BRAINxTOILET

Utterly guttural Southern grind. Forceful, massive, chaotic, relentless....and fukk is it fast. Choice cut is "Infinite Regret" if only for the (slightly) slower kinda '90s sounding guitar part that creeps in just before the robotic lurch/squeal/mini mosh, but each of those parts whizz by in just a couple of seconds. This 2013 release from North Carolina's BRAINxTOILET requires maximum attention, and maximum volume comes highly recommended. 

BRAINxTOILET

MANIA FOR CONQUEST

MANIA FOR CONQUEST deliver perfectly executed light speed DBeat hardcore. Sometimes you think you know exactly what to expect, you just don't know how good it's going to be - and this is one of those times. They hit every base, and even the atypical diversions ("Noise For Peace," for example) aren't exactly surprising, but fukk do these North Carolina mutants do everything right. You hear a part coming and you think "oh shit - I bet they are gonna do this other thing next!" and then they do the thing but it's faster and tighter and so much better than you though it was gonna be....and this is going to keep happening while you listen, until you find yourself stomping around your room with clenched fists. You've got both demos in the DL today, and certified banger status is guaranteed. 

ARE WE DOOMED TO REPEAT THE MISTAKES OF THE PAST? // DESPAIR CONTINUES

MENTHOL

Me and John were half in the bag when these mutants took the floor by storm in an Oklahoma City garage back in February. OK...maybe 2/3 in the bag, but you get the idea. Snarling filthy old punk, the shit swings and drips with undeniable attitude, and when the beat drops on "Cold Glass," that Riot City-by-way-of-Midwest-dirt-punk beat has never sounded so sweet. Guitars are fukkn fierce...shit, the whole thing is fierce. Listen to the vocals on "Idiot." Trust me. Three certified bangers from MENTHOL, with some killer uncredited sounds on the flip...

VANISHED

INFECCIÓN

Drunk sounding Spanish language punk from North Carolina, INFECCIÓN manage to sound like a time and place that is very far from their reality. From catchy ass shaking punk when they drop a mid tempo swerve, to breakneck chaos with indescribably piercing high end guitars when they pick up the pace. Their gallop is one of the weirdest things I've heard put to tape, and those guitars sometimes sound like D. Boon playing hardcore...all of that with a swinging bass and lazy vocal shouts? This 2012 demo is a total winner.

TANTO SEXO, TANTO GONORREA

BLACKBALL

Make a fist. Examine it to make sure the fist is as lethal as possible. Take a deep breath, and plunge that fist into your gut with all of the force that you can muster...and repeat. I'm trying to prepare you for the feeling you are going to have when you ingest these three songs. I wish I could do more. "Bone To Pick" is so seemingly simple, but after you catch your breath and regain your composure and try to figure out what is actually going on in that trainwreck of riffs, you'll probably just give up and go back to punching yourself again. I mean, what choice do you have? You're just going to wrap yourself in the mid tempo mosh false-security blanket of "Blank Meridian" before getting dropped by the pure steamrolling force of "You Climb, You Lose." You've lost before you even started...so clench, be strong, submit.

BLACKBALL

HANGING ROTTEN

Filthy and primitive grind that slips periodically into bouts of classic Southern sludge. HANGING ROTTEN deliver both with venom, and if you can imagine BUZZOV•EN dishing out sub-minute bursts of grind then you're starting to get the right idea. Standout track is "Regret," which is thirty of the brutalist seconds ever and features a blast that isn't even human, but there's nothing on this demo that I don't want to listen to again. These tracks were released on wax by Putrid Filth Conspiracy and I see the record in used bins with shocking frequency (the two extra tracks on the B side of that LP are scrape-your-jaw-off-the-floor good), but until you wise up, I offer you a digital version of the initial cassette release.

HANGING ROTTEN

NO TOMORROW

In order to have a good DBeat band, you need to have riffs. The drum beat isn't the hard part, it's making that drum beat seem like it's necessary...and that's what North Carolina's NO TOMORROW do on this demo. Riffs for days, killer leads and throaty crust vocals, everything that you need is here. This creamer came out a few years ago, and it has five tracks. You're welcome.

