TAG: 2012

I need more of this. Go buy it.

Slow and sludgey with just enough rock. 

The last 3rd drags a bit, but it's still a great song. 

Buy this, and their other releases at kowloonwalledcity.bandcamp.com

The world needs more dirty rock tinged with metal/hardcore. Like a lot more.

You can download the album this song is from for “name your own price” (free) from Ladder Devils’ bandcamp page, as well as a couple of older releases.

One of my favorite local Detroit bands right now. 

Go see them, the show is fantastic. 

The first Jodis album did nothing for me at all. Nothing. Not many of Hydrahead’s 2009 releases did. But I guess if you put out 20 releases in a single year (according to wikipedia), they’re probably not going to all be gold. Turns out I actually only bought one thing Hydrahead released that year, an Oxbow 7".

Aside from some old HH stand-bys like Cave-In, Torche and Big Business, most of the labels 2009 output would fall under what Label head Aaron Turner refered to as “challenging (i.e. unmarketable)” in his going out of business statement. The Jodis album released that year, at least for me, fit squarely in that camp.

Or maybe I just never gave it (or 18 other releases that year) a fair shake. I’m sure thats the attitude that helped drive Hydrahead out of business. My bad dudes. I love your label, even when I didn’t buy things from it. I always respected that you put out exactly what you wanted to, even if I hated it (Xasther, Gridlink) or thought it was way to expensive ($25 for a single 12").

With all that said, I love this track. I slept on Jodis, hard. I also gave the first album another go. Damnit, that thing is great too. 

Buy both album. 

There is nothing groundbreaking here. Just solid “pretty” post-rock. 

You can get the album for free from their label’s Bandcamp page. 

Super catching punk that’s not pop punk at all, with a touch of old school hardcore. It's perfect.

Their album, The EP LP, is 9 songs in 12 minutes. Not a second of filler. Buy it. 

I’m going to do something I hate when reviewers do, compare a band to another band, then ride that single train of thought right into the ground….

Drive like Jay who? Few bands (that don’t have John Reis in them) have pulled of the Drive Like Jehu sound as well as Cut Teeth, right down to me getting distracted and turning it off before the album is over.

With that said, Cut Teeth are by no means a Jehu cover/rip-off band. They have a great rock/punk thing going on with touches of hardcore, which I guess could also be a description of Drive Like Jehu.

Similarities to other things aside, I truly do like this album quite a bit, and the Ben Sears art is a nice bonus. 

Stream the whole album here. Or buy it on vinyl here.  

Pop punk with a slight emo touch that I love as much now as I did 15 years ago. They were a favorite local band for years.

Backstory: Three high school kids in 1995/1996 start a Queers/Mr. T Experience/ a million other bands rip-off band. They write 41 songs in about four years, release one ten-song cassette, play shows constantly, and become their own band. Decide that pop-punk isn’t cool anymore, change their name to Hunter Rose, and get more emo/mathy. Then they break up.

2008, two guys decided to get the band back together. They recruit three other guys and start writing new songs. They play some shows, and in 2009, they record a new album, then promptly stop being a band. In 2012, a favorite local venue closes so they have a reunion show and released a cassette of the material they had recorded three years earlier. They’ll probably break up/just stop playing again, but who knows.

This song is from their just-released album called “This is About Us.” Buy it here for super cheap.

And here is everything the original line up did between 1996-1999, for free.

I’ve been waiting for this record since the first time I listened to Chicago Bowls a year or so ago.

I loved the hell out of those 4 songs, I’m a little less in love with these 10. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still super stoked about the album and have been playing it constantly since I bought it last week (which you should also do), but the slow songs just aren’t hitting me right at the moment. I have only had the album for 5 days, though, so we’ll see.

I’ve spent the last 2 hours listening to the same 8 Singles Mothers songs trying to decide which one is the best.

It has not been an easy decision, and I’m probably going to second-guess it even after it's posted.

The official quote for this band seems to be: “It’s like Craig Finn fronting Black Flag in early ’90s DC, yet not at all.” His voice and lyric style are pretty Finn-ish, especially on their Wild Party ep, but just like the quote, but it's not.

Check everything out on their Bandcamp page. The Wild Party ep is name your own price, and the self-titled record is $5 CA or $5 for a vinyl copy from Deathwish Inc.

A little too close to home as of late.