Punk | Hardcore 404 Items

Zooparty has been called "Swedens finest punkband" according to Record collector (UK). If you like your punk catchy as hell then I can't recommend this enough" according to Maximum Rock'n'roll (USA). "No matter what you say" is there sixth album and contains 12 brilliant, timeless new songs. Special guest are Glen Matlock/Sex Pistols (and if you listen to "Elephants" it's like a flashback/ hommage to the "Holidays in the sun" times.), Hans Östlund (The Nomads) and the album include lyrics written with Stephen Straughan (UK Subs) and Gaz Moore (The Reverends).Produced by Chips Kiesbye (Sator, Nomads, Hellacopters, The Boys etc) and mastered by Henryk Lipp. They played the Rebellion festival in Blackpool, UK, three times. Toured the UK, Czec...

Zooparty has been called "Swedens finest punkband" according to Record collector (UK). If you like your punk catchy as hell then I can't recommend this enough" according to Maximum Rock'n'roll (USA). "No matter what you say" is there sixth album and contains 12 brilliant, timeless new songs. Special guest are Glen Matlock/Sex Pistols (and if you listen to "Elephants" it's like a flashback/ hommage to the "Holidays in the sun" times.), Hans Östlund (The Nomads) and the album include lyrics written with Stephen Straughan (UK Subs) and Gaz Moore (The Reverends).Produced by Chips Kiesbye (Sator, Nomads, Hellacopters, The Boys etc) and mastered by Henryk Lipp. They played the Rebellion festival in Blackpool, UK, three times. Toured the UK, Czec...

“The origin of this record is a weird one. In 2019, we had just returned from two long European tours when we decided to take a ‘little break’ from the road. You all know what happened next. That ‘little break’ turned into a couple of years and during that time Dane, our drummer, decided to quit the band and music in general (no hard feelings). Sean [Hoffman] and I had a discussion and thought about ending the band as a whole, but I knew I had to go out on my own terms. I had an ace in the hole, though. Jeff Murray, drummer from LA rippers The Shrine. I had been friends with Jeff and The Shrine’s founder, Josh Landau since our ‘Scavenger’ 7-inch came out, around 2012. We had run into them in Berlin a few months back and I knew they weren’t playing anymore. I called Josh first, ’cause asking a dude if you can take his drummer, is like asking your girlfriend’s dad if you can marry her. And Josh said ‘go for it.’ And Jeff was in.

“Honestly if he had said no, that would have been the end. I had written a ton of stuff since our last album but I had shelved most of it. I was trying too hard—basically. Eventually Sean, Jeff and I said, ‘Fuck it, let’s make a ‘Fake Live’ record—like Kiss or Slayer did. John Dwyer from Osees was opening his new studio, Discount Mirrors, and it seemed like the perfect place to record it. We settled on re-recording a bunch of old stuff while simultaneously demoing our new material, as the three of us were now starting to really get in the groove. The result is Strange Masters Vol. 1.

“These are not new songs. These are Zig Zags classics re-recorded with a ripping-ass band that’s old and angry and just wants to get on with it. We are already on to recording the next album of new songs. That one is coming soon, but in the meantime, enjoy this one…while you still can!” —Jed Maheu (guitars/vocals for Zig Zags)

Youth OF TODAY’s final studio recording has all the energy this influential hardcore band is known for on this three-track EP. The lyrics have some of the same philosophical and spiritual influences that dominated Ray’s next band, Shelter, which recorded its first album the same year.

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. At the end of 1987, Sammy Siegler (ex-SIDE BY Side) became the new drummer and in 1988, Youth OF Today recorded their classic second LP, We’re Not In This Alone. The songs were born from the band’s dedication to straight edge, positive living, and the strength of the both the individual and of a generation. Full of energy and inspiration, this record was an essential step in the development of hardcore.

Relentless" is the long awaited Youth Avoiders second album. The five years between this new full lenght and their debut have been really intense for the band, made of constant live appearances everywhere around the globe. Intensity is the trademark of Youth Avoiders, "Relentless" is the fruit of a five days session in the Normandy countryside studio Swan Sound. To keep it simple, "Relentless" is Youth Avoiders making what they have done so good so far but even better : catchy riffing,

Big Hotel, the sophomore effort of Winged Wheel, is an evolutionary document. Core members Cory Plump (Spray Paint, Rider/Horse, Expensive Shit), Fred Thomas (Tyvek, Idle Ray), Whitney Johnson (Matchess, Damiana), and Matthew J Rolin (Powers/Rolin Duo, solo) expand their lineup to include Lonnie Slack (Water Damage) and Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), and instead of the entirely remote method utilized to create their 2022 debut No Island, the far-flung party convened in person in Kingston, NY for a long weekend of live studio recording.

