Noise for Zeros

Cheveu – 1000 – (Kill Shamen)
Technically this was released in 2010, but it was late late December 2010 at least and I don’t even recall seeing it until a few months into 2011, so fuggit we’re gonna call this a 2011 release. In any case, it would have secured a place on the 2010 list because it’s as brilliant as their previous LPs and twice as catchy. Many reviews of this brain melter claim that it’s their most accessible and conventional release yet, but I don’t hear that. There’s less cut-up lo-fi audio scrap, sure, yet it’s anything but conventional. It’s got enough crackling energy and unexpected turns along inserted into some killer riffs and Cheveu’s unique brand of garage punk hijinx. There’s even a Vanilla Ice cover that’s gotta be heard to be believed. I usually can’t bring myself to rank top 10 lists, but for 2011 this was definitely album #1.

The Chewers – Every Drop Disorganized – (self-released)
It took almost a year to determine whether or not this album was weirdly brilliant or just plain weird. Beginning with the odd name and goofy cover art, this band’s deliberately off-kilter fuzzy bluespunk goes from weird to weirdly brilliant, somehow existing within a universe where TFUL 282 covers Killdozer‘s most lumbering numbers while floating in a Xanax haze. An acapella ode to pancakes? Two-minutes of primitive grunting? If that doesn’t make sense to you, than The Chewers probably won’t either. But if you seek a 42-minute diversion from normalcy, chew on this for a while.

Crystal Stilts – In Love With Oblivian – (Slumberland)
Although it hasn’t been as hyped quite as much as their early EPs and debut album, the Stilts’ sophomore effort pushes their alluring sound into even more interesting territory. Adding some echoes of classic psych (“Sycamore Tree” rings like a lost Silver Apples track) and the detached cool of The Velvet Underground, In Love With Oblivian cements Crystal Stilts status as mandatory listening.

The Get Up Kids - There Are Rules (Quality Hill)
For the longest time I’ve wanted to like this band. They’re local heros and many trusted tastemakers insisted that they were worth my time, but ugh, I just couldn’t get past their formulaic and predictable mix of nauseating, saccharine-sweet pop-punk. With this record I’m finally on board. The songwriting maturity and aged grit on There Are Rules is all aces, with layers of artfully textured sound and unexpected turns that never gets dull or predictable. If your eyes roll at the mention of this band, you owe it to yourself to give the Kids one more chance.

GG King - Esoteric Lore – (Rob’s House)
While GG King’s singles took this ex-Carbonas rocker’s sound into slightly gnarlier territory, Esoteric Lore turns the gnarly knob (please note: there needs to be a band called the Gnarly Knobs) up even further with 17 tracks of raging punk. Like hearing How Could Hell Be Any Worse-era Bad Religion, The Germs, and the Circle Jerks for the first time, Esoteric Lore instantly feels like a classic. It sounds kickass right from the start and continues to deliver after many spins.

Iceage – New Brigade – (What’s Your Rupture)
If you took the punchiness and catchiness of The Futureheads with sped-up Gang of Four angularity and injected some hardcore intensity, you’d have something close to what this Danish quartet has created with their debut record. Unlike anything else within the genres it straddles — punk, hardcore, post-punk, indie rock, alternative what have you — Iceage takes the best qualities of all of them and pushes them together in ways that demonstrate some masterful songwriting skills. New Brigade delivers a fresh sound well deserving of the hype.

The Pheromoans – It Still Rankles – (Convulsive)
After a handful of promising singles, this UK band serves up a proper album of rambling, baffling, so clever it’s stupid scrap punk that aligns with the trajectory of The Fall to The Country Teasers to The Guinea Worms. Initial spins seem clumsy and inept, but their spontaneous and witty methods soon reveal themselves as an entertaining if ramshackle listen that becomes more fun with each listen.

Thee Oh Sees – Carrion Crawler / The Dream - (In The Red)
I’m guilty of being wowed by the ‘new’ and will sometimes lose interest in a band I love just being distracted by whatever’s got my attention at the time. Many times I’ve found myself at the record store with a new, unknown band’s record in one hand and a longtime favorite band’s newest release in the other, struggling to decide which to go with. Take a chance with a new band, or go with the known? It’s hard to go with Thee Oh Sees since they’ve had a staggering amount of output, but holy shit they continue to rule and this LP sits right up there along with The Master’s Bedroom is Worth Spending the Night In, Help, and Warm Slime.

