Cruel Hand – Lock & Key

Splat! What was that? That’s the sound your head makes when you crank “Lock & Key” up all the way. While their first two albums (“Without A Pulse” and”Prying Eyes”) were already stellar, on album number three however the guys in Outbreak mix up thrash metal and hardcore in a way that will run your ass into the ground and then back up over you a bunch of times just to make sure you stay down.

They continually mix up metallic riffage with mosh parts ending up sounding like a mix of Madball, Leeway, Cro-Mags or any other legendary NYHC band. Even though they albums lasts only a little over 20 minutes, they manage to bang out ten songs, even squeezing in a couple of short solos in the truest of metal traditions. Short, hard, energetic as fuck and simply put, amazing.
Score: 9 out of 10
http://www.bridge9.com
http://www.myspace.com/cruelhand

Heroes & Zeroes – Simian Vices Modern Devices

Heroes & Zeros is a relatively new Norwegian band who were lucky enough to immediately get recognition in their native country along with one of the songs of their debut album being featured in “Fifa 2008”. They’re back now with “Simian Vices Modern Devices” which turns out to be a great rock album with a very modern and slick sound.

These guys are great at steering a song towards a climax that they can postpone indefinitely with ease. In songs like “Iron Honey & Gold” and “Via Satellites” Heroes & Zeros manage to create a lot of tension in the verses with restrained drums and riffs that float around in all directions before leading up to an explosive chorus. Kind of like what the Belgian band Soon used to be great at. If you don’t know that band you might want to check them out. And while you’re at it, check out this album as well because there’s no denying Heroes & Zeros made a very solid album with “Simian Vices Modern Devices”.
Score: 7 out of 10
http://www.redfield-records.de
http://www.myspace.com/heroeszeros

Dirty Tactics – It Is What It Is

Dirty Tactics hail from Philadelphia and get to spread some more of their melodic yet gritty punkrock with “It Is What It Is”. I’m still not sure whether to place them in Gainesville with the rest of the No Idea roster or on the other side of the US in San Francisco with their awesome poppunk bands back in the 90s. But whatever… these three guys are very good at what they do in songs like opener “When You Wake Up”, “Highway Robbery” or the slower “Train Song”. Unfortunately they have some bizarre desire to repeatedly fuck things up by adding lame intros of them horsing around in the studio or goofing off with a silly song. It might have been fun in the studio, not so much on an album you want to listen to more than once.
Score: 6.5 out of 10
http://www.say-10.com
http://www.myspace.com/dirtytactics

The Real McKenzies – Shine Not Burn

The Real McKenzies are a bunch of Scottish Canadians who have been pillaging liquor cabinets around the world for quite a bunch of years already when they’re not too busy impregnating the local women. Oh, and they play folkpunk as well. “Shine Not Burn” finds them playing an acoustic show in Berlin which means you’ll get to hear stripped down versions of their best known songs in a live setting. Luckily it’s just the songs they stripped down, they themselves kept their kilts on.

Armed with a wide array of traditional instruments (bagpipes, penny whistle,…) and plenty of alcohol, they rage through 21 songs about drinking, partying and – of course – Loch Ness with lots of onstage banter thrown in. I’ve never been too much of a fan of these guys and even though I agree with most people that the McKenzies are first and foremost a live band, it apparently doesn’t mean I like this live album better than one of their studio albums. Pass!
Score: 5.5 out of 10
http://www.fatwreck.com
http://www.realmckenzies.com

Good Riddance – Capricorn One : Singles & Rarities

For the longest time Good Riddance treated us to some of the best melodic hardcore punk I have ever heard. I thought it was a real shame when they called it a day back in 2007. But you can always count on Fat Wreck to not let us wander off into the dark without one last album. And even though “Capricorn One” is a collection of singles and rarities and not a new studio album, you can pretty much listen to it like one.

