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Straight out of Los Angeles, powerviolence band Zulu are here to share their life experiences and make a comfortable environment for everyone they come in contact with. The latest signing to Flatspot Records, the label will be releasing, for the first time on vinyl, the band’s debut EP Our Day Will Come (2019) and its follow-up My People...Hold On (2020) this summer. Formed by vocalist Anaiah Lei (also of hardcore band Dare) in 2019, Zulu is rounded out by Dez Yusuf (guitar), Braxton Marcellous (guitar), Satchel Brown (bass), and Christine Cadette (drums). Citing influences from Jill Scott to Weekend Nachos, the band’s style is fiercely original, laced with heavy breakdowns intertwined with samples of pivotal moments in black culture. The band has already seen praise from Stereogum, No Echo, and New Noise Magazine, and have a tour on the way with fellow California innovators Scowl this summer. Zulu carries a strong message, but it’s also about having fun, as Anaiah puts it - “Zulu isn’t a political band at all. I started Zulu because I wanted to be in an all black band and talk about what we go through and been going through. But also celebrating our lives at the same time.”

Youth OF Today was initially active from 1985 to 1990 before reforming in 2010. The band played a major role in establishing the “youth-crew” subculture of hardcore, both espousing and evolving the philosophies of the straight-edge and vegetarian lifestyles. Formed in Danbury, Connecticut, by two members of the hardcore band Violent Children, Ray Cappo (vocals) and John Porcelly (aka Porcell, guitar) were aiming to start a straight-edge band at a time when most old-school straight-edge bands had disbanded. Having difficulty finding a bassist and drummer, Ray and Porcell found help from two high-school friends, Graham Phillips and Darren Pesce, who had played with Porcell in a band called THE Young Republicans in the past. In 1986, Underdog vocalist Richie Birkenhead joined the band on second guitar. With this lineup, the first Youth OF Today full-length album was recorded, Break Down The Walls. More than just an album, it’s an anthem for a way of life.

The World/Inferno Friendship Society’s long awaited new album dares one to try and decipher its multi-layered, encrypted message, while being dragged kicking and screaming through a succession of flashbacks, alternate realities and drug and alcohol induced delusions. While this ensemble is known for its utter disregard for boundaries of genre, All Borders Are Porous To Cats deliberately pushes the limits of what could possibly be perceived as punk rock. It scores tales of fugitives, arson, larceny, perjury, drug addiction and freedom with elements of soul, funk, latin, polka, and classical music, as well as the band’s signature punk cabaret sound. Three years in the making, five missed release dates, five lost band members, many a bridge burned, and a defamation lawsuit waiting to happen, The World /Inferno Friendship Society invites the listener to enjoy the fruits of their perpetual torment.

This seventh full-length album finds the collective reset and reinvigorated, behind the lyrics of Jack Terricloth, apparent possessor of the punk rock fountain of everlasting style and rage. The album follows Cat In The Hat (no relation), an undocumented refugee who is framed for a crime and requires the assistance of a ragtag gang of miscreants, academics, orchestra-caliber musicians, and radical insurgents—sometimes art does in fact imitate life!

The album’s release comes in tandem with the release of accompanying book One Smashed Window For Every Divided Soul, an illustrated combination tour journal and narrative exploration of Cat and his travails. The book acts as a companion piece to the album’s story, sifting through archival documents and fabulist accounts of the band’s East Coast tour of 2017.