Rad - Loud & Fast

Deadly and gleeful, Rad drop-in with the skatethrash speedcuts of the likes of Jellyroll Rockheads or BBQ Chickens. Twenty songs in ten explosive minutes. On Sacramento records.

Despite proclaiming "I'm an adult/Do my laundry/Pay my taxes/I'm an adult" on I'm an Adult, and Banned in Circus Heights focusing on the trudge of everyday worklife, the album as a whole is an affirmation of adolescent energy, alternately goofing off and steaming about the blatant hypocrisy of it all. Even the song Banned in Circus Heights ends in this triumphant singalong of "I GOT UP FOR WORK TODAY!" that sounds like it's a personal mantra reaffirming to yourself that you are actually not fifteen anymore because sometimes you can't quite believe that shit. We all know that one, not sure anyone I know ever feels properly adult, always constantly surprised when you have to do some real life shit like write a cheque or talk to somebody who fixes things for a living.

That's the rail that Rad balance on, the place where you're trying to get by not slipping into the worst parts of teenage mopeyness and cynicism, but also trying to retain that teenage passion and clarity in the face of people your age rapidly transmogrifying into better-in-the-old-days caricatures. So it runs yes on that adolescent energy, but it's clearly consciously mining that and using it as fuel and guidance for these catchy 40 second punk smashes, rather than letting it run chaotic and wild. It's got the carve and punch of a Nunfuckers or Some Old Bullshit-era Beastie Boys, but it's focused and tight, not sloppy stupid and sticky nasty. It keeps things taut.

So it makes you feel like a part of a real cool teen crew who are constantly caught twixt outrage at society's many ills and dumb dumb jokes. Songs switch up between silly pursuits like S.I.M.P.L.E.'s ode to hotdogs, and more pressing matters like Corporate Drugs, and even within the songs like Corporate Drugs that it attacks those issues more with sophomoric taunts and facetious insults like "We're Clariton clear, you're full of shit!" than with cohesive well-argued (read: boring) points. "Moshing is our medicine!" it crows. You've gotta believe a line like that, sung with that conviction. Times when you're hanging out and feel like you can set the world to right with your puerile friends, but really you just wanna make those idiots laugh with a quick oneliner or an exaggerated impression of some dickbag you all know and loathe.

All the burns and choruses feel like inside jokes you've been let into, Legacy of Bro-tality just screaming "AQUALUNG!" as if that says everything you need to know about some shitty dude (and it totally does). In Never Turn Your Back (On a Mosh) it goes ""Strike the spike in the pit" my mother said, but she never moshed in a circle pit", reinforcing the message (such as it is) of the anti-porcupine-in-the-pit PSA Strike the Spike, in the This Is Rad 7" version of that same tune the line is ""Cover your tits in the pit" my mother said, but she never moshed in a circle pit" referencing that release's far more realistically helpful Cover Your Tits In the Pit. But really the point is that your friends constantly bitching sarcastically about some fantastical prevalence of porcupines at punk shows to the bemusement of those not in the tight little clique, or shouting "COVER YOUR TITS IN THE PIT!" at each other constantly is exactly the sort of semi-secret garagewit argot that develops when you roll with a group of teenage punx, prickling with insecurity and violence and frustration.

They construct this little rebel world of fallabout thrashskate moments, living in the pit and in empty pools they cruise around, celebrating hotdogs and D&D, the little shared joys that make existence real cool for an evening or so, offering takedowns of bros and creeps and Megadeth and people who call the cops on houseshows (Don't Call the Cops also includes a bit where they make a silly siren sound, thus confirming that Rad are a good punk band), the annoying tagnuts that drag you down and make you feel extra bummed on life. Fuck those things, pound them down with the sort of worn-in LL Cool J reference that begins Creep-Out Crew that all your friends will love, drown them out with the sound of 30 second balls of righteous hardcorepunk about how your town is totally rad, and for a moment it totally is.