Total Control – Henge Beat – (Iron Lung)
Sharing members with Aussie garage punk heros U.V. Race and Eddy Current Suppression Ring, this side project has gelled into something on par or greater than the sum of its parts. Cool and detached with heavy electronics and a plenty of perfectly refined guitarwork, Henge Beat has roots in ’80s synthpunk greats in the vein of Gary Numan, Killing Joke, and Joy Division but stretches that sound into a contemporary space. Like the GG King album mentioned above, this record has a timeless quality that promises to make Henge Beat a new classic.

Watch It Sparkle - Rocket Surgery – (Like A Shooting Star Records)
After seeing this Seattle band’s killer set at the Replay last spring I found a new favorite band. Luckily they were touring to support their newly released album, which promptly made its way to my turntable and heart with a savvy mix of guitar-driven mod punk and nervy vocals. Read more gushing here.

LISTEN TO TRACKS FROM THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2011:

Cheveu - Ice Ice Baby Play Now

The Chewers - Human Scum Play Now

Crystal Stilts - Invisible City Play Now

The Get Up Kids - Tithe Play Now

GG King - Bored of Breathin' Play Now

Iceage - Broken Bone Play Now

The Pheromoans - The Greasy Years Play Now

Thee Oh Sees - Contraption/Soul Desert Play Now

Total Control - Retiree Play Now

Watch It Sparkle - My Baby Has A Red Tooth Play Now

43 10″
ActionBoy 300, 1995

A number of great bands in the ’90s were unfairly dismissed as Fugazi clones, and this suburban Chicago group might be the best example of just how great some of these groups could be. Gauge was a young band, which may have kept them from getting the respect they deserve, but they toured hard and put out a body of work that’s well worth a listen, especially this 6-song EP, their final release. Gauge definitely took some inspiration from Fugazi and the dynamic punch of early emo/post-hardcore, but their sound was distinct with throaty vocals and an earnest, utilitarian method of achieving a dramatic punch. At times they’re tense and gnarled, while other times hushed and subdued, offering a slightly math-rock inspired take on what Boys Life and Christie Front Drive were doing around the same time. If you dig this, you’ll also want to check out some of the bands that sprung from Gauge, like Traluma, Haymarket Riot and Euphone.

LINKS:

Stream “43″ on Bandcamp

Hollywood Blood Capsules CD
Choke, 1995

Two bands in the mid-90s were often described as “The Jesus Lizard with female vocals” and strangely enough:

1. Both had the word “jack” in their moniker
2. Both came from college towns
3. Both featured female vocalists with the last name of a U.S. President.

Despite these intriguing similarities, neither really got the attention they deserved outside of their respective hometowns. Considering the novelty and force of each band, it’s puzzling to imagine a time where the output of these groups could be so utterly overlooked and unnoticed. Read more about Athens’ Jack O Nuts here. Like Jack O Nuts,  Ann Arbor’s Jaks employed snaky, propulsive bass and tensely clashing minor key guitar shards — but to a slightly more gnarled degree. And while Jack O Nuts’ Laura Carter had the David Yow-ish howl of a crazy person, the Jaks’ Katrina Ford (who would later go on to Love Life and Celebration) forces the sketchy thrill of a carnival sideshow through a blown-out transistor mic, half rambling, part singing and part screaming. It’s a rambunctiously noisy and fun album with a slight gothic tint. You can find it and their earlier singles collected on the Here Lies the Body of Jaks collection released on Three One G.

