11.2
August 2004
11.2
August 2004
Review Team: (Ali) Ali, (CV) Chris, (DC) Dave, (EF) Ewan, (JW) Jamie, (JK) Jase, (JN) Jon Nash, (LC) Leanne, (LH) Leo, (MZ) Mez, (paco) Paco, (Russ) Russ, (Set) Set, (SC) Simon, (SN) Sneda, (SHY) Steve H, (SH) Stu, (WW) Will
V/A beer city presents counter attack CD
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ecent collection of punk, hardcore, and thrash here with a bias to the punk side. Still it’s a good mix from DRI to RED FLAG 77, PILGER to VERBAL ASSAULT and TOXIC REASONS to OPPRESSED LOGIC. Beer City haven’t done a label sampler in their 11 years, so here it is with 26 tracks of past, present & future including four special guest bands from the US, Indonesia & England. Worth getting, especially as samplers are usually cheap with lots on them. Sounds like Beer City is a quality label. (MZ)
Beer City Records PO Box 26035 Milwaukee WI 53226-0035
www.beercityrecords.com
V/A boss samplerage 4 double CD
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ver wondered what all the millions of bands on Boss Tuneage sound like? Well, if you’re intrigued here’s your chance to check out 56 different bands playing lots of different styles of stuff on this cheapo double sampler. I’d say there’s something here for everyone (maybe not everyone), my own favs being mainly the older bands like Asexuals, Doughboys, Exit Condition and Terminus and newer outfits like Kick Joneses, Manifesto Jukebox, Wasted and K-Line but what would I know – you’ll find your own favourites. (JK)
Boss Tuneage, PO Box 74, Sandy, Beds, SG19 2WB, UK.
V/A Free Jazz vs Hardcore-an open minded split 4 open minded people. 7"
(SHEEVA YOGA, THE HUB, GREEN BERET AND TRES HOMBRES)
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s you can see this is a four way split. The Hub and Green Beret are from America and the other two are from the Czech Republic. First up, Sheeva Yoga. They kinda lay the blueprint for the whole agenda of this release. They play silky lounge jazz with both spazzy hardcore and emo bits. It's kinda strange because instead of trying to merge the styles together, they just play different styles in chunks side by side. They play exactly like spazz then wander of the funkland, then they wig out with some dub, jazz fusion thing....it's not bad but it seems unnecessary I reckon. They also have written explanations to back-up the lyric sheet which is also unnecessary (there lyrics not essays). The last track sounds loads like Send More Paramedics......loads. The Hub have a mad pulsing, staccato sound with plenty of saxophone action. Its kinda crazy drum, bass and sax semi-improvised stuff like " The Court of the Crimson King" era Crimson but not as good (that's no diss though....its impossible). Some impressive playing. Strange yet digestible. Green Beret are kinda gothic spazz? All that little screaming voice vs big screaming voice backed by a possessed keyboard spaaaazzzz attack. Every member sings and they've all got ace names. For example....Sir Megaslam-widow-drums, Blood'n'guts'n'bass on...you guessed it.....bass! Not bad. Last up is Tres Hombres. These guys are similar to The Hub in that they have an appreciation of that jazz fusion style of playing. Bass, Drums and Sax create a quite funky elaborately structured number that is only 4:20min of a 13:21min piece. The full length is available on CD and probably wigs out proper but this isn't bad. As splits go, its OK but instead of being and open-minded split for open minded people its more like a collaboration between like minded individuals who are into Spazzy punk and kinda duff jazz fusion........of which there is already plenty. Some stuff on here i like but it’s not the best release I've heard. (JN)
HYENYZM RECORDS, Petr Halgas, Leskovec 340, 793 69 p. Dvorce u Buntalu, Czech Republic
V/A KEITH RECORDS KOMPILATION 2 double CD
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fter the DJ intro there are a whopping 46 bands / acts over the 2 CD's, packaged in a DVD case - it looks nice, no lyrics to dwell on on but contacts for all involved so you could find out more if you were arsed, out of all those names I've only vaguely heard of TOKYO ADVENTURES, GRAMPUS EIGHT, FLAMINGO 50 and ALL ONE WORD, we're talking mainly poppy punk /indie but with enough variety to keep it intersting, kinda like listening to the John Peel show in times of old. GRAMPUS 8 is on right now, it reminds me of the TV programme 'Teachers' whatever music it is they play on there.. Here's a breakdown of the notable stuff: NEIL MIDGLEY AND THE REFEREES - lofi ninja tune style with some BEEFHEART in there. GREEN ALSATION - Keyboards, KRAFTWERK. PLAGUE OF VERMIN - short and noisy. BLACK CLAM BRIGADE - do a version of BLUE OYSTER CULT's 'Godzilla'. SUICIDE BOMBER TRADING CARDS - weird bleeps. BEATALLICA -BEATLES songs done in METALLICA style! (Garagedayznight). MANDIBLE CLAW - lofi scifi grind. METAL BERYL - The GREAT KAT of the new millenium! FLAMINGO 50 / THREE MINUTE MARGIN - inspired and energetic punk rock! Scouse Hiphop from MC ILLEST. Keep it real, keep it Keith. (SN
V/A Macska Leves CD
