. After 10 years of being out of press in the United States, Dirt Cult Records and Green Noise Records will be releasing X-Aspirations with new cover art sanctioned by the band's only surviving member, Steve Lucas. Some praise for the record: "The bass lines are really good, the lyrics are really tight, the riffs are sick. (X-Aspirations) was an album I'd found after I heard The Ramones. Fell in love with it and it still gives me goosebumps" - Eamon from The Chats in Classic Rock Magazine "If you venture into The Tote in Melbourne on any given night, you're likely to hear a band that owes some semblance of influence to X - whether they know it or not. Such is the legacy of one of Australia's most well-loved underground classics (X-Aspirations).” -Rolling Stone "Fourteen vicious, out-for-blood punk tunes, all of which are steeped in some supremely heavy dark and daring shit. It's a legit classic and one of the best punk rock albums ever made." - Maximum Rock N Roll

Jenny "Trajinero b/w Kids of Today" is the sophomore EP by Justin Maurer (clorox Girls, Maniac, Suspect Parts, L.A. Drugz) featuring a little help from his friends Jacobo Fernandez (las Bruscas, LES Tragiques, Desobedientes) and Gabriel Lopez (espectroplasma, Sonido Gallo Negro) as well as his former bandmates in LA Drugz who play on the B-Side "Kids of Today". "Trajinero" is Jenny's debut Spanish language single with the B-side "Kids of Today" sung in English. "Trajinero" was conceived during Maurer's visit to Mexico City in November 2020. Maurer, Fernandez, and his girlfriend Corey were enjoying a Sunday afternoon boat ride in the swamps of Xochimilco, Mexico City, and Maurer was fascinated by the rough and tumble trajineros who expertly manned their hand-painted gondolas in the canals. Over a bottle of ice-cold Don Julio Blanco, Maurer and Fernandez envisioned a plot where a lovelorn working-class trajinero must commit crimes to keep his upper-middle class fresa girlfriend happy. Loosely based on the plot of Emilio "El Indio" Fernández 1943 film Maria Candelaria, our protagonist commits a crime of passion and ends up in jail. He makes a plea to himself for his own happiness and survival, a passionate cry of "Ni Carcel/Ni Ella/Ni Nerds" which translates to "Not jail, not her, not nerds." (The Mexican Spanish equivalent of nerds, ñoños, is sung on the final word of the song.) Maurer has been a student of the Spanish language for a couple of decades with stints living and working in both Spain and Mexico. Native Spanish speaker and homegrown chilango, Fernandez, helped him with the lyrics – scrawled quickly during an acoustic rehearsal on the rooftop of his Mexico City apartment a few days before entering T-Vox Studios to record. Covid-19 was in full swing in Mexico City in November 2020 when "Trajinero" was laid down and Maurer, Fernandez, and engineer Gabriel Lopez all double masked in the studio which is attached to the Lopez family home in Aragon; near the airport where Maurer had his flight home a few hours later. He nearly missed his flight, but a stone-cold hit was recorded. Lopez's uncle Miguel Angel was dancing around the studio throughout the session which the boys took to be a good sign. Along with engineering and mixing the single, Lopez also played lead guitar and Vox Organ. "Kids Of Today" is a catchy banger recorded by Grammy award-winning engineer Mark Rains at Stationhouse Studios Los Angeles. The uptempo B-side features former LA Drugz bandmates Cezar Mora (the BAD Machine, THE Wayward Chapel), James Carman (reflectors, Maniac, Images), and Johnny "jd" Reyes (reflectors) handily backing Maurer up.

In the early days of Covid, Chris (Dirt Cult Records, Low Culture, Macho Boys) would mask up every night and take a long walk to keep his sanity. One evening, the week before the murder of George Floyd, he popped in his headphones and put on a Killed by Death comp while he grappled with how the virus had changed his life and the lives of those around him, while so many people refused to accept the slightest inconvenience to keep their neighbors safe. When he returned home, he went down to the basement and stayed up until four in the morning writing and recording the songs on this cassette. Consider this a time capsule of the early days of the pandemic, showcasing the mundane weirdness of those early days of the pandemic, filled with grocery deliveries and clips of right-wingers claiming victimhood because they can’t get their haircut or order dine-in – all to a snotty punk soundtrack for fans of Circle Jerks, Crucifucks, Dead Kennedys, et al.