DOWNLOAD

Jaks – “Dumb Waiter”
Jaks – “Spider”

LINKS:

Jaks on MySpace
Buy Jaks “Here Lies the Body of Jaks” discography CD at Three One G

(Germo) Phobic LP
Headhunter Records, 1997

Friends and family rarely understand what drives a person to spend countless hours sifting through cubic acres of vinyl in dingy record stores, cataloging and obsessing over music that most people find more worthless than the series of descending pricetags stuck on its jackets. And we’re not talking about collecting. That people can sorta understand. There’s a point to finding something rare and worth a lot of money. For me, however, it’s been hard to explain the thrill of finding something I wasn’t really even looking for, something I stumble across randomly that totally hits the spot — something makes all the searching worthwhile. Whether it’s rare and valuable or worth next to nothing, I could care less. As long as I continue to find music that kicks ass buried in those dingy record stores, you’ll find me happily flipping through the stacks in search of my next fix. This somewhat hard-to-find sophomore album from Tanner is a perfect example. Their debut LP Ill-Gotten Gains found a coveted place in my collection alongside other San Diego greats like Hot Snakes and The Night Marchers (both featuring Tanner’s Gar Wood) and I’ve picked up some of their singles when I’ve come across them. I didn’t even know they had another album, so when I came across this I knew it’d be worth checking out. I was right. This one picks up where their debut left off with tight, punchy riffs solidly played over earnest vocals and hooky songwriting, maybe even better than they did on their first LP. It’s a smoker that will keep me searchin’ for the next batch of quality tuneage.

DOWNLOADS

Tanner – “AKA Meltdown”
Tanner – “Booty”
Tanner – “2 Parts Gas”

LINKS

Official Tanner site

Deprogrammer LP
Mystic Records, 1982

Here’s a classic example of a totally underrated record that’s quietly slipped into the abyss of dollar bins and cheap-ass used vinyl stacks without nearly enough respect. True, it’s hard to get excited about mid-paced hard rock-style punk — there’s nothing particularly outstanding or novel about it — but goddamn, you will not find many records that can soulfully stomp along as solidly as this one does. I nabbed it for a dime at a college radio vinyl selloff (thank you KRUI) on account of it being a Mystic Records release, expecting some inept Z-grade hardcore bashing, ala labelmates RKL, Dr. Know, Ill Repute, etc., but this record is a million miles from Nardcore or the mega compilations put out on the label. Initially I was disappointed by it’s relatively mellow demeanor, but after years of sporadic spins it’s slowly worked its way into my tinnitus-wrecked skull. Style-wise it fits somewhere between the Dead Boys and Joy Division. It’s moody without being too gloomy and has enough snarl to elevate it above the typical hard rock drivel.

DOWNLOAD

Deprogrammer – Deprogrammer LP (37.3mb ZIP file)

LINKS

Download Deprogrammer’s s/t 7′ at KBD Records
Deprogrammer post at Punk Business Manager blog
Deprogrammer post at Glorify the Turd blog

Rocket Surgery CD
Like A Shooting Star, 2011

I had the good fortune of stumbling upon this raucous Seattle quartet after they were bumped into an opening slot of a Human Eye show in Lawrence last March. Their live show kicked ass, culminating with singer Justin scooting across the floor on his back, recklessly strumming his guitar, right into the handful of lucky bystanders subjected to their snappy mod-style garage punk. If you don’t find your head bobbing or your body outright flailing to their Billy Childish/Modern Lovers-inspired trash rock, than you’re about as useless as a limp dick on prom night. Lucky for you, their sound has been pressed onto a killer 7″ and this 10-song CD, so you can experience the Sparkle any damn time you please. I find the need to Sparkle every couple of days.

LINKS

Watch It Sparkle on MySpace
Watch It Sparkle on Bandcamp
Video for “Your Heart Will Throb Hard”

A Modest Proposal CD
Atlantic Records, 1994

During Candy Machine’s 7-year lifespan, the easily overlooked Baltimore quartet managed to put out a few singles and three albums of quality tension rock while never connecting to a substantial fanbase or getting out of the cutout bin ghetto. It’s a shame too, because this album in particular showcases their peculiar version of rigid, art-damaged postpunk that was unlike the multitude of bands plodding similar territory at the time. Sandwiched between Candy Machine’s debut on Skene! Records and their final album split released on ultimate indie labels DeSoto and Dischord Records, A Modest Proposal was released by a major label and promptly neglected. With a deadpan vocals, severe angular guitar, and bouncing bass lines pulling everything together with a precision-steady beat Candy Machine’s big label flop is a relatively unheard treasure.