NO TOMORROW

MIDNIGHT PLUS ONE

I should know better, but I tend to spend a few hours before every trip and/or tour reloading some kind of digital music playing device with a new batch of killer jams meant as a soundtrack for my journey. I almost never listen to music while I'm on tour. So every time I come home from tour and/or a trip I have a digital music playing device filled with fresh and new jams to listen to while I commute or pump iron (mostly the former). Tonight on my ride home, I was reminded that '80s Spanish punk is really good, and that the 2013 full length from North Carolina's MIDNIGHT PLUS ONE is one of the most original sounding and totally amazing records I've heard in ages. I realized this after I came back from tour with the wax in tow a few months back, but there's nothing like biking between cars with a beer in your hand and being transported around the globe by "Catacombs" (sic) to kick you in the gut and remind you what it is you really need. Equal parts snotty post punk, '90s DIY/emo and a collision of grunge with current indie (seriously, it's all of those things), this is easily one of may favorite records in recent memory if only because it is more concerned with being and doing than with being awesome or doing what is expected. "Hallway" is a legitimate college radio slam dunk, "Anxious Snail" is CURRENT meets Gravity, and "Modern Witch" is just fukkn perfect (new millennium retro/goth/post punks take note). The guitars meander even when they lead, but the vocals are the obvious focus - breathy and intense while completely avoiding pretension....I could continue washing this record's hypothetical balls for a few more paragraphs or I could implore you to listen for yourself. I will opt for the latter, anyone who desires more hypothetical ball washing will need to send me a personal request.

MIDNIGHT PLUS ONE

GORGONIZED DORKS // DAN GARNELLI

Did you know the GORGONIZED DORKS have well over 100 releases? That's an average of more than one release per month for their almost ten year existence. Impressive, no? Barely controlled and meticulously restrained power electronics make up their side of this split - it makes me a bit anxious when I listen to it, which is almost certainly the point. DAN GARNELLI (for what it's worth, the To Live A Lie dude is responsible for this alter-ego) on the flip are a more focused and singular animal. Instead of a wall of sound, we get one layer of madness that flirts with sparse and primitive electronic noise. I keep coming back to this side, the last five minutes are particularly engaging...good night.

GORGONIZED DORKS // DAN GARNELLI

PROTESTER

I sincerely hope that PROTESTER evolve from a one man studio project into a functioning band, because the thought of perhaps seeing this live gets me pretty fukkn juiced. If you like hardcore, then you need this in your life. Now. Aside from that, all I can say is that I want more.

PROTESTER

STEPDAD SS

Ugly, disgusting hardcore punk from some of the dudes who brought you the sounds of NÖ POWER. But you see, there are hooks galore in this onslaught, and even though "Overpower" sounds kinda like a glorious trainwreck (especially when it disintegrates into the guaranteed pitstarter "Media Nightmare") the song is catchy as shit. That's what STEPDAD SS are great at, taking filthy US hardcore and shoving it into your face in the form of something that is not just palatable, but in the form of something that is delicious.

STEPDAD SS

NÖ PÖWER

This is exactly what you people want from me on Mondays: chaotic and frantic reverb drenched thrashing hardcore from the backwards ass woods of North Carolina, where the ponx make this music because they need to, not because it's cool. NÖ PÖWER payed Terminal Escape a visit a few months back, and now they are gracing you maniacs with a second session filled with blazing distorted guitars and chanted vocals manipulated to the nth degree...fortunately underneath all this chaos - if you are willing to look - are some fukkn brilliant hardcore songs. Side one features seven jams (including one of the most simplistically crushing intros to have graced my ears in recent memory), while the flip has their first demo, which you can get into by going here if you need more (you do), since it seemed silly to rip the damned thing twice. Seriously killer shits.

NO AXIS

Band is here.

CORROSION OF CONFORMITY

Last year the world was all a buzz about the mighty return of CORROSION OF CONFORMITY. The seminal North Carolina band was going to unleash their '80s fury on eager punks everywhere in the form of the lineup that brought us the Animosity LP. Rejoice!! Gone are the wasted 1990s and the groove metal and the (almost) top 40 hits and the revolving door of sterile "musicians" with long hair slogging away on the third tier cock rock touring circuit - C.O.C. are fukkn back!! They booked a west coast tour, and the punks were salivating - we've all seen the videos, and we know the records inside and out - early C.O.C.  were the fastest and most sinister thing going. They were from North Carolina (and they looked the part), and the only thing more fierce than Reed behind the kit was Mike motherfukkn Dean with a four string assault weapon strapped to his chest - this band took the BLACK FLAG model, made it faster and re-tooled it for the second coming of hardcore. There was a show booked in San Francisco with a ton of bands I was admittedly less interested in, and then I found out that an old friend's band was playing across town - so I skipped the show, convincing myself that it was probably going to suck anyway. It was an easy argument to make; CORROSION OF CONFORMITY had a really killer run, but it lasted only a few years until their first break up, and the two decades that followed are filled with utterly forgettable schlock that a small but determined handful of punks keep trying to make excuses for (no, Deliverance is not "pretty good for a rock record," it totally sucks). 1990s C.O.C. has about as much relevance as COLLECTIVE SOUL, so how could the people responsible for that crap possibly deliver anything other than a novelty punk reunion performance, good only for old timers and ex-punks who haven't seen a hardcore show in years, right? So I was on my way home from my friend's show when I got a message: "Got an extra ticket to the C.O.C. show - it's yours for free if you want it" (thanks, Paul), and in an instant all of my convincing evaporated - "FUKKN Animosity!!" so I jumped in a cab.