Holy shit, Portland punk, chuck me in a rock grinder and turn the motor on supersonic, guillotine the king, chuck his carcass off the end of the plank and let the hammerheads rip it apart. Don’t let the name of the band fool you into thinking this’ll lullaby your brain into a state of theta. This is gamma-wave punk rock and roll, divergent binaural fuzz ripping into focused rapid-fire slash and burn, clear cuts the cop in your head like a chainsaw running on trichlorethylene, short loud and fast like you like it. Pounding your eardrums like a maniac on Benzedrine, slashing your brain like a whipping of razor wire. And when it’s all said and done, maybe you will indeed settle into a theta state of mind. Clear cut the riot police from your brain and give the pine trees room to grow. To free your head, feed the heads of state to the hammerheads, decapitate the heads of state in your mind and bring the dream into the light of day, make your own head the head of state. To understand how something works, sometimes you gotta take a hammer and break it. Mystic Operative manages to balance the unpredictability of post-punk with the groove of garage rock, the fury of hardcore and the recklessness of classic punk. Roll those ingredients into a ball, then watch it roll down the hill and wipe out everything in its path. – Scene Point Blank If you’re into dense, angular, and inventive post-hardcore, this record is a stunner. – Sorry State Records Daydream from Portland deftly maneuver through eleven songs of noisy punk with obvious anarcho leanings and a call for higher consciousness. I do love it when a band incorporates so much into their art and sound that, while it makes my job harder, it only proves that some things just can’t quite be described with mere words. I’m getting hits of everything from Crass, the Wipers, and the Shitty Limits but even then I’m probably shortchanging the band, of which members have previously kicked around in PDX greats such as Physique and Dodlage as well as the Chinchees from Minneapolis. Suddenly, it makes sense why this record is so fucking good. - Razorcake There’s a lot going on, but the hyper-propulsive drums, DEVO-lved guitar stabs, and urgent vocals clatter together in an explosive concoction of progressive punk noise. Thick-necked, spiraling bass riffage and off-kilter weirdness remind me of (a less brooding) Dead AND Gone, or an anarcho-BOREDOMS. Get your ’90s fix without succumbing to nostalgia. Great stuff. – Maximum Rock N Roll

Community building is maybe the most punk thing all of. Recent Halifax to Ottawa transplant Matty Grace (Cluttered, Century Egg, Future Girls) wasted no time in recruiting Ottawa punk mainstays Anthony Cardozo (Precious Failures, The Flying Hellfish) and “Ska” Jeff (Doxx, Dogma, Zooman) to bring Crisis Party to life. Blending influences from the Wipers to Wire and the Marked Men with the ethics instilled by those that came before them. Crisis Party is here to let you know it’s ok to struggle. Life is suffering. Let’s Party!

It’s always a good sign when you cannot explain why a band is so awesome. It means something new and inexplicable is at work in their music. Småland, Sweden’s Allvaret is that awesome. The elements are easy enough to define: there are the surf-drenched guitars, the outstanding female vocals and the rock ‘n’ roll frenzy of X – a sound which has been brewing in Denmark and Sweden over the last decade with bands like Masshysteri, THE Vicious, Terrible Feelings, Vana Inget, and NO Hope FOR THE Kids. But there is something more than that, too. Their tuneful hooks take hold of you, drag you deep into their bleak and feral songs and threaten to tear you apart once you’ve been captured. Their music is simultaneously melancholic, frantic, and joyfully danceable. It’s wild and new and something wholly of its own. The energetic melodies that blast through Allvaret’s new album are simply mind-blowing. This Swedish punk band will release their 2nd Album – and it may just be one of the best things that have ever been produced in the history of Swedish melodic punk rock. The anthemic vocals of Sushila are the perfect balance of aggression and sincerity, while the predominantly choppy guitar chords and the drumbeats keep up the motivating energy that drives their music. The ten short and catchy songs that make up this album are simple yet powerful, and the beginning of each new track jolts the listener back into their music. At first, the inability to understand their lyrics may seem jarring to the foreign listener. However, after listening to the entire album a few times, I forgot they were even singing in Swedish! The surf-rocky guitars and snappy punk drumming release sustaining energy, while the passionate tone of the harmonized male-female vocals, at times angry and at times melancholic, create the perfect blend of hooks that will grab you and lead you into a place set up by this musical phenomenon. Any fan of stripped-down garagey punk that is derived from the past but doesn’t live in it would be well-advised to check out Allvaret. Their latest album demonstrates the extent to which they have honed each of their many strengths, re-configuring rather than regurgitating influences and crafting songs which will lodge themselves firmly into the head of any listener, regardless of whether or not he or she can understand the lyrics.