Consisting mostly of the songs that were previously released on GR’s splits with Reliance, Ignite, Ill Repute and Ensign along with both the “Gidget” and “Decoy” 7” and of course their contributions to the Fat Wreck comps, there’s also six previously unreleased songs that cover both the very beginning of Good Riddance’s career (4 songs from a 1993 demo) and the end (two outtakes from the band’s last album). All of the songs are remastered by Jason Livermore of Blasting Room fame and come with liner notes by vocalist Russ Rankin making this a must-have for all the Good Riddance fans out there.
Score: 8 out of 10
http://www.fatwreck.com
http://www.myspace.com/goodriddance

Someone Still Love You Boris Yeltsin – Let It Sway

Don’t let the band name scare you, it’s the quirkiest thing about Someone Still Love You Boris Yeltsin. There’s nothing too quirky about the songs on “Let It Sway”. Instead you’re treated a dozen fine songs that drift between indie pop and power pop. Or maybe they’re both at the same time. Their alt-country leanings don’t show all that much anymore except for the occasional banjo that will float through a song.

While the songs themselves aren’t anything you haven’t heard before and the lyrics ain’t particularly spectacular either, SSLYBY knows how to write solid songs with just the right amount of distortion and hooks to keep you listening. The production job by Death Cab For Cutie’s Chris Walla makes things all crispy and concise which results in “Let It Sway” sounding like an up until now undiscovered Nada Surf/Death Cab split. Not too shabby, huh?
Score: 7 out of 10
http://www.polyvinylrecords.com
http://www.myspace.com/boris

The Ettes – Look At Life Again Soon

With a whole slew of other bands out there whose name ends on –ettes, The Ettes decided not to look too far when it was to come up with a band name. The same thing can actually be said about the songs on “Look At Life Again Soon”. Everything on here is all garage-y, poppy, punky and it comes with an overall do-we-really-need-a-fourth-chord-in-this-song atmosphere.

It makes “Look At Life Again Soon” not the most original album you have ever listened to, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t a lot of fun. These two girls and one guy don’t waste time and charge through eleven songs in half an hour yet never let the tempo get in the way of a good melody. Kinda like seeing Phil Spector with a tiny little Mohawk. Or picture a less noisy version of The Oblivians with cute girly vocals and a whole lot of cool.

Apparently The Ettes already have a third album out as well. But seeing as “Look At Life Again Soon” wasn’t available in Europe yet, the fine people over at Suburban Records (they’re Dutch but let’s not hold that against them) decided to give it a proper release over here as well. And listening to songs like “I Get Mine” or “Crown Of Age” I know why!
Score: 7.5 out of 10
http://www.suburban.nl
http://www.theettes.com

Taylor Hawkins & The Coattail Riders – Red Light Fever

We all know Taylor Hawkins as the drummer for the Foo Fighters. He’s been working for some time on a solo album that has finally seen the light of day under the name “Red Light Fever”.

The songs on here sound exactly like what you’d expect to hear from someone who’s friends with Dave Grohl, Brian May and Roger Taylor... all of which contributed to this album by the way. Opener “Not Bad Luck” wears its Queen influences on its sleeves while “Your Shoes” sounds like a Foo Fighters leftover he scraped off of the floor in the recording studio.

Hawkins himself has been heard to say ‘Fuck it." I don't care if the record ends up sounding like me having sex with my record collection’ which pretty much sums it all up. Unfortunately he never even comes close to his influences make « Red Light Fever » a very unnecessary album that – let’s face it – probably wouldn’t even have seen the light of day if the songs weren’t written by the drummer for the Foo Fighters.
Score: 5.5 out of 10
http://www.rcarecords.com
http://www.myspace.com/taylorhawkinsandthecoattailriders

Eyes Set To Kill – Broken Frames

Granted, the girls in Eyes Set To Kill (Alexia and Anissa) are easy on the eye, even though it’s kinda hard sometimes to tell the guys and girls apart in emo bands like this. Guess they invented dresses for some reason! The girls’ looks won’t exactly hurt Eyes Set To Kill because well, sex sells. I hope it sells extremely well in this band’s case because people sure as shit aren’t going to pick up a copy of “Broken Frames” for its innovative songwriting.

