[engl] A stunning combination of style, vision, and execution. Crime of Passing, alongside related projects like The Serfs and The Drin, are at the helm of Cincinnati, Ohio's vibrant post-punk underground. Led by Andie Luman's fervent vocals, Crime of Passing's self-titled debut album is a wondrously textured web of sound. Shades of early 80's post-punk, synth-driven electro pop, and heavier Industrial/Krautrock tones combine across an album both instantly memorable and futuristic. Nine cold tracks for a new dark age. limited on 300 copies.

[engl] Criminal Code from Tacoma, Washington, play an anthemic, sneakingly melodic mixture of post-punk and cacophony of raw wavy punk. Formed in 2011, they’ve just released several 7“s and their debut LP No Device on Deranged Records, a welcome shot in the vein (or kick in the teeth) to an increasingly ethereal genre. They took their Husker Du/Greg Sage influences and made it their own unique sound. The new 7“ harkens back to the raw, stripped down and primal intensity that characterised the early days of post punk, back when it was still considered just punk, only punk that was a little off and slightly more unsettling than usual. Criminal Code straight rip and rock with an urgency and rabid junkieunpredictability that was traded in long ago when post punk started investing wholeheartedly in synthesisers and chorus pedal collections and diverting down broodier pathways to goth and whatever-wave. Criminal Code are a perfect mess of contradictions, simultaneously full-bodied and forceful, and cold, distant and washed-out, like a hardcore heart in pale post punk skin, or vice versa. While specifically for Criminal Code’s European tour, the EP neatly coheres and expands on their Husker Du Over A Cliff guitars and post-post (post) Wipers despair/rage. Snag the EP on tour and dig hard!

[engl] "Autosarcophagy" was recorded, arranged and mixed between 2016 and 2017 and finally finished 2020. Featured here are 8 tracks recorded just prior their final 2017 US Tour. Cross Stitched Eyes continue to combine elements of postpunk and deathrock from the likes of early KILLING JOKE, AMEBIX and RUDIMENTARY PENI with more obscure psychedelic rock influences , odd timings and drone like compositions. Lyrically once again exploring with the darkest and twisted corners of the mind as well as personal nightmares and haunting experiences. - ""Autosarcophagy"" might be a slight musical departure from previous Cross Stitched Eyes recordings but you still smell the peni!

[engl] Decomposition, the second full-length by US / UK / German collective Cross Stitched Eyes, follows in the tradition of anarchist punk and demonised death rock (Rudimentary Peni, Amebix and Killing Joke). Embracing the many irrational and visceral shades of this style's darkest corners, the album decidedly rejects traditional copy-and-paste guidelines of musical conformity with a puncturing attitude. The harsher side of Cross Stitched Eyes derives directly from the band's artistic influences and its deconstructed presentation. Decomposition's leadoff track "We Follow" evokes reactions to seemingly unchanging lifestyles with a vitriolic diatribe. Others like "Animated Corpse" and "Earth's Defiant" display a lyrical depth seldom heard these days. At times benign, at others aggressive, Decomposition explores the complicated relationship between dark and light in a repulsive world filled with gloom. 12 new tracks recorded between 2010 and 2011 and mastered by Skott Brown of the Phantom Limbs.

[engl] Sweden's Cut City turns a respectful eye towards the gods of '80s post-punk on its debut album. Official reissue limited to 500 copies

[engl] The latest release from Duds is a deepening of the sinister sonic territory they have been exploring, in various forms, since they formed. Bass lines and percussion lope through the undergrowth while jagged guitars pierce the ears. Then there’s the brass section, which works less as a means of driving home a song’s point, than as a warning that whatever comes next is unlikely to be anything you expect. Lyrics are still somewhat hard to make out, emerging from the rhythmic chaos at intervals, as though you were listening to the recording of an Old Testament prophet, preaching from the ruins of the twenty first century. I don’t know what kind of band Duds are supposed to be. There are labels you could apply to them, terms like ‘wave’ and ‘punk’ with various prefixes designed to qualify the fact that they don’t really sound like anyone else. Immediate makes that fact all the more obvious and all the more compelling.

