[engl] A year characterised by a pandemic, lockdowns, political ineptitude and oh, so much staying the fuck at home is enough to make anyone want to blow off a little steam. One overused piece of glib idiocy at the start of the Trump era was ‘at least punk will be good’, as though punk can only be good when it flips the bird to right-wing, authritarian shit-headery rather than amplifying anything else. Sure, there’ve been plenty of great records over the last four years, but sometimes (across the whole of 2020, for instance) the levels of anger, fear and frustration can be overwhelming and you need a little space to goof around. For some of us, though, goofing around is serious business - and here’s a record to illustrate that perfectly. Smirk is the solo project of Public Eye’s Nick Vicario, and while you’ll hear similarities to his main outfit across these 12 excellent tracks (from the off, you can imagine how PE might refine garage-carved nuggets like ‘S Construction’), here there’s less sang-froid and more… well, fun. The reference points you might expect are still there (Killed By Death comps and Wire, especially their 80s period, to name a couple), but with added scuzz and something even approaching joy - the whirling synths of ‘Eyes Conversing’ feel ominous, but they also convey a sense of delirious excitement. And dammit, it’s all fucking cool too. With a name like Smirk, your first instinct might well be to wonder whether Vicario is laughing at us. The first line of the album (a defiant ‘it’s not funny’) should tell you that this isn’t the case, but the album certainly finds him in playful mood. The tasteful acoustic instrumental ‘Lude 2’ descends deliberately into farce as it speeds up and slows down like a turntable alternating speeds, or a record warping in real time. Obviously you’re gonna play this on vinyl, dear reader, purchased directly from Drunken Sailor or Feel It Records, but we all know that those other listeners - not us, the other guys - are gonna chiefly listen on phones or through laptop speakers. It’s a 37-second sketch, but it prompts questions of what it means for technology to fail nowadays - can a record warp when it’s all bound up in digital files? Where does the disconnect lie between the player and the record; when the objects exist only virtually? Am I overthinking this? Oh, almost certainly, but it’s a record that’ll kick that noggin of yours into overdrive. Get involved, get addicted and laugh along.

[engl] Pittsburgh’s feral punks Snarling Dogs return to bite the hand that feeds them with their debut self-titled LP Snarling Dogs. This unhinged offering kicks out 11 revved-up, slobbering 77-esque punk tracks that will have wasted, spikey punks diving into the pit never to return. Songs like “Nothing Left” are charged and chock full of hits sounding like a demented mix of Raw Power era Stooges with the speed and aggression of The Damned or The Dead Boys.vThe record expands from there with songs like “Hour at a Time”- a locked in dirgy, psychedelic stroll through crime ridden city streets. From there songs like “Enemy” rip through the void with manic energy- fast, raw and visceral almost stepping into early hardcore territory. While the record has these intense dynamic shifts, Snarling Dogs glue it all together with their cohesive live rock n roll energy. Snarling Dogs is the perfect escape from the mundanity of life.vChug that 40 oz on your lunch break, smoke that entire pack of cigs, and take a piss on your boss’s car. There are two dogs in you. Now it's time to set the Snarling Dog free.

[engl] SNOB have snarled around the local London scene since 2014, leaving a trail of two self-released 7 inches and adulation in their wake. It’s now the year 2018, and SNOB finally bring us their fully fledged follow up of tense hardcore punk that’s characterised by frantic snotty dictation, agitated guitar lines and pummelling rhythms. The ten songs on the self-titled 12” are filled with disparities – sneering hi-energy, sentient meat and potato, adroit silliness, agitated apathy – creating a bleak and angry sonic force. The whip-smart whip-short lyrics are almost a poetry-to-arms that rails against all of the absurdities of modern living. To these ears, SNOB is like if you left YouTube tabs of ICONS OF FILTH, PENI, NOG WATT and JETSET/ BLOEBAD all playing at once, and it somehow sounded wonderful.