This is yet another album full of cliché-riddled breakdown-laden post-hardcore with the only exception being that the clean vocals aren’t delivered by a guy with a high-pitched voice but by a girl. Does that count as innovative? Not really. Oh, and the guy that does the grunting/screaming thing just plain sucks with his shrill voice.
Score: 3 out of 10
http://www.breaksilencerecordings.com/
http://www.estkrock.com

Bad Hands – Take The Money And Run

Fireside was already a band that cleverly threw indierock and electronic sounds together on albums like “Elite” and “Get Shot”. Drummer Per Nordmark is now doing something similar with his solo project Bad Hands on the album “Take The Money And Run”.

Nordmark wrote a collection of songs in the fine Swedish tradition of making a sound rock while being catchy as hell and then enlisted different vocalists for every single song. Not just anyone mind you but fine people like Nina Kinert, Nick Andersson (Entombed, Hellacopters), Howlin' Pelle, Linnea Jönsson (Those Dancing Days) and David Sandström (Refused). It makes for an album that might not be very coherent, but it still is a lot of fun to listen to. It will move you with some songs and make you move with others. For some reason I find Nordmark’s songs work best with the female vocalists (check out those first three cuts !) but then there’s « Kick You Out » with Howlin’ Pelle to fuck up that theory.

This won’t change your world but it will make things a lot more fun for a little more than 30 minutes.
Score: 7.5 out of 10
http://www.nons.se
http://www.badhands.se

Dan Sartain – Lives

On his latest album “Lives”, Dan Sartain rocks the words ‘twang’ and ‘reverb’. Sounding like all of his equipment was soaked in the mighty Mississippi before being set up in the studio, the songs on here have a murky sounds that suits them just fine.

Other words that come to mind are rockabilly, Southern gothic, blues, Elvis Costello and surf. You can clearly hear Sartain having a good time with this batch of songs. It’s all very easy on the ears, instantly memorable and it shows that you don’t need proggy math parts to make an album worth listening to. They figured out the basics for good songwriting a long time and when applied like Dan Sartain does on “Lives” they still lead to great results.
Score: 7.5 out of 10
http://www.onelittleindian.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/dansartain

Life Of Agony – 20 Years Strong : River Runs Red – Live In Brussels

Back when “River Runs Red” first came out I was all over this band! I listened to it constantly, could sing along with all the songs, saw them live,,... The subsequent releases were still good but never as good as that first album. A couple years later they called it a day only to reunite another couple of years later. They celebrated that reunion with a new album (that you can feel free to skip) and a whole lot of touring. I mean, try and find a festival or venue where these guys aren’t playing!

Even though Caputo & Co have dropped several albums in the past, the majority of their setlist always seems to consist of material from “River Runs Red”. So for their 20th anniversary, these dudes decided they might as well play those other songs as well, which is how come “20 Years Strong” boasts an integral live version of that album on both CD and DVD.

There’s no denying Life Of Agony are still good when it comes to putting on a show, but even I have come to the point now where they can just stop milking it as far as I’m concerned... it’s getting to the point where it’s just plain pathetic to be honest.
Score: 6 out of 10
http://www.iscreamrecords.com
http://www.lifeofagony.com

Emarosa – Emarosa

Two years in the making, Emarosa is back with their self-titled album which sees former Dance Gavin Dance vocalist Jonny Craig finding his comfort zone ever more with the rest of this Kentucky-based outfit. On this album they play some solid rock tunes with some emo mixed in. The obviouys star of the show though are Craig’s vocals which is pushed to the front of the mix while the rest of the band is doing a pretty good job as well of backing him up with atmospheric yet driving tunes.