[engl] Arriving to the world for the first time, really–beyond the ears of the deep–digging few–Dale Jenkins’ Undesirable Elements, issued privately in the Washington, D.C. area circa 1985, is a homespun effort deserving of the audience and attention it never received upon initial release. Undesirable Elements–here expanded as Undesirable Element with appended bonus tracks–is a desolate and deconstructed album which touches on the subtleties and extremes of the human condition, and the nuances in between, across gnarled bits of proto–punk via abrasive, fuzzed guitars, and refracted mutant strains of British post–punk through a distinctly American underbelly sensibility. Drum–led and in–the–red, Undesirable Elements is a loose concept album of sorts, from the sympathetic pen of an innately skilled commentator. The album displays polemical disdain for the behavior of humans, insular views, and blindly moving forward on simple suggestion, while carrying a keen eye into the many textures of the mindscape of man. While you may hear occasional tears at aiming at the trends of the times, Jenkins’ direct, intensely personal and lyrically sophisticated material, combined with his charged attack, is in a realm all its own. Jenkins’ lyrics are nearly cinematic, like bite–sized scripts, or character vignettes, filled with wizened, introspective and radicalized perspective. The self–contained home–recording maverick was searching, sensitive, subversive, topical, yet several steps from the soapbox. Got Kinda Lost Records is over the moon to allow this unique, outsider singer–songwriter/psych–punk album another turn at its time in the shine...

[engl] Oh my, what is this? The alien globule of Damaged Bug’s errant planet has circled the sun and re-enters our orbit where last year’s Cold Hot Plumbs left off. Urgent falsetto morbidities detail Damaged Bug’s most rhythmically adventurous offering yet, syncopating lush landscapes with moon-shot death rays. Witness in horror the tractor beam pull of Slay The Priest - a breathless sprint through unfamiliar enemy territory - erratic laser beam synths dredge the lake, hard panned double drums resurrect dead heartbeats - load thy crossbow, friend, this night is long and we appear beset on all sides. The Bug is back and more hideous than ever - join us in a gawp at its iridescent shell, its alien mandibles…and the guts streaming from the wound. 3 sides on 2 LPs in a gatefold jacket, with an etched 4th side.

[engl] John Dwyer has a surprise for us…while we’ve all been eagerly anticipating the next Oh Sees record, he’s been tirelessly working in his synth laboratory as Damaged Bug and has hand-crafted a followup to 2014’s neon-noir Hubba Bubba that shakes up the snow globe considerably. If Hubba Bubba was a brush with a robotic exoskeleton on deep-space patrol, Cold Hot Plumbs is a visit to the alien world that sent it into the cosmos - lush, textural, psychedelic at times, the songs breathe with a otherworldly sadness and heart, with barbed and sophisticated arrangements flowering in every direction. The vintage-perfect sound palette would be but window dressing if not for the songs themselves, which sound fresh, vital, and above all catchier than the flu. Cold Hot Plumbs is a strange, beautiful, and oddly infectious addition to Mr. Dwyer’s oeuvre, and not one to be missed.

[engl] Damaged Bug is John Dwyer's new project, all home-cooked synthesiser-based tunes, but with the same attention to snap, crackle and pop that we've grown so accustomed to with Thee Oh Sees. Amid sputtering drum machines, analog throb and whistle, a dash of early Kraftwerkian whimsy, and just the right amount of loner menace, this record is essential listening and will get stuck in your teeth like taffy. Half Tarred Edition is only available here and is limited to 2 per customer.

[engl] Now available on vinyl !!! ON'T BBC 80-82 is a collection of BBC recordings that was released earlier this year on a very limited CD issued by the band's Society Records. THE DANSE SOCIETY was born in Barnsley, UK in 1980 and is celebrating its 40th birthday this year with a new album and this compilation of early days recordings which show the great potential of a band which will become an essential act of the Gothic Rock movement. This compilation features twelve songs taken from two BBC PEEL sessions, the frst was recorded in 1981 and the second one in 1982. Two other songs are from an appearance on BBC2 programme 'Riverside'. And last but not least, it features the earliest recording of the band, then called 'Danse Crazy' on the Futurama 2 festival High quality vinyl repress housed in black inner sleeve, thick outer sleeve and including insert sheet with band pictures. First orders get limited smokey silver color vinyl !!