[engl] Oh jawohl, Swiss punkrock veterans the Snotty Cheekbones are back with their 4th album, and ofcourse it's on Monster Zero! The new longplayer is called 'A Broken Nose And The Good Fight', contains 11 fresh yet familiar songs and simply rocks ginormously. The 4-piece from Winterthur brings back the glory days of early Lookout! Records while throwing in some Clash and other more rebellious sounding acts. In our humble opinion, the world needs some more empathy, less hate and a massive dose of three-chord magic. Hey Ho, Hopp Schwiiz!

[engl] Debut seven track album from half Melbourne-half NYC Soakie. It's total no nonsense blistering, fast and energetic hardcore with a vocalist that sounds like she has been chewing on glass everyday since birth. She has a real rasp and anger that is part Nick Blinko (Rudimentary Peni) and Part Vi Subversa (Poison Girls) but the music is totally pummelling and would sit perfectly for those that love pogo punk, Teddy And the Frat Girls, The Feederz and Good Throb in equal measures. Boys On Stage is a real standout with the lyric “There’re too many fucking boys on stage” sticking in your head from one listen.

[engl] Back in the late 70's, a small Louisiana town would quietly become home to "The Band That Souled The World". The Soul Patrol hailed from the northwestern Louisiana town of Many (pronounced man-ny), just across the Toledo Bend Reservoir from Texas. Junior high pals Buckshot Coxe (vocals, guitar) and Kenny Weaver (vocals, bass, percussion) laid the groundwork for The Soul Patrol, later graduating from Many High and crossing state lines to jam in Denton, TX while Buckshot briefly attended college. Upon returning to Many, drummer Kerwin Alexander - and his particularly loose and soulful style - was added to round out the trio, now jamming in their basement space known as THE CAVE. While their live shows at small clubs went over poorly - Weaver recalls, "We were kinda anti-everything in the area and no one got us at the time" - The Soul Patrol made it into a long-since-forgotten local studio to cut a two song demo in 1979. From there, the band decided to order a custom pressing of 50 copies (!) on their own STUD Records imprint. Almost all of the sleeveless 45s were given away to friends and at parties, vanishing into near-total obscurity for over four decades. Oh yes, THAT single - well it's simply jaw dropping stuff. A double-sided monster that simultaneously kills across the hard rock/proto-punk/Bloodstains/Killed By Death spectrums. Loud, raw, loose, Southern, and WAY ahead of the curve. "Mara" is a bona fide rocker, anchored by Buckshot's brilliant vocal and guitar lines. But hell, "Take Back the Night" truly steals the show, with an incredible fuzz guitar tone driving the main riff home while Coxe screams "HERE WE GO!" to kick off the side. An incredible punk moment, almost like the cocaine mix of "Raw Power" Stooges bashing into the verse riff of "Sub-mission" by The Sex Pistols. And it's all totally replete with attitude, excelling in the same department as fellow US first wave punk regionalists like The Crap Detectors, The Gizmos, and The (Iowa) Dogs. The Soul Patrol existed until 1981, turning in a second 45 and LP on the White Horse label - neither of which quite match the veracity and sheer raw excellence of their STUD 45. Shortly after their self-titled LP, Buckshot Coxe moved to Amsterdam and would later pass there, followed in passing by Kerwin Alexander. Reissued and widely available for the first time ever, THE SOUL PATROL's debut 45 has been carefully transferred and remastered from Kenny Weaver's personal copy (one of a handful known in existence) and paired up with a newly created picture sleeve by resident Louisiana punk Drew Owen (Sick Thoughts). First 250 copies on translucent orange vinyl with 500 more on black, all with hand-stamped picture sleeves accompanied by an insert featuring liners from Kenny Weaver and a small treasure trove of reproduced ephemera from The Soul Patrol archives, plus a download code.

[engl] Spent Flesh takes highlights of American hardcore in the 1980’s and effortlessly blend them with pop punk, noise, and some avant-garde elements. This collection of songs is constantly mutating at break neck speed, all served up in a wonderful mess that blasts thru 9 songs in just over 13 minutes!