Too bad there are a lot of rumours about a nearing split... Rise Records finally signed a good band and they might already be about to lose them! Fans of Circa Survive, Isles & Glaciers and the likes should check these guys out.
Score: 6.5 out of 10
http://www.riserecords.com
http://www.myspace.com/emarosa

Gatorface – Wasted Monuments

With former members of New Mexican Disaster Squad and Polluted Youth and current members of VRGNS and No Friends among their ranks, I already figured Gatorface’s “Wasted Monuments” was gonna be a good listen. What I didn’t expect was a near-perfect octane-driven poppunk album that’s rough around the edges when it needs to be and melodic everywhere else.

Taking cues from luminaries such as Descendents, Adolescents and Screeching Weasel, these dudes claim Orlando back from Disney with one single album. They’re snotty but you gotta love them, highly contagious and they’ve apparently tapped into an energy source so powerful that BP is looking green with envy they weren’t there first. Picking a favourite song is really not necessary but when hard-pressed I would go for “Not Scientists”... amazing track!

This band alone is worth the admission price to The Fest 9... the other zillion bands are just a bonus as far as I’m concerned.
Score: 9 out of 10
http://www.noidearecords.com
http://www.myspace.com/gatorfacefl

Murderdolls – Women And Children Last

When Slipknot was on a break in 2002, Joey Jordison got together with Wednesday 13 from Frankenstein Dragqueens From Planet 13 to crank out some fine horrorpunk tunes. With solid riffs and a sick sense of humour, they managed to amuse the hell out of me and I’ve been hoping for a sequel to “Beyond The Valley Of The Murderdolls” ever since. Sure, Wednesday 13’s solo output was a lot of fun as well but still...

It took them eight long years to get back together to write some more songs about demons, ghouls and other creatures of the night but it was well worth the wait. On “Women And Children Last” you are treated to more of the same with furious asskickers like “Chapel Of Blood” and “My Dark Place Alone”. “Nowhere” on the other hand is one of the best songs Alice Cooper never wrote and yes, that is Mötley Crüe’s Mick Mars you’re hearing on “Blood Stained Valentine”. It makes “Women And Children Last” an all-round fun time for the whole family... if your family consists of a bunch of sick and twisted degenerates.
Score: 8 out of 10
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.nl
http://www.myspace.com/murderdollsband

36 Crazyfists – Collisions And Castaways

36 Crazyfists have been around for quite some time now, consistently releasing solid albums and touring their asses off. It paid off with them being one of the most noteworthy metalcore bands around. And what makes it even more special, is that they’ve managed to do all that with a relatively consistent line-up that still boasts three of the original members.

Another thing that never changes though is their sound. They still employ shredding riffage, the occasional breakdown hasn’t been overlooked either and Brock Lindow still mixes up his sick screams with his trademark clean vocals. It’s one thing to be consistent but too much of a good thing is still too much in the end.

On “Castaways And Collisions” things haven’t changed. Songs like “Death Renames The Light” are blistering while single “Reviver” comes with that typical anthemic chorus Killswitch Engage is equally known for. There are the odd ones out though. Like “Caving In Spirals” which comes with nothing but clean vocals and “Waterhaul II” where the band builds on its sound by adding more ambient parts. It shows they’ve got more up their sleeves and I’m hoping more of it will show on future releases before these Alaskans get stuck in a rut completely.
Score: 6.5 out of 10
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.nl
http://www.myspace.com/36crazyfists

Kvelertak – Kvelertak

With artwork by Baroness’ John Baizley, a production job by Converge’s Kurt Ballou and guest contributions from JR Ewing’s Andreas Tylden and Silver’s Ivar Nikolaisen, the guys in Kvelertak made sure they had a couple of things going for them to get people’s attention focused on their debut album. They were sure their songs would keep them interested. And they were right on the money.