[engl] This LP collects out of print singles and songs by DARK BLUE. Comprised of members of Clockcleaner, Ceremony, Paint It Black and Strand Of Oaks, Philadelphia's Dark Blue play burly, wide-open guitar sound that was found on earlier releases by such UK '80s bands as The Comsat Angels, The Stone Roses, Blitz, and Australia's The Church witch the carismatic voice of John Sharkey III.

[engl] Dark Blue follow up their debut LP, ‘Pure Reality’ (Jade Tree), with ‘Start Of The World’ (/ADAGIO830/ 12XU) - a soundtrack of a decaying United States. Each song drips with the realities of atrocities happening all around us. John Sharkey III (Vocals, Guitar) pushes Dark Blue far beyond the post-punk meets oi sound they perfected on their earlier releases, and adds elements of brit-pop and shoegaze. Recorded by Jeff Zeigler (Kurt Vile, Nothing), ‘Start Of The World’ is a pop album that makes no apologies.

[engl] 'Dirt' is the first track to be heard from the trio since their 2014 debut album 'Give', which they received internationally great reviews and a nomination to Spellemannprisen (the Norwegian Grammys) for. Bringing their best qualities to a new level, 'Dirt' is Dark Times' catchiness all the way. Noisy, gnarly and intense - a track you're going to put on repeat through your headset.

[engl] "Give" - debut album of Dark Times. Nominated for Spellemannsprisen (The Norwegian Grammy) in the category 'Indie'.

[engl] Ten years have passed since the first releases by Dark Times! Their demo tape and the self-titled 7" (or 'Skull') both came out in 2011, with 'Skull' also being the very first Sheep Chase Records release. We are stoked to announce that we will celebrate this milestone by releasing the first three (and very much sold out) EPs 'Skull', 'Girl Hate' and the self-titled demo tape. The EPs are remastered and repacked as 'No Hope / The Early EPs' on limited edition marbled or black vinyl, CD

[engl] Dark Web: a Philadelphian post-punk group that I’m surprised to have not heard of sooner. Given, it’s not like I was keeping a close eye on the place to begin with, but I seriously should’ve been gushing about this band’s stuff a long time ago, especially since the EP itself was released by Suicide Bong Tapes in mid-2016. Everything about the band is seemingly tailored to my liking, and for the most part, falls into a section of my library that rarely sees the likes of Dark Web; with such engrossing, goth-tinged post-punk sounds such as these, that’s pretty fuckin’ unfortunate. Sharing members with Throbbing Chakra, Key Bumpz, Cool Piss, and Beth Israel, Dark Web is sure to impose a rich, powerful presence the moment the EP pivots from the opening rhythm into a dirge of squealing guitars and wholesome bellows, effectively combining elements of both gothic rock and punk alike, while also dispersing a hearty dosage of spacey, vibes into the mix in order to further obscure the band into territory I can only describe as “tastefully erratic”. The first track, “Alien Vacation”, immediately sold me on the group, demanding that I get back to a member of the group and let them know that I’d be all-for sharing their material. I mean, it’d be difficult for me to turn a band like this down. That lead’s got SERIOUS pipes, to an extent that I originally mistook the influxes of similarly-alienlike backup vocals as some form of vocal processing – which is still oftentimes present, unsurprisingly, as to further bolster the weird, eccentric influence beyond the resonating harmonies that the vocals and guitars bring forth to the forefront. Weave in some scathing solos and extremely memorable melodies, and maybe you can see why I’m kinda disappointed in myself for not catching wind of this four-piece anytime sooner. But what do *I*, Jimmy, personally think about Dark Web? I think they’re fuckin’ aliens, duh. Ain’t it obvious?