[engl] Straight forward hardcore punk with members of Mondo Gecko, Kids Insane and Useless ID

[engl] Hailing from the South East of England this Kent based 4 piece features ex members of UK punk bands Southport, 7 Day Conspiracy and More Than Normal. After listening to some old demo tracks Dan had been holding onto for years, Spoilers began in 2015. Fast forward 3 years, SPOILERS have played countless shows all over the UK and Europe sharing a stage with some of the biggest names in punk rock such as Snuff, NOFX, Lagwagon, Face to Face, Alkaline Trio, and A Wilhelm Scream. Catchy vocal melodies mixed with riffs that are just as at home now as they would have been in the early Snuff period, played with an energy that rivals China Drum and Gorilla Biscuits in a fist fight with Osker. Spoilers are the type of act that are happy to let you believe they are a pop punk band then without notice slap you in the face with some melodic hardcore. “Spoilers turn in a sweat-drenched set of soulful and gruff punk rock. Marrying pop punk with shades of Gorilla Biscuits-esque hardcore. They hit the spot early. Melodies as big as houses” Vive le Rock Magazine

[engl] “New 12 song, 30 minuted LP. 3 years in the making. Dissonance and melody. Superchunk and hardcore,” guitarist and co-vocalist Daryl Gussin explains. Joined by drummer Adrian Tenney, the pair formed out of God Equals Genocide to create some lo-fi brilliance. Arriving about three years after the release of their debut 12? EP We Move, Gone, Gone, Gone is a jam-packed collection of swiftly delivered raucous-pretty hits, a sun-drenched living room window before & after being broken. The duo is comprised of drummer/vocalist Adrian Tenney (also of Badlands) and guitarist/vocalist Daryl Gussin, whose voices mesh sweetly & perfectly, layered over ferocious whirlwinds of guitar and drums. This one’s dying for you to play it loud and often. Angry, visceral and urgent. Essential.

[engl] Spread Joy may as well be their own musical genre. An immediate flavor and mercurial 'Qu'est-ce que c'est?' begin their second album with the 45 second opener "Ow". Coincidentally, the album spins at 45, just like Spread Joy's self-titled 2021 debut. The Chicago group came out of nowhere, mid-pandemic, with a stunning ten track LP on Feel It. Returning to the warm analog environment at Jamdek Recording Co., Spread Joy have truly honed their craft across these 17 minutes and 17 seconds. This is the kind of punk-forward music that is made to be heard and felt, far from the distorted mirror of the web. A group living free, moving at their own speed, and making music that will be remembered - that's Spread Joy, folks!

[engl] The Stabbing Jabs — vocalist Peter Aaron (Chrome Cranks), guitarists William G. Weber (Chrome Cranks, GG Allin & the Murder Junkies) and Chris Donnelly (Gang Green), drummer Andrew Jody (Barrence Whitfield & the Savages), and bassist Jamie Morrison — breathe fiery life into the type of tough, timeless rock ’n’ roll a generation had left for dead. Here it is, ready to make your life a living hell: an arsenal of hard, hammering tunes built on thick, cinder-block guitars. Blood-flecked screams. Dirty, fuzzy low end. Drums that swing as hard as they bash. And RIFFS. Riffs, riffs, and more riffs. Did we mention the riffs?

[engl] limited

[engl] 4 track unreleased studio EP recording from their Mushi era. The fact these tracks exist, and are as good and as high quality as they are truly the stuff dreams are made of if you are a fan of the Stalin. These aren’t demos, but full-fledged, intentionally recorded studio tracks that just never saw the light of day. This originally came out in 2023 in Japan to coincide with the 40th Anniversary of the Mushi LP, and sold out in mere hours, and remains prohibitively expensive on the second hand market. This is a one-time overseas pressing on General Speech, and includes identical artwork to the Japanese release, by Keizo Miyanishi who drew the cover of the Stalin’s “Trash” LP, and English liner notes from Inundow covering the discovery of these tracks. Truly essential to any fan of Japanese punk.

[engl] In July 2022 the Punk Rock Raduno festival in Bergamo, Italy celebrated 22 years of Stardumb Records (only because a certain pandemic prevented them from celebrating the label’s 20th and 21st birthday). The highlight of the celebration was a special once-in-a-lifetime set by The Stardumb All Star Band, which featured members of Lone Wolf, The Windowsill, The Manges, Zatopeks, The Apers and more, performing some of the people’s favorite songs from the label’s catalog. Available on limited colored vinyl!