With a blistering mix of (black) metal, hardcore, punk and a ton of groove they grab you by the throat with opener “Ulvetid” and don’t let go until the last notes of “Utrydd Dei Svake” ring out. If you think that those song titles are a bit weird, then you’re right. These dudes get to call Norway home and like to sing in their native tongue. Sure, it makes singing along at their shows nearly impossible, but it was doubtful in the first place that you would be heard over their triple guitar attack, the occasional blastbeat and the maniacal shouting that’s reminiscent of At The Gates’ Tomas Lindberg. Kudos to Kvelertak on kicking my ass all over the place with their self-titled album.
Score: 9 out of 10
http://www.myspace.com/indierecordings
http://www.myspace.com/kvelertak

Tokyo Police Club – Champ

Tokyo Police Club’s debut EP “A Lesson In Crime” was short, to the point and had energy pouring from every single song. On “Elephant Shell”, the band’s first full-length, they showed a more contemplative side of themselves but tried a little too hard. It resulted in a not so impressive album. Which brings us to album number two, “Champ”.

This one is a bit of a mix of the abovementioned releases where these Cannucks will get up right in your face with their post-punk in one song while silently brooding in the corner for the entire duration of the next track. Everything is embellished with keyboard sounds in the right places which - musically at least - places them ahead of the post-punk pack. At times they even come close to their countrymen in The Weakerthans. Their biggest problem however is their singer who sounds like he’s bored out of his mind and can’t wait to get his sorry ass out of the studio. The result is a slightly disappointing album that sounds like a missed opportunity.
Score: 6 out of 10
http://www.memphis-industries.com
http://www.tokyopoliceclub.com

Dead Confederate – Sugar

Dead Confederate released a decent debut with “Wrecking Ball”, a post-grunge rock affair that came with its highs and lows. At its best it showed raw passion and some kickass riffs. This time around they don’t just go for the chunky guitars, they like to tone it down just the same. Quiet is the new loud, ya dig? The album may open with the scorching “In The Dark”, a song in which the band proves itself ready to exorcise some more demons. But it’s quickly followed by the almost Beatlesque “Run From The Gun”. Another highlight is the anthemic “Giving It All Away” with none other than J Mascis plugging in his guitar.

Sure, there are still some Nirvana influences lingering around… “Semi-Thought” comes to mind. But overall these dudes seem to have gone through some serious growth spurts and have an album to show for it with “Sugar”. If you like Band Of Horses but would like to hear them at their most angry with a bottle of scotch running through their veins, try Dead Confederate on for size.
Score: 8 out of 10
http://www.kartelcreative.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/deadconfederate

Tony Rettman - Why Be Something That You’re Not

While American Hardcore already took a swing at detailing the history of hardcore in the US (yes, the title is pretty self-explanatory), there were certain scenes that maybe didn’t get as much attention as they would’ve liked. Take Detroit for example. Luckily there was one man who not would let this injustice go by unnoticed.

Named after the Negative Approach song “Why Be Something You’re Not”, this book is writen by freelance music journalist Tony Rettman who did a pretty good job of getting all of the key figures to contribute and who then poured everything in a readable book that consists of everyone’s oral recollections strung together.

Like I said, “Why Be Something That You’re Not “ tells the story of hardcore punk in Detroit and the whole Touch and Go scene featuring among others The Fix, Necros, Meatmen, Negative Approach and Bored Youth. Not only does it talk at great length about the bands, stories about clubs, tours, zines, recordings and so on are featured as well. Sometimes it feels like the only thing missing is what a certain someone had for lunch but in the end this book paints a clear picture of what can happen when a couple of bored kids decide to start make music. Strewn throughout the book are countless photos and flyers and towards the end you’ll find a thorough discography of all the bands involved.

This is a very solid read that belongs in your collection right beside “American Hardcore” and Henry Rollins’ “Get In The Van”.
Score: 8.5 out of 10
http://wbstyn.blogspot.com/
http://www.revhq.com