A thrashing ressurection

A while back I posted Christian thrash hardcore crossover band, The Crucified's Pillars of Humanity album. but the link has since expired. A reverend emailed me asking where he could find a copy and I sent him on his way. But the link has now come back from the dead.


Pillars of Humanity

As a single zombie is never interesting, I've thrown in their self-titled album too. However I had to take one song off as it simply wouldn't play. Get it and hear the band take swipes at MDC, Slayer and Anthrax in the Insult Circus. At least one song on the self-titled sounds like it was borrowed musically from Minor Threat and The Cro-Mags.



The Crucified - The Crucified

Your life is bland

German punk band Upright Citizens knocked around for a long time before releasing Colour Your Life. Mad Blasts of Chaos featured their 1985 Facts and Views EP

This album came out ten years later and the band have slowed down but magically retained their own sound. The fact that they cover The Saints' Ghost Ships and Cold Feelings by Social Distortion gives some inkling of Upright Citizens' sound on this album although they're far from being just a clone of either of those bands.

Paint away!

Punkfest 2008 Wellington October 24, 25

Unlike last year where I managed to see most of the bands, I only made it to the night sessions of Punkfest this year. Unfortunately The Rocket Jocks who I was really looking forward to seeing played first and I ended up missing them completely. I walked in while Ois 2 Men were playing their final set of sloppy drunken oi.





Above Pic: Ois to men

Next up were all girl band, Cunt of The Cobra. They played hardcore and really I don't remember too much about them musically.



Above pic: Cunt of the Cobra

Next up were Dunedin three piece band Conniption who played dbeat type punk and were my favourite band of the night.

Below pic: Conniption





Above pic: Walrora


Next up were Australian all girl crust band Walrora, who I've probably described wrong so here's a video of them from that night.



Saturday night I managed to catch all of the bands. First up were Entrails who seemed to have improved even more since their Conquest for Death support.

Below pic: Entrails





Above pic: Curfew Girls


Next band up were Curfew Girls, made up of three girls and a guy, who played a poppy old school punk reminiscent of X with funk and new wave parts thrown in.



Coffee Rage were a band I was lookng forward to seeing and they didn't disappoint with their short, sharp hardcore.



Above pic: Coffee Rage

The Users then changed the pace of things with their country tinged rock. I heard at least one kid near me yell "Play some punk rock".



Above pic: The Users

Wellington hardcore band, Shortlived were great mainly due to the frontman's spastic energy although the whole band were really tight.



Above Pic: Shortlived

Australian band Vae Victis, who were possibly my favourite out of all of the bands started playing with no vocals sounds. They describe their sound on their myspace page as "Intro - D-Beat - Slow bit - D-Beat - End" but don't mention great female vocals. Here's a video from their punkfest 2008 set.



Punkfest seemed much more laidback and mellow this year. It could have been that last year was the first one I attended but the crowd didn't seem as nuts this year when the final bands played.

Trusty - The Paul years

Several months back I posted Arkansas band Trusty's A Name You Can Depend On from before the days they signed to Dischord records. Most of the songs off that single can be heard on their myspace page.

Here is Trusty's pre-Dischord single compilation album. The Paul Years. The album is available on cd through amazon but the cheapest price is U.S. $44. It's 23 songs of eighties melodic hardcore in the vain of early 7 seconds. Brushback in his excellent One Base On an Overthrow blog pointed out the whole Dischord catalogue is now available download which includes two Trusty albums.

Get it. Warning: It's big at 139 MB

Cows - Sorry in Pig Minor

Cows are a recent discovery for me, I first heard of them and took notice when the Screams From The Gutter blog compared the now defunct Palmerston North band Lung to them, Chokebore and Flour. I picked up their last album "Sorry in Pig Minor" from Real Groovy's $1 bin without even seeing the band name.

The album title alone convinced me it was worth parting with one small measly dollar to own the c.d. and seeing it was an amphetamine reptile release sealed the deal. This CD opens with a spoken word piece that is reminisect of William Burroughs. Heck, cockroaches are mentioned and listening to this album it wouldn't be surprising if these guys had also tried getting high using bug powder. Noise pop would be the best description of the sound here as Cows have a number of tuneful pieces on this album but like Lung they effortlessly move from pop to noise sometimes within a song and at times are reminiscent of Flying Nun band The Skeptics and/or The Birthday Party's HeeHaw album.

Sorry in Pig Minor

Whorn [PA]

Autistic Youth - Empty Eyes 7"

Watching recent music television it is easy to be fooled into thinking that young kids into punk only care about emo, metalcore, and hardcore with passionless unfocused anger, or present styles pushed by industry bands of the day. Remember all those "Youth" punk band names in the eighties? Portland's Autistic Youth are a band who missed out on those events due to their members being born much too late but as evidenced in their band name take inspiration from that particular time period. Autistic Youth chose the Autistic part of their name as they have an autistic friend who wanted to be in a band with them

On this two song 7" Autistic Youth have a punk-pop sound similar to what was coming out from California in the early eighties. It's actually close to The Adolescents or the harder songs on The Descendents' "Milo goes to College" album. This youthful band's tightness puts many more mature bands to shame. On both songs there's plenty of well placed woohoahoo's which if placed wrong or overdone are plain annoying. The vocals while punkish retain melody and there's nice guitaring and really tight drumming. There's no denying both songs sound similar but for my money "Desperate" is slightly stronger than the title track. There's no new ground broken here but it is an enjoyable rehash of days gone by and evokes memories of wearing board shorts and dreams of riding waves.



Desperate can be heard on Autistic Youth's myspace page

The 7 inch can be ordered from Black Water Records

This review was originally written for the peacedogman webzine.

Feral Children

Every now and again I receive email telling me that the content of the blog is appreciated. The latest one was obviously a cut and paste from a record label representative who took the opportunity to email every music blogger with a visible email address about the band they're presently hyping. Otherwise I'm guessing this may be related to the The Pixies mention. Truth is, I think The Pixies were overhyped garbage for people who couldn't handle Killdozer. I don't know really know what a hipster is but I get the feeling Seattle band Feral Children is going to be called "hipster garbage" by more in the know music critics.

Sarathan Records have a free download of Feral Children's EP available if you're so inclined. You can get it from their record label site . There's also a link to Feral Children's myspace site which has songs. I recently downloaded Hugh Cornwell's latest album and fall asleep every time I listen to it. I expect the effects of listening to Feral Children's EP could be far worse. Update your will and ensure distance from sharp objects before downloading.