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ovely hand screened package thingy, this CD covers a wide variety of experimental music / noise from around the globe, roll the credits: Dave Phillips (CH), Andrei Dergatchev (RUS), Bastard Noise (USA), Cock ESP w/Art Pratten (USA), G.las (D), Sudden Infant (CH), Kiko & Marylise (CH/F), Gabor Toth (H), Jalopaz (USA), UrbaNOXfailure (SK), Completely Fucked-up Society (CH), SIST-EN 343 (SLO), Tea Man With Tea Gum (RUS), NOEXIT (CH), The Hermit Deconstruction (CAN/D/F) - something here for most anyone with an open mind and well worth your attention! (SN)
Manufracture@noiseweb.com
http://www.noiseweb.com/manufracture
V/A Move Your Ass CD
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his comes with the free 'Move Your Ass' zine from Czech, and features 34 bands from that land, there's a cover that you cut out yourself with the names and contacts for those bands, the music spans the areas 'Move your Ass' specialises in ie punk, hardcore, oi, crust and ska - so, some of it's good and some of it is shit - depends on your individual tastes! But with that much content and for free one can hardly complain, samplers like this are a great way to check out new bands you might never come across otherwise - just press 'next' on the ska and oi to get to LYCANTHROPY, NAPALMED and the like! (SN)
V/A THE PITZ - a compilation of original guitar bands from Milton Keynes VOL.3
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n the spirit of me being a nice guy, I'll try my best not to compare this CD to its Title "the Pitz". Instead I'll just say I think it's a bit pooh. I think I must have missed the meeting where they changed the meaning of the phrase "boring grunge/metal/wank/ ska" to "original" (again, see title). I need to get me a new dictionary. Anyway, this would be SO appealing to me if wore enormous trousers and lived in the Milton Keynes area. Unfortunately, I don't (fuck, when did I turn into such a grumpy old man?).There's a band on this called "FELL SILENT", who actually sound a bit like "FALL SILENT" from AMERICA, until they wuss out and try and sing, then it sucks. Oh yeah, this comes with a free zine, see zine reviews section. (WW)
www.thepitzmk.co.uk
pa.Rivers@virgin.net
V/A RUSSIAN PUNK CANNONADE 4 compilation CD
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t's amazing, I would never listen to bands that play in these styles if they came from an English speaking country.16 russian bands from such out of the way places as Moscow, St Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Kasakstan and it is just as it says - "No tears, snivel and slow shit!Just fast and heavy punk-hardcore" My favourite are PURGEN,from Moscow, who remind me of Titwrench if they did extra melodic cossack dances. Which they didn't...there's even an ode to A Clockwork Orange on here, a union jack and a bust of Lenin. Gigs in Russia must be great, chaotic drunken melees. Track down the purgen LP. (SC)
Neuro Empire c/o shemetova t.n. PO Box 58, 123100
Moscow, Russia
V/A the S.C.R.A.P punk compilation
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his CD has a nice mixed bag of Musical genre's ranging from some crap that sounded like SYSTEM OF A DOWN, to CONFLICT, who sound like CONFLICT. A fair bit of Old sounding punk, nothing that really stood out for me. There's bands from all over the world (although mainly the UK), which is a good thing, and it's a benefit of some kind, which is also a good thing. It's not really the kind of thing that interests me. This sounds like a bad review, even though it's not. I'm really into the ethics behind the music, all totally sound radical noises and various other things I'm interested in, but I just couldn't really get my teeth into any of the bands. Sorry. (WW)
V/A things you own end up owning you 7”
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3 way split between VITAMIN X (Holland - 4 songs), WE MUST BURN (Japan – 3 songs) and LET IT BURN (USA – 2 songs). 4 new great songs from V X – fast political hardcore. Let It Burn play rockin stuff with a vocalist sounding similar to The Get Up And Goers. “Kick It In, Kick It Out” really rocked. We Must Burn were the surprise package for me here as I’d not heard them before and their mental Jap hardcore assault is worth checking out – dunno what else they’ve got out there but they left me wanting more. Great 7”. (JK)
Too Circle Records, Shingo Maeda, 3-29-18 Toyotama-minami, Nerima-ward, Tokyo #176-0014, Japan
www.005.upp.so-net.ne.jp/toocircle/
V/A 25 Years Of Birmingham Punk CD
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could just say that it does exactly what it says on the cover, but I'll go more in depth. Okay I liked this, not really a bad track from the 28 bands on this, standouts for me were - Last Under The Sun, Drongoes For Europe, Dogshit Sandwich, P.O.A., + Intention. Other better known bands on here would be GBH, Dead Wretched (Unreleased track) + Police Bastard. There's quite a few ska punk (UK traveller punk style, not US style) songs on here + surprisingly few HC tracks, in fact only really Sist + Appendix One sound modern (and they come at the back end of the CD), all the rest have an older punk sound. I could have done without the "Funky Moped" cover - must be a Brummie thing! You could see a lot of these bands sharing the bill at a Birmingham punx picnic do. I quite like this city scene idea so I'll look forward to Vol 2 that's planned - see if things have got better or worse. (Set)
£5.50 postpaid from Punk Shit Recs, 74 Bristnallhall Rd, Oldbury, West Mids, B68 9TU. UK