Pandemix is back with In Condemnation, a 10 song LP expanding on their political, peace-punk indebted hardcore canon. The band churns out unapologetic outsider anthems in the tradition of Crass Records bands, with flashes of the angular iconoclastic wit of Flux of Pink Indians or Poison Girls juxtaposed against the jarring and heavy guitar textures of Profane Existence style crust punk. It’s the appropriate tone for Pandemix’s incisive social commentary. On the album closer “Column of Light,” they offer a thesis: “May every breath I ever draw be used in condemnation.” Vocalist Shannon Thompson's breath finds well deserved targets at nearly every lyrical turn. In “Can’t Assimilate” for example, she oscillates between a homophobic street harasser and a cop at a pride parade, finding no solace in any corner of the public sphere. The antagonists on In Condemnation are both political and personal. “It’s all about a relationship to violence,” she spits in “Synthetix.” “If it’s constant and random then you can’t politicize it.” This dismal sentiment clashes appropriately against a jagged bass line and harsh militaristic drum lines. In “Oblivion Lullabies,” a catchy rager that barrels ahead at full throttle, she turns her focus inward. “There’s something nameless inside me / Barren and burned / I can’t believe / That I could be the only one / Who feels like a voyeur in her own life.” A culture of constant performance and decentralized surveillance is critiqued not only for its usefulness to authoritarian figures but also for how it shapes the way we think about ourselves. On the soaring penultimate track, “Past Selves,” we are offered the closest thing to optimism that Pandemix is willing to offer. Its melodramatic, goosebump inspiring riff sets the mood for an anthem of finding strength in oneself in the face of a degrading cultural landscape. “Remain steadfastly human in the face of all this dehumanization,” is the coping mantra Thompson offers as the record nears its end. Even at its most uplifting, In Condemnation shines brightness only in contrast to the constant misery and violence of modern life.

Neighborhood Brats return with their second full length record, and let’s just start by saying it’s a scorcher. The band plays a brand of punk that, had they existed in 1977, would have been right at home on Dangerhouse Records alongside The Bags and The Avengers. That said, “Claw Marks” might just be the first Neighborhood Brats records that truly captures and urgency and energy of the band’s chaotic live show. The record finds the band at the top of their game in terms of songwriting, musicianship, and lyricism. So much so that lead singer Jenny Angelillo says that there are several songs on the album that could easily be her epitaph. “Claw Marks” is an upbeat but beaten down soundtrack to the dystopian nightmare we find ourselves living in. When the band sings “It’s time to check out/We’re being left out” it sounds like a mantra for our time, while the album closes with Jenny singing “Dance with me/Bones, blood, And teeth/Dance with me/Into the Void” over a reverb drenched guitar line provided by the band’s other core member, George Rager, that sounds like it was lifted out of some post-apocalyptic western. It’s all so fucking perfect.