CORROSION OF CONFORMITY

4 track 1985 demo, aka The Good Shit

So what's the moral of the story? If you have seen the supposedly-once-again-awesome CORROSION OF CONFORMITY, then you know that they sucked. Sure, they were technically proficient, but it was sterile and limp. Getting a group of accomplished rock musicians to play hardcore is easy - we punks aren't typically virtuosos. But what I saw was a room full of eager fans trying to get excited while three accomplished rock musicians slogged through songs that they seemingly hadn't given a shit about for 25 years, and it was painful. It was the epitome of "going through the motions," a band who can no longer pull an audience with their commercial music falling back on what little street cred they have left to pry another $25 from the wallets of a handful of dedicated hopefuls. 

ESCAPE IS TERMINAL

I started another cassette blog, the world apparently has more cassettes than Terminal Escape can contain. Escape Is Terminal will exclusively feature live recordings, and will be updated 2-3 times a week. Today's post is a C.O.C. set from Washington  DC, recorded in 1985, when they still had teeth.

NÖ PÖWER

It's Monday, do I really need to say anything else? You know what you are here for, and NÖ PÖWER is it. It's noisy, the guitars jerk off on random tangents and the vocals sound like they were recorded in a a cave. Like I said...it's Monday.

NÖ PÖWER

This tape was brought to me (and thus to you) by Statue Story, who are also responsible for the MOENDA tape that blew your minds last spring. Respect. Band can be found here.

JOINT DAMAGE

I saw a thing on a flyer that described JOINT DAMAGE as somewhere between DEATHSIDE and DEAD BOYS. I think that description is foolish and inaccurate, but I also think that it gives you a good indication of how you will feel after you listen to these five tunes. FUNCTIONAL BLACKOUTS meets DEAD AND GONE might be closer to the comparison that I would use, but band comparisons like this are rather trite, so I would serve you (the follower) better if I just told you that I think JOINT DAMAGE fukkn rule hard and sound creepy and garage-y but not even remotely pretentious (a common but unfortunate side effect with many bands tagged with the "garage" label), and that I think you should listen to this band. If comparisons aren't your thing, and "members of" tags are what get your juices flowing, then JOINT DAMAGE has member(s) of LOGIC PROBLEM and BRAIN FLANNEL. But "members of" comparisons should hold about as much weight as "this sounds like" tags (which is to say: very little weight) and you should really just get on board with "JOINT DAMAGE rules." Isn't that endorsement enough? 

JOINT DAMAGE

STRIPMINES

North Carolina's Suburbanite Records fucking nail it again with this three song ripper from STRIPMINES. Japanese influenced - and southern rage drenched - hardcore the kind of shit that really makes my blood boil. The middle track is a mid tempo plodding number that might fall flat on its own, but it is bookended by two total scorchers. There is no reason why this band shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as heavyweights from the south like DEATHREAT, DOUBLE NEGATIVE, BURY THE LIVING...you get the drill, this rules.

FAILSAFE demo

Suburbanite is here, you can get this and the THIEVES in one convenient package.

THIEVES

THIEVES are a current, and currently burly, hardcore band from North Carolina.  When I say "North Carolina hardcore" I think CORROSION OF CONFORMITY, and when i think "CORROSION OF CONFORMITY" I think the 1980s hardcore, and when i think "1980s hardcore" I think MINOR THREAT, and now that I put that all together: THIEVES kinda sound like COC playing MINOR THREAT songs.  This is really fkkn great, no bullshit hardcore with everything played full out and/or to the max, whichever form of praise you prefer.  There is a B-side, it's all live shit from later in 2009 and it kills, but seeing as how you can easily buy this shit for cheap from these folks right here and support the band, it seems pretty silly for me to just give it away.  Cheers.

THIEVES