The results are undeniably compelling. The band’s signature cyclonic energy is simultaneously augmented and refined with the approach of real-time collaboration. After tracking three days’ worth of group improvisations, weirdly-born songs, and other spontaneous creations, the hours of material were edited with a similar intensity. Half-hour jams became three-minute ragers and fragments were looped into infinity, calling on the same spliced aesthetic as some of the most adventurous material by Can, Faust, or more recently the experimental production of the International Anthem camp. The stereo field has been torn apart and sewn together again, rerouted with strange and mesmerizing left turns. Vignettes of ambiguous construction, both tightly coiled and exploding, revolve around themselves, gathering intensity and mass, coalescing into something greater than the sum of its parts.

'Demonstrably False' swells into existence like a motorik tidepool, tossing fauna onto the shoreline where it sprouts legs with a steady gait lying readily in wait within them. The controlled frenzy of 'Sleeptraining' marks a determined dash to a patch of reeds that are given form by the propulsive and minimal 'Clean Blue Shelf,' where lush terror and the balm of shelter seem equally likely to dwell. 'Grief in the Garden' describes itself like the eventual, fleeting triumph of eyeing the sun as it rises to declare the end of a starless night.

'Smudged Textile' seems another gesture from the sun, where it begins its work of burning swaths of cloud away to uncover the stark and perfect sky; it is around here that the sensation of flight becomes all but irresistible. The aerial coolness of 'Aren’t They All' maintains a reassuring pace much more like a heartbeat than a flapping of wings, which flows naturally into 'Soft Hands,' a piece that widens and ultimately splits the perception, somehow evoking an even, landbound march even as it continues to narrate that endless, gliding flight. 'Short Acting' is blissfully ambiguous in its suggestion, managing to hint at the vault of heaven before descending unhurriedly but inevitably back to earth. 'From Here on Out Nothing Changes' completes the vast arc, teeming as it is with the wild and singular energy of conscious life.

Where No Island was born out of distance and murk, these songs breathe and erupt in close quarters. Though the band isn't necessarily concerned with finding new levels of clarity, there’s a newfound power in the steady drive of Shelley’s unmistakable rhythmic style, and the unexpected interplay that builds on this foundation. Big Hotel is the sound of what happens in the rare and intriguing moments when Winged Wheel are all in the same room."—Jen Powers, March 2024

17 tracks of punk rock / skate rock from San Diego, CA recorded 1987-89

Jayne/Wayne County's most audacious album is also possibly among the most important albums of its age. Released in 1979 just as the new wave was teetering on the brink of some kind of bold step forward, Things Your Mother Never Told You was one of the sudden shoves which sent it sprawling into its destiny. Electro-punk starts here. Producer David Cunningham takes only a portion of the credit; in years to come he would lead the Flying Lizards into the realm of heavily stylized electronica. But County's songs match his ambitions all the way, from the harsh, grating soundscapes behind "C3"'s muttered imprecations to the soft-spoken paranoia of "Waiting for the Marines," and onto "Berlin," the song that put into words everything David Bowie (among others) tried to convey about that city via image and insinuation. It's not all electro-art smarts, of course. "Boy With the Stolen Face" and the pouting, punishing "Wonder Woman" are archetypal Electric Chairs - a reminder of how, at the band's very best, they could run the Rolling Stones close in the swaggering rock & roller stakes - and the murder mystery "Wall City Girl" could have fallen off a forgotten volume of Nuggets or Pebbles. The title track, meanwhile, doesn't simply seethe with all the promise -- sexual, social, and societal -- which made County the superstar (s)he so very nearly was, it also lets listeners know why no one has ever truly snatched that crown away. (All Music)

'Horny Tears From Hell' combines a fusion of sounds from ominous genres that collide together in a dark, hauntingly endearing manner. Hard rock escalating electrocuted riffs slide you back onto your childhood sofa, Guitar-Hero guitar resting on your chest as you hear your pal play 'Through The Fire And Flames' on expert difficulty. Doomy metal aesthetics avalanche you into sweaty, hilariously middle-aged death pits at your local black facaded headbanger joint. Setting up camp in O'tool Studio just outside of Berlin, Wax Legs bugged out to create something that seeks musical integrity. Keeping some natural amp hums and hisses whilst adding eerie noises from worlds we don't want to find.