[engl] First ever vinyl reissue of this sought–after POST–PUNK / COLD WAVE / MINIMAL SYNTH 12" from 1984, Germany. Days Of Sorrow formed in Dortmund in 1981 by a bunch of school friends influenced by the Post–Punk / New Wave scene. They were William Lennox (vocals, keyboard) André Schreiber (bass), Wolfram Huber (guitar) and Nicolai Sabotka (drums). Soon after, John Tollhaus, who ran a tiny record label (Tollhaus Records), discovered them at one of their rehearsals and impressed from what he heard and saw, helped the band to release their first 12". "Remembering The Days" saw the light in 1984 and featured four excellent tracks: "Wild World", "War", "Travel" and "Don’t Leave Me Drowning". A perfect mix of post–punk and minimal synth / cold wave. Dark and powerful sound with distorted guitar, minimal synths, drum machines, cold vocals...No wonder this is one of the most sought after minimal synth 12" from the 80s Euro scene. In 1985, Days Of Sorrow signed a deal with Rough Trade and after some line–up changes and a couple of releases, the band split up just before a scheduled Spanish tour.

[engl] DEAD CELLS out of Vancouver do it dark, desperate, and minimal. An archaic sound from the gothic ages of punk - when punk was catchy, but also dangerous. Going back to the three chord song, with downstrokes, vicious energy, and the two minute deadline. Sacred by the outstanind artwork, it's night church in the post apocalyptic wasteland. Their first LP and follow-up to their 2018 demo tape which was overheared by many people. Desperation, angst and frustration pepper the words that twist and turn like daggers to the back of emperors. Twin guitar attacks carry melody and smart chord changes backed by a rhythm section that runs the risk of falling off the edge of the cliff. It's complimented by a brooding vocalist that half shouts-half sings. You are welcome to dismiss this as some more of that melodic punk that you are too cool to admit that you like, but you would be a fool. Yes, the songs are catchy, and yes DEAD CELLS will get stuck in your head and even sometimes put a spring in your step, but this shit is deep and these songs are as close to utter brilliance as I can ever remember hearing. This goes way, way beyond the “punk kids playing post punk” thing going around these days. The tone of the songs, and of the album as a whole, is just as important as the content of the songs themselves. The guitar is somehow bright and dark at the same time. Chorus and reverb effects give it a shimmer, but distortion and minor and diminished chords dull that shimmer enough to keep everything nice and dark. It’s like a beefed up version of an 80’s post-punk bands’ sound. The drums are tight throughout and the bass is dark and punchy as well. All of this is behind spooky male lead vocals. Dark, anxious, paranoid, manic, obsessive, melodic, misanthropic, gothy, punk - Don't sleep on this.

[engl] Chaos. Mayhem. Violence. One of the sickest music ever committed to black wax.

[engl] 'the commentary of the worst reality show you can imagine...Britain' Following the recent self-titled mini album, Dead Sheeran returns with his full debut album 'A National Disgace'. Once again Dead looks at the way the country continues to spiral downwards into oblivion in his usual satirical and tourette-like way. Pianos and strings play over harsh basslines and hip hop beats, and punk rock fuses with video game soundtracks, while the lyrics paint a dark picture of the situation we find ourselves in. The album was started in the last throes of Lockdown 1, with songs such 'Can Things Get Any Worse?' 'The Problem With This Country' and the government's failed attempts at getting UK furloughed workers to get out and harvest fruit in 'Pick For Britain' narrating the crazy days of Summer 2020. As lockdown eased, and society started to erupt, tunes such as 'Kicking Off In The Streets, and 'Keep Your Distance' started to come into play. Self awareness, social media abuse, litter louts and right wing mates all come under fire over the duration of this 11 track album, with the moods changing as regular as the F-bomb gets dropped. Essential listening for these strange times. Dead Sheeran aka Paul Catten writes, produces, mixes and plays all instruments on this. From programming beats, fiddling with synths to recording himself playing Pac-man, Dead pushes further musically than the previous release. The influences of the Sleafords, The Fall, The Streets and the many punk outfits that influence him still rumble in the distance, but make no mistake, this is a Dead Sheeran record. He has carved out his own sound and vibe on 'A National Disgrace', and as Dead will tell you, this is only the beginning…

[engl] Solitary artist, well versed in the dark side of the Force. One man and a trusty laptop, everything made at home during lockdown season. Like an all star tag team of the Sleaford Mods, Crass and the Cockney Rejects going for it. All influences proudly worn on the sleeve, no apologies. Born from frustration at the state of everything. Don’t like the Tories, don’t trust Labour either...no win situation.