Guitar Wolf - Beast Vibrator

This is a message I received.

I recently received a message from someone who was keen to tell me that while they enjoyed my blog, I would be a better writer if I attempted to write more objectively. I am always open to constructive criticism and I will therefore endeavour to stick to the facts as much as possible in this review. Objectivity is the watchword.

Guitar Wolf are a band. Guitar Wolf are a band from Japan. Guitar Wolf have three members. These three members are named Seiji, U.G. and Toru and are sometimes known as Guitar Wolf, Bass Wolf and Drum Wolf. That is a combination of the word 'wolf' (taken from the name of the band) and the musical instrument that these respective musicians play. Beast Vibrator is the name of Guitar Wolf's new album. This album is their 12th album, following on from Spacebattleship Love, Mars Twist, Dead Rock, Golden Black, Loverock, UFO Romantics, Rock and Roll Etiquette, Jet Generation, Planet of the Wolves, Missile Me! and Run Wolf Run. Guitar Wolf are a band that play very loud. Guitar Wolf are a rock and roll band. Guitar Wolf are a very loud rock and roll band. Their new album, which is entitled Beast Vibrator, contains eleven songs.

The first song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator is Beast Vibrator. The second song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator is Mesopotamian Lonely. The third song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator is Gasoline Lullaby. The fourth song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator is Ghostly You. The fifth song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator is Robot Maria. The sixth song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator is Batting Center. The seventh song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator is Saphire CITY. The eighth song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator is Magma Nobunaga. The nine song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator is Barf Night. The tenth song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator is EARTH vs. ALIEN. The eleventh song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator is Female Machine Gun.

The first song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator, Beast Vibrator, is a rock and roll song. It is loud. Beasts is a word used to describe undomesticated animals. Vibrator is an instrument used to provide sexual pleasure. This song is a wild animal that provides sexual stimulation and release.

The second song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator, Mesopotamian Lonely, is a rock and roll song. It is loud. Mesopotamian is an adjective pertaining to the inhabitants and culture of the area now known as Iraq. Lonely is the sensation when you are isolated from other people and have negative feelings due to this isolation. This song is painful desert solitude.

The third song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator, Gasoline Lullaby, is a rock and roll song. It is loud. Gasoline is the substance that is used to power many machines, including cars, motorcycles and chainsaws. Lullaby is a song that is sung to children to help them go to sleep. This song is powerful song that will ignite to make children sleep.

The fourth song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator, Ghostly You, is a rock and roll song. It is loud. Ghostly is a word that descibes things which resemble the spirits of dead people. You are a bastard. This song is a haunting bastard.

The fifth song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator, Robot Maria, is a rock and roll song. It is loud. Robot is a word, originating from the Czech playwright Karel Capek's book War With the Newts, that is used to describe an automaton capable of performing tasks. Maria is a popular name. It is often associated with Catholicism, or the van which takes prisoners to jail, which is known as a Black Maria. This song is machine built from wire and steel that will take your ass to jail.

The sixth song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator, Batting Center, is a rock and roll song. It is loud. Batting is the action of striking a ball with a bat. Center is a word for the middle of things. This song strikes at the core.

The seventh song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator, Saphire CITY, is a rock and roll song. It is loud. Saphire is a precious blue stone. CITY is a large built-up area in which many people live and work. This song is the blues in lives and works.

The eighth song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator, Magma Nobunaga, is a rock and roll song. It is loud. is the substance that consists of molten rock underneath the world. Nobunaga is the name of a man who unified Japan. This song is unifying burn. Out of context, the word Nobunaga may appear to some English readers to be a nonsense word such as flubtredderling, weeewoopapapapabipdaaaaaaarswuix, or gluttle. This song is hot squabaloo.

This is the album cover of the Guitar Wolf album Beast
Vibrator. This album cover depicts the members
of Guitar Wolf imprisoned and looking super cool.