DOWNLOAD

Candy Machine – A Modest Proposal (59.9mb Zip file)

Awesomer Than The Devil LP
Latest Flame Records, 2011

There should be a name for the genre of bands that play this type of punchy post-hardcore punk rock whatever, and this Seattle band’s third album should be considered one of the better examples of said genre. Witty song titles, razor tight playing and a willingness to playfully fuck with the conventions of this genre’s ancestry define this undefined genre. Police Teeth go from a searing lead track “Send More Cops” (which I’m hoping is an excellent reference to Return of the Living Dead) straight into a couple Superchunk-y anthems and lots of well-placed sonic elements like the clanging Sonic Youth guitar in “Hatchet Wound City” and some unexpected organ hits in “Public Defender.” And one of my favorite tracks so far this year is “Digital Snakes” which comes along and totally rips like the finest Trans Megetti track. You can hear bits of Bluetip, Fugazi, Guzzard, These Arms Are Snakes and a slew of other excellent ’90s bands — as well as some 2000s-style screamo — within the 45 minute runtime of this disc. But those are just touchpoints. Police Teeth synthesize these influences and create a sound all their own instead of merely aping the past. If there’s ever a good term adopted for the style of music Police Teeth play, this will one day be considered a landmark LP of that style. Watch for it on limited pink vinyl coming in April.

DOWNLOAD

Police Teeth – “Summertime Bruise”
Police Teeth – “Rock & Roll Is A Pyramid Scheme (Parts 1 & 2)”

LINKS

Latest Flame Records
Police Teeth on Bandcamp

This LP
Big Money Inc., 1989

At the end of February, before winter finally loosens its icy grip and dreary grey days stack up so high that you can’t remember what the warmth of the sun feels like, the debut from this Minneapolis trio starts to sound pretty fuckin’ good. It sounds great any time of year, but the roughneck minor chord guitar and punchy rhythm section acknowledges that feeling of winter dread while also offering a glimmer of determined hope through sheer tough will. That and they’re from a city where subzero temperatures are obscenely common, so the association with coldness and winter is somewhat fitting. This record from Tiltawhirl (which became Arcwelder after the amusement park company that created the Tiltawhirl ride slapped the band with a cease and desist order) shows the band in a less rigid and polished form, full of mopey collegiate guitar rock that’s just noisy enough to distinguish itself from the legions of bands covering similar territory in that era. Just check out the gloomy bumout of “Blue” and the Killing Joke-esque punch of “It Won’t Change” as examples.

DOWNLOAD:

Tiltawhirl (Arcwelder) – “Blue”
Tiltawhirl (Arcwelder) – “Arcwelder”
Tiltawhirl (Arcwelder) – “It Won’t Change”

LINKS:

The Arcwelder Home Page
Arcwelder on MySpace

A Frames – 333 3xLP- (S.S. Records)
Super-deluxe reissue treatment of this Seattle band’s recordings from their first single through their second LP. Being one of the most interesting bands in the last decade, it’s an impressive body of work that somehow reduced angular postpunk to it’s most mechanical and rigid form without becoming dull or tedious. There’s a lot of heart in the A Frames discography and 3 LPs worth of it have been beautifully archived here.

Attitude Adjustment – The Collection CD (Taang!)
Like the no-frills collections of early Poison Idea and Battalion of Saints, Taang! offers up another essential disc full of great ’80s hardcore/thrash, this time from Bay Area legends Attitude Adjustment. Starting with their punky and hard-to-find Pusmort debut LP American Paranoia, to their even more-rare and heavier No More Mr. Nice Guy LP and the crossover metal of the Out of Hand LP, it’s great to see that these killer tracks are finally getting their due. I’ve often considered the rough and tumble No More Mr. Nice Guy album as one of the best crossover punk/metal records ever alongside Poison Idea’s War All The Time and Corrosion of Conformity’s Animosity LP.

Christie Front Drive – Christie Front Drive LP+DVD (Magic Bullet)
It’s hard to remember what emo meant before the term was perverted to describe the bizarre melodramatic genre of Hot Topic mallpunks in eyeliner, but there really were some great ideas found in the earnest beginnings of “emo” as found in bands like Boys Life, Braid, The Promise Ring, and of course Rites of Spring. Denver’s Christie Front Drive fit into this equation with one of the more interesting takes on the genre, with a masterfully-controlled, majestic sound that completely sweeps you away. While many emo bands used a transparent formula of quiet/loud dynamics, Christie Front Drive were able to seamlessly shape this technique into a slowly building arc that absolutely pulls you in and floors you. Originally released on Nebraska’s Caulfield Records in 1999, this record was CFD’s swan song and one of the best examples of what emo could be, before the term became a 2-dimensional joke. Watch for another reissue from Magic Bullet of the rest of their discography this year.

