SHRAPNEL

Welsh bangers SHRAPNEL left a criminally small output before calling it a day, but with this and the Restricted Existence demo in your stable, I guess it's not really necessary to crank out a bunch of crap to beef up your discography. UK82 styled punk circa 1983 with gloriously amateurish lyrics ("We're just working class // So they can stuff their education right up their ass") that look at the world with the bleak and uncertain frustration of 1980s teenagers. Pogo your asses off.

THEY CONTROL OUR DESTINY FOR WE LIVE IN MISERY

Accompanying this post is a 35+ minute live set from SHRAPNEL, also from 1983, which can be found on ESCAPE IS TERMINAL.

RECTIFY

I posted the Ebullition demo last year, and here is the follow up release from the Welsh band RECTIFY. They were an ocean away, but cranked out a sound that was right in line with their contemporaries in the US (mostly New York).  There's a touch of cock rock in the vocals, and even more so in the occasional tasty leads, but it suits the tunes just fine...I picture this dudes being stiff and uninteresting to watch live, the kind of band you keep watching because they can all play their asses off but you want them to just unleash. '90s US hardcore meets HELMET? It totally works. 

Virtual Reality

THE SECLUDED

File this right along with THE CONVULSIONS and SMILES, but Wales' SECLUDED sit back a little mellower, with an almost street punk groove at times. This 1982 demo was the bands only recording, and it is well worthy of whatever legendary status it might have - each one of these tunes is infectious and I can't rewind the tape fast enough when it's over. Fucking perfect driving UK punk with bouncing bass lines that positively demand a pogo pit right this very second, even if you are the only punk in the room. Smiffy, Stu, Lou and Brainy fucking nailed this one, I only wish they had given me more.

WE DESPISE SOCIETY

FOREIGN LEGION

Welsh punks FOREIGN LEGION frequently get lumped in with Oi bands, though I have never really figured out why.  This shit is just quality drunken sloppy UK punk...there's hardly even a catchy chorus to raise a fist and sing gang vocals along to, and what self respecting Oi band would let that shit slide?  NO self respecting Oi band, that's who!  This 30 minute live set is a nice chunk of mayhem that gets steadily drunker as the night goes on.  I'm not really sure why the band plays "Message From Nowhere" twice, because the crowd seems to have trickled down to just a few drunk friends by the end of the set (though there is one fan who really really wants to hear the "Hokey Cokey" a second time - by the way, we call it the "Hokey Pokey" in the states, I never knew of this other version until I listened to FOREIGN LEGION). Honestly, the inebriated disinterest of those in attendance is kinda my favorite thing about this tape, recorded in Reading in 1985.  Good songs, don't get me wrong, but I rather enjoy trying to figure out whether or not FOREIGN LEGION even wanted to be at this show themselves.  They are still active today, and have unleashed a few LPs since their activity picked up in the early 00s, so I suppose playing the odd clunker didn't dissuade them all that much, eh?

LIVE IN READING

PUNK INVASION!

This one is a total killer, if I do say so myself. The bands I was already familiar with pretty put Punk Invasion in the "win" column: SCREAM (DC), FUNERAL DRESS (Belgium) , COWBOY KILLERS (Wales), CULTURE SHOCK (England), and the mighty fucking Japanese band THE CRUCK, who deliver tracks as good as their offerings on Get Back The Discharged Arrow LP. But I was also treated to my first exposure to THE WORMS from Finland, brilliant songs from D.S.S. (West Germany), and Swedes SPEED TEAM. The title says "World HC Sampler," and that's exactly what you get!

25 UNRELEASED TRAX!!!

STRENGTH OF WEAKNESS

More stuff here from Wales. Its seems that STRENGTH OF WEAKNESS only gave us this one demo, though from the sound of it I wouldn't be at all surprised if they had changed their name and tries to go a touch more commercial. The title track of the demo has guitar hooks worthy of the classic early CULT (or DEATH CULT) stuff, and though "Borstal Boy" isn't quite as brilliant as SHAM 69's "Borstal Breakout," it's certainly in the same league. The opener, "Question Song," is the sort of slow reggae infused UK punk that I hated for years, and now have grown to really really enjoy (much to my own dismay), and Keep Going closes with the rather plodding "Time Runnin' Out" which I admit ends things with a bit of a whimper, but the other three tracks more than make up for whatever you might find lacking. As is typical, I know little about these cats...they came from Bridgend and this was recorded in Cardiff in 1984.

