True hardcore is hard to find.

NEVER ENOUGH | artist: Turnstile — I can remember a contemporaneous review in MRR saying that Lungfish had gone soft — saying that "Creation Story" from 1993's Rainbows from Atoms was nothing more than a bad U2 song. It is, of course, something of a tradition going back to

Nothing comes to the faithless firsthand.

I want to talk very briefly about one of my favorite albums of all time, sort of in prep for what we'll be publishing tomorrow. The album is Rainbows from Atoms and the band is Lungfish. It was released in the summer of 1993 on Dischord Records. And

High Weird (and you can take it jogging).

I’ve always liked Philip K. Discs. Beyond being purveyors of fine high weirdness, they’ve also got a knack for extending their weirdness beyond sonics into the physical domain in unexpected ways. Case in point — go pick up one of their limited edition customized portable cassette players. It’ll

Rock and Roll Man.

Charge of the Love Brigade | artist: Escape-ism — Sometimes the bad is so good it makes you feel like life is not fair. This is that real good bad. The good good bad. Outlaw rebel bad. And this outlaw rebel swaggers around knowing that he’s got a bigger rock-a-rolodex then

The Moth and The Newt

Interview with Eveale | Music on Ampwall and Bandcamp Tremelo guitar in the right speaker. Chug in the left. Blastbeats up the middle. Solid bass. Lots of blackened howls, but also something somewhat progressive. A hint of an allusion to more recent Mayhem and then we're on to something

I need to sleep.

Pavements (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) | artist: Pavement — As is widely known, "Fillmore Jive" was the last song recorded in the 1990s. Not long after its completion, the entire Pavement professional musical ensemble perished in a freak flash flood. | How do you even begin rating something like this? 4

Master the master.

In the Company of Champions | artist: Magus Lord — First of all, I beg M. to get someone else to master the side projects. That out of my system, what to make of this? It starts up with an overloaded gothic thing that in all of its sonics and repetition and

Weirding the weird.

"We've been living on a psychedelic substrate for 40 years with the set and setting of surveillance and control and no wonder we are having a bad trip." Just go listen to some Rushkoff.

Oh, it's fine.

Instant Holograms On Metal Film | artist: Stereolab — I always preferred reading music reviews about Stereolab's music to actually listening to the music itself. I saw them once in the early or maybe the mid 90s when they came through Washington, DC. I didn't know they would

Cleveland Vice

Steel, Rust and Disgust | artist: Midnight — The flame-throwing beast that is Midnight reminds us of two things on this covers-heavy set: a) you do not rock as hard as Midnight b) you do not rock as hard as Cleveland. This album of (mostly) covers — and covers mostly of the Cleveland-centric

I am not scowling. But I am Scowling.

Are We All Angels | artist: Scowl | Yes, there will be comparisons to Hole and to Bleach’s fuzzier twists and turns. Yes, there will be “hardcore” boys trying to wring the knots out of their underpants. Yes, there will be complaints about selling out maddeningly typed into Reddit via $1,

Black inside black over black (Now in Technicolor)

Spectrum by Am I in Trouble? — This is the best progressive metal album (Death, Blackened, Trad or otherwise) by an American band since Wilderun’s 2019 masterpiece Veil of Imagination. And I say that realizing that this is exactly the kind of record that ties into knots the tongues of