The ninth song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator, Barf Night, is a rock and roll song. It is loud. Barf is a word for when you expell food and fluids from your mouth through a series of convulsions. Night is the period when the Earth is turned away from the sun. This song is a convulsion that will turn the world dark.

The tenth song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator, EARTH vs. ALIEN, is a rock and roll song. It is loud. EARTH is the planet on which humanity originates, vs. is a term used to denote a fight or contest, ALIEN is a word for sentient beings not originating on planet Earth, also used to describe anything which comes from outside our realms of experience. This song is a fight between all that we know and all that we do not know.

The eleventh song on the Guitar Wolf album Beast Vibrator, Female Machine Gun, is a rock and roll song. It is loud. Female is a word used to describe women. Examples of women include Alice Bag, Tabitha Tate, Khutulun, Laura Jane Grace, Kathy Acker, Trina, Pauline Kael, and, in fiction, Storm from the X-Men. Machine Gun is a type of weapon that fires a great many bullets in rapid succession and is designed to maim and kill. This song is a storm of grace designed to main and kill.

This is a Guitar Wolf album. This Guitar Wolf album is named Beast Vibrator. Guitar Wolf are the best band in the world. Guitar Wolf are literally the best band to ever exist. Guitar Wolf are the sun rising and the night falling. Guitar Wolf saved my soul.

This has been an entirely objective review of the new Guitar Wolf album named Beast Vibrator. I would like to extend my thanks to my original correspondent for suggesting this new writing style predicated on balanced factual information. My first draft for this review contained sections such as this: "Mashing together words with a sort of bloodied and beaten glinting glee, Beast Vibrator, Gasoline Lullaby, Barf Night, Female Machine Gun. The trainwreck joy of Beast Vibrator, "V-V-V-V-Vii-iibrator!", trashrock noise, flailin out, the flushing wildness of Robot Maria, the whispering fuzz and dancing guitar spikes on Barf Night, the insane thrashblues of Mesopotamian Lonely, rubbing along with those huge sweeping guitar strokes over the bassruns, the shiver and crash of Female Machine Gun." which I now see were gauche and overtly subjective. Guitar Wolf need no such musings. Guitar Wolf are Guitar Wolf. Guitar Wolf are a rock and roll band. This is a Guitar Wolf album. It is loud.

Chaos Destroy - Lightning Strikes Twice

Chaos Destroy have always been a band that sounds like a band called Chaos Destroy.

On Lightning Strikes Twice, released by Olde English Spelling Bee Records, gone are the chaos-pogo mad-libs of titles like Damaging Anarchy Chaos Disorder, Damaging Damnation, Damaging Indignation, Damaging Nuclear Nonsense, Fucking Merciless Nuclear Chaotic Violent Noise etc. Songs now appear to be about something at first glance, even if that something is as jejune as It's Always Dinnertime (Somewhere) or NO PUNKS, NO MOUSTACHES. It even takes aim at Chaos Destroy's own Swankys-leanings with the song Dumbaging Noise. Song titles though are as close as you're gonna get to unravelling the intent of these songs beyond chomping noise.

They are catchy as fuck. Utterly incomprehensible, but more like People's Ausentic Oral Communication record than the scutterblasts of Collection Not Collection, rock and roll ruckus done-up all sparkling and party ready with the blinding sheen of shitkill distortion, chaotic and destructive, destructive and chaotic.

Mouth utitilised as chewing percussion, the noise employed as texture, heavy texture yeah, rough and grazeraw, but not like the huge tsunami of feedback that drowned all on earlier outings, these are songs that are maybe just deep deep down in their murderous misshapen heart carefree indie-pop songs, but made by the meanest weirdest kids you know, spitting and prattling on with nah-nah-nuh-nah-nah taunts, childish imitations of speech drawl and babble. Pissy smirking snot. Pop songs from the hate place, pop songs twisted into jabbering freakouts dripping with the radioactive pus of noisepunk, or coming the other way, the structureless sewage of noise songs crafted into sloppy crackling form with punchy pop sensibilities. Beautiful Sound (Ugly Noise) sums up this conflict in its title and proceeds to rock back and forth with its addlepated and anxious swoosh and shiver punk rock.