Keep Going

SIZZORZ

So, I pretty much use Chris and KFTH as my gauge for how much time I should or should not spend researching a new, unknown (to me) band. If he doesn't know shit about them, then chances are really good that my unconnected ass isn't going to do much better. Perhaps this is a good idea, but then again, perhaps I am just lazy. Today's SIZZORZ post makes me think I might be lazy, because the title of this demo is clearly Land Of The Free, but here it's listed as a self titled tape. uh-oh.

SIZZORZ are textbook anarcho punk, hailing from Wales circa 1982-3, these tracks are moody, kinda dark, slightly off kilter, and totally punk, even if their logo looks like it was ripped off from a late 80s surf company.

As a very important and rather personal side note, today I discovered that my favorite taqueria has gone out of business. For those of you who have never spent time in San Francisco, I realize that this might not seem like a very big deal, but for the people who HAVE spent time here (or live here), you certainly understand that this is a terrible situation. Surely, Casa Mexicana can serve me a satisfactory burrito, and of course Papa Lote dishes up a fine side container of table salsa, but they are not MY taqueria, and therefore I will feel a little lost until I can settle into a new place. A place that can wrap black refried beans and Spanish rice inside a wheat tortilla with just the right amount of tofu (with ranchero sauce)...a place with the salsa bar that has avocado salsa...a place where the guy is always rude and the ladies are always kinda distant and disinterested...a place where you have to walk right through the kitchen (past the guy making tomorrow's black refried beans), just to go to the bathroom. A place where the perfect food comes in a fucking tube.

Azteca, RIP

SHRAPNEL

There's a good chunk of information readily available on SHRAPNEL, and several other recordings have been posted (probably these as well), but these tracks are just too fucking great for me to chalk it up to "everyone has probably heard this," and move on to something else (although tomorrow's post is gonna be a true killer.) These tracks made up SHRAPNEL's 4th demo, recorded in 1986 for (I think) a split with SYMBOL OF FREEDOM, who were also from Wales and shared a member with SHRAPNEL later on. I especially enjoy the drums on "Root Of All Evil," they seem like they are trying so hard, and only succeeding about 75% of the time. The audio dips out for a second during "They Are All Wrong," hopefully because someone drunkenly pressed record on a boom box in Wales in 1987 (a fella can dream, can't he?). Charging UK anarcho punk that will have your fist waving furiously, tuck in.

THREE PIECES OF SHRAPNEL

RECTIFY

Wales. Not the ones with the "h," that swim in the sea, but the ones that are a part of the southwest England country area. And yes, I fully realize that there was a somehow incorrect use of singular and plural in that sentence, but I: a) can't really figure out how to fix it, and b) don't care because I am a punk. Folks belittle the 90s constantly for its contribution to punk....the music went mainstream in the form of grunge (which was really just 70s rock, wasn't it? don't get me wrong, I think MUDHONEY fukken rules, I'm just sayin' that maybe they are a rock band) and people seem to think that punk died? No way man, and I don't say that simply because I was a punk in the 90s, I say that because volumes of killer punk came out in that oh so docile and Clintonian decade. RECTIFY hail from Wales (which is almost a rhyme if you say it out loud, but I wouldn't, cause people would stare and think you were odd), and Ebullition is their first demo. Their sound would have fit perfectly alongside US bands from the same era (ECONOCHRIST, ANTISCHISM, DEAD SILENCE) and there are even the less melodic moments that remind me of Pain Of Mind era NEUROSIS. If you like this, I suggest their EP available here, and if you are interested even more beyond that, two of these dudes are now serving time in THIS SYSTEM KILLS, but honestly, I think this demo blows all that shit away. Typical, isn't it? "I only like the demo" and blah blah blah.

RECTIFY - Ebullition