Grind Madness at the BBC: The Earache Peel Sessions – Various Artists 3xCD (Earache)
A roaring collection of extreme metal that sounds as radical today as it did when it was recorded in the mid-to-late ’80s, including Napalm Death, Bolt Thrower, Godflesh, Carcass, Extreme Noise Terror, Heresy, Intense Degree, and Unseen Terror. This package captures the birth of the grind genre with liner notes from some of the UK scene’s luminaries and 118 bursts of throat-shredding, blast beats, and breakneck riffage. I’ve always been a fan of Peel sessions. They often capture recordings that have an atmosphere that’s a bit more raw and closer to a live sound than a band’s studio material, and these tracks in particular capture these young bands giving it their all. Mick Harris’ (Napalm Death) account of stressing out the BBC’s studio engineer in the liner notes is not only funny, it really sets the scene for just how radical and noteworthy these recordings were and still are today.

The New Hope - Various Artists LP (Smog Veil)
Most regional compilations tend to be weighed down by a few bands/songs that aren’t as full-on as the rest, but this reissue of an early ’80s Cleveland release has an unbelievably great mix of 1-2-1-2 hardcore and wastoid art damage that elevates this city’s already legendary punk status even further. This extended collection of primo tracks from classic punk bands like Starvation Army and Zero Defex (Drop the A-Bomb on Meeeeeeee!) to lesser-known weirdos like Spike In Vain, P.P.G, and The Guns begs one to scream “This is Cleveland, Fuck LA! And Boston! And DC! And NYC! And Texas! And…”

The Fall – This Nation’s Saving Grace LP (Beggars Banquet)
With an absurd amount of LPs spanning over 4 decades, it’s a challenge to definitively call out a favorite Fall record. There are so many incarnations of Mark E. Smith’s postpunk juggernaut that range from the scrappy and brash late-1970s sound to the electronics-drenched LPs of the mid-1990s to the last couple of punchy LPs of the 2000s, that there’s too many versions of the trademark Fall sound to find a single release to hold onto the most. And while most Fall faithful would point to one of the early LPs as being the most essesntial, I’d probably go with this 1985 masterwork, which tethered their sound to bombastic beats and bleary-eyed off-the-cuff cool that captures the best elements of The Fall sound song after song. For a concrete example, just check out “I Am Kamo Suzuki” about the singer of the German krautrock band Can (how cool is that?) where Smith’s meta rambling cleverly diffuses the shock of huge drums bursting into an otherwise tranced-out, drifting song. Total genius and endlessly listenable.

Man Or Astroman? - Is It… Man or Astroman? (Estrus)
I kinda took for granted how great this band was, and didn’t even realize that their debut LP had gone out of print. Throughout the 1990s you could count on seeing beautiful new Man Or Astroman releases with regularity, and most used shops of any value will have at least some of their catalog ready for you to explore. Here is where it all began and after listening to it again (I haven’t heard the repress yet) it’s clear that despite their relative popularity with the indie rock scene, this Auburn, Alabama quartet was the absolute best of the surf rock explosion of the 1990s. Glad to see it’s not been forgotten.

Steel Pole Bath Tub – Unlistenable LP (Permanent Records)
The tuned-in noisemongers at Chicago’s Permanent Records not only have one of the finest shops in the country, they also run one of the more discerning labels going in the post-MP3 age. The excellent decision to reissue this little-heard beast on vinyl is all the proof you need. Read more about this sludgy monster here.

John Wayne - Texas Funeral LP (Third Man Records)
I still have the dubbed cassette a record store friend of mine gave me when this oddity was first released in 1985. At the time it was a total WTF moment to hear this countrified freakout. It remained a novelty for years; an oddball pleasure that slowly worked itself from random listens into steady rotation. This spoof of a down-and-out country legend complete with studio banter and drunken rambling is not to be missed.