Noise (Here We Come) breaks with this danceable bassline and guitar scratch descending into pinhead noise, but never losing that shuffle and shake, even as the feedback squawks pierce and skitter like morse code. (Slender) and (Long) handclaps its way into atomic destruction. (The Shame) Till the Last Generation runs mid-tempo, complete with worn-out ooh-oohs surviving barely amongst its onwards march. (Greased) Lightning wavers between fast flat toxicpunk and a sad trudging amongst noise sweeps. Dumbaging Noise is a dissonant threatening pianocrash, a jarring amongst jarrings.  A Long Life of Shame (Noise Life) a real hell-dimension boogie, a dancefloor filler for cut-price b-movie monsters. This is the most fun you can have holding your hands over your ears and wishing for the idiocy and pain to cease with alleviating silence of death.

Sad Boys - Cry Now, Cry Later

Not to be confused with the stoned slurring of Swedish teen rap crew Sad Boys, the second of the New York Sad Boys's seven inches of 2013, Cry Now, Cry Later, continues their stamp and snap assault of inane pogo depresso-punx, but swaddles the songs in a blanket of light airy fuzznoise which the self-titled 7" did not possess. Still featuring the Lookout licks of simple infectious guitar snags, the bass bounce and the reckless runaway rhythm, all backing up the piercing vocals, a sort of grinning foxcall shriek, it matches to the most tearaway freeing musical sillyjoy to lyrics straight out of parody goth poetry, "I'm crying in my dreams/I'm always crying in the night/Suffocating/Loneliness my tears hold" wails the title track.

This juxtaposition of the maudlin and the madness isn't like the grit-pop singalong struggle of something like Arms Aloft or Off With Their Heads, where it's all choral catharsis, the happiness and pogosmiles are too transparent in the music, and the vocals don't lend themselves to a singalong, instead it's this blurry mess of goofily weaponised weepings, personal failings and lachrymal outbursts summed up in tight trite McGonagallian rhyme schemes ("Alone always in my head/Searching for the truth/Layers to be shed/In the end only end up dead") and smash/slip punk noise. It's about disjointed collisions, in the pit and in your life, emotions ramped up to ridiculous heights, or stripped down to uncomfortable naked honesty, in order to be blown up and discarded, kissed off, things crashing together and captured in moments of distilled hysteria, dancing like you're rubber and the world is glue, what sticks to its solvent-addled despair bounces off you. As you tumble about everything bounces off you. Laugh through the tears, tear through the laughter. Live this sadness, craft it as a blade, stab at cool smooth put-together lookin' kids with it. Shit-Faced with therapy bills, The Crested distressed and blue. Stay sharp, stay bummed, stay pogoing.

Pusrad - Modern Anatomi

More impossibly brief slices of panicattack hardcore from Swedish speedpunx Pusrad. Frenetic and jerky but scalpel clean, most songs raving themselves out in under 30 seconds. The 7" comes with songs listing Title, Lyrics, Time and then Chords per Second, to properly convey its deliberate dedication to punishing velocity. Paragraf 3 slows it down a bit, to 40 seconds of more mid-tempo punk that rings out sharply and closer Masskineri is a full 68 seconds long which, considering their 5 track Akta Dig 7" was 74 seconds in its entirety, is practically their version of Reoccuring Dreams, getting right mellow and even wistful. It's a nice gentle topper to the bullets that precede it, proving that this band is capable of existing at something other than the smooth lightspeed intensity that they've forged as their particular place in hardcore but still, this band is at their pure and best when they're tearing heads off with quickness and scything 3.91 CPS riffs.