punk

Round Eye – [Album]
REVIEWS

Round EyeCulture Shock Treatment(Paper + Plastick Records) Fuck this year. 2020 has proven to be the most disappointing annum in many regards but, perhaps most importantly (at least within the goings on for this website), 2020 has gone down as the year which stalled the releases of an impressive number of albums, completely halted all touring routes through North America and diverted attention from most of the things people take pleasure in – and seen it be refocused on despicable...

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Monday, 19 October 2020
Vinyl Vlog 442
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A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the “Price We Pay 7” by Noi!se. A lot of years ago, this guy I know played in a really, really good rock-punk band. For a long time that band had a standing tradition: release a 7” single and go out on tour to promote the release. It was a fairly lucrative practice and, eventually, the band celebrated a milestone anniversary (I can’t remember how many years) by releasing a CD which...

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Wednesday, 26 August 2020
Vinyl Vlog 437
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A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Territories’ When The Day Is Done 10” EP Work in the press long enough, and eventually one begins to rely on the complications that one finds with a release, because the difficulties in qualifying or quantifying the sound of an album (and the media – for that matter) become the fuel for for what makes that release good or not and why. It’s actually a really easy cheat which, now that I’ve...

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Wednesday, 12 August 2020
SPOTLIGHT: NICE GUYS
FEATURES

WHO: Nice Guys WHAT: Self-titled WHY: I’ll gladly say that Nice Guys are the best band in Boston and fight anyone who wants to challenge that. Remember, this isn’t exactly the same band from 5 years ago. They used to stick to the EP format and sounded raw and sloppy as they should being a weedcore band. Nowadays they’re a tight proggy hardcore punk band and have finally bestowed their debut LP on us. It’s punk rock blast, fast, spastic,...

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Monday, 29 June 2020
Vinyl Vlog 422
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A deeper look at the grooves pressed into The Drowns’ Under Tension LP. While we could easily start this review of The Drowns’ debut album discussing the disparity between looks (the album cover – which is terrible) and content (the music on the album), let’s just start with this endorsement: no matter how much praise Under Tension receives, it deserves more. There are plenty of flaws in the packaging, but the music is absolutely peerless in its quality. From beginning...

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Wednesday, 08 April 2020
Vinyl Vlog 403
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A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the “Hold Fast”/”Demons” 12” picture disc single by the Drowns. Ignoring the fact that the very idea of a two-songs-on-one-side, digitally printed twelve-inch single could easily be defined as the height of twenty-first century indulgence (and, potentially, the pinnacle of missing the point from a ‘back to vinyl’ analogue-lovin’ standpoint), it’s awfully difficult to argue against the quality of the two songs which appear on this preview release for...

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Sunday, 24 November 2019
Photobooth: Pale Lips @ O’ Brien’s [Allston, MA] 10-26-19
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Photos by Richard...

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Tuesday, 12 November 2019
Vinyl Vlog 399
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A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Crisis Point LP by Subhumans. Mark Twain once said that, in order to truly find one’s way to genuine inspiration, “First, get your facts straight – then distort them at your leisure.” Now forty-one years after they started (thirteen since last the band release a full-length album of new material), it can be assumed that Subhumans learned all their lessons and got all their details aligned because, in listening to Crisis...

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Thursday, 31 October 2019
Vinyl Vlog 379
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A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the First Light LP by The Ratchets. Anyone who has followed my contributions to this column likely already knows and understands that, while my coverage of vinyl records is very format-focused, I do not believe that the format itself deserves much discussion. Simply said, I do a lot of vinyl coverage because I like the SOUND of vinyl records – the color of the vinyl into which the music is pressed is...

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Wednesday, 10 April 2019
Vinyl Vlog 361
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A deeper look at the grooves pressed into EP by Dad Brains. Now over forty years since it first appeared, it was inevitable that punk rock was probably going to take on something that resembled a fatherly voice, somehow. How could it not? With Green Day having made concept records already and both Fat Mike Burkett and Mike Watt having produced punk rock opera albums, punk and its pillars have already begun taking on “grown up projects” (or at least...

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Thursday, 06 December 2018