Maybe it’s the endless pieces of soft, soothing music being described as ‘a soothing balm for the stresses of the pandemic age’, but don’t you sometimes find yourself wishing for a solid rock’n’roll record to cut to your core and send your fists soaring towards the sky? Okay, our moshpits may not extend much further than the faces in our living rooms right now, but goddamit, some of us really just want some punk rock to help us feel alive. Here’s where Needles//Pins’ mighty fourth album comes in. From the surging rush of opener ‘Woe Is Us’ (sounds relatable), via the organ-drenched scuffle of ‘Winnipeg ‘03’ right through to anthemic closer ‘The Tyranny Of Comforts’, this is a record that takes your emotional concerns and bundles them up into sweet little packets of raw-throated, chestswelling, moves-into-your-brain-and-never-leaves melody. They’re self-aware too; by referencing Cap’n Jazz’s ‘Little Leagues’ in the opening verse to ‘A Rather Strained Apologetic’, they lay bare that in a less complicated era you might have been tempted to call their take on punk ‘emo’. Hey, come back - OK, it’s not a Jade Tree special, but it’s got the same gravel throated delivery and honeyed approach to melody that Blake Schwarzenbach delivered on ‘24 Hour Revenge Therapy’. Needles//Pins are equally indebted to classic Canadian powerpop like The Pointed Sticks - hell, 1979’s essential ‘Vancouver Complication’ comp feels as much of a reference here as ‘Boxcar’. They know their history, they know their craft, and they know their shit. If you’ve not been keeping count, this all adds up to ‘plenty to love’. Of course you could just ignore everything I just wrote and listen for yourself. What you’ll find is a record that sounds simple on first listen, but offers more layers to peel back the more you listen. It’s comforting, it’s thrilling, it’s… well, it’s not a soothing balm, but it might just be what you need right now to pick you up off the floor and (as referenced on the aforementioned ‘Woe Is Us’) make you shake and shimmer. A future classic? Hell, why not?

Fleshies (est. 1999) are a loud punk band from Oakland, California. They are noted for their intense, wild, and often homoerotic stage presence, abrasive-yet-catchy songs that warp and invert countless rock and punk tropes, radical (verging on wingnut) left-wing politics, and punishing tour schedules from the past (133 shows in 131 days at one point in 2003). They have released numerous well-received albums and singles on labels such as Alternative Tentacles, Recess, Life Is Abuse, Thrillhouse, and Adeline, and are on countless compilations (such as MaximumRocknRoll’s “Noise Ordinance” LP). “Introducing The Fleshies” (Dirt Cult Records), the band’s new full-length album, represents a return to form, capturing the energy, raw power, incisive lyrical commentary/humor, and brutalist melodicism of their earlier releases like “Kill The Dreamer’s Dream” (2001) and “The Sicilian” (2003). Recorded and engineered by Brian Plaskett, mastered by Daniel Husayn (North London Bomb Factory). (The) Fleshies are Mattowar, Yvan Kawecki, John No, Brian Plaskett, and Hamiltron (all of whom are original members). “Fleshies are one of those rare punk treasures that always knows how to kick out the jams live. And while the band labels its genre ‘Mysterious Guy Softcore’ — a play off the once trendy micro-genre of Mysterious Guy Hardcore — its sound is anything but. If you're into frenetic, fast-paced rhythms and off-kilter guitar and vocal workouts, expect to receive your just rewards. Singer John No doesn't sit idle during the band's shows; he can often be found working the crowd into a frenzy.” --Eddie Jorgenson, SF Weekly "These hyperactively yelping Oakland artcore minutemen very much deserve to suck. Yet, somehow, they don't." - Chuck Eddy, Village Voice

Hood Rats are a punk band from Montreal, Canada. They’ve been around since 2017 and have gained some notoriety in the scene from a series of singles and demos. “Crime, Hysteria, & Useless Information” is their first full-length LP. Fast and furious, no-frills punk rock that falls somewhere between modern Oi (Benton Arme, Rixe) and Dwarves-esq garage rock.

These four songs, recorded in 1977, are the only recordings of the original 4-piece line-up of the Australian band X featuring Ian Rilen (Rose Tatoo), Steve Lucas, Ian Krahe, and Steve Cafiero. Three of the songs (Home is Where the Floor Is, TV Cabaret Rules, and Hate City) were released on the 1985 compilation "Why March When You Can Riot" while Good On Ya Baby was later re-recorded for the X-Aspirations LP. While their debut LP, X-Aspirations, is rightly lauded as an Australian punk classic, this batch of songs is often overlooked because they never received a wide release. This is the band at their most snotty and rambunctious. This is an authorized one-time press of 500 copies on black vinyl by Dirt Cult and Green Noise Records