The idea of releasing a "Greatest Hits" package for a band like Men's Recovery Project seems laughable on the surface. Emerging out of the scorched carcass of Born Against, Men's Recovery Project left an embarrassing stain on the face of mid-'90s hardcore, offering messy, aberrant punk fueled by primitive, farting electronics and a defiant sense of weirdness. This isn't the kind of band that lends itself to a neat career summary, which this disc presents itself as - but in spite of itself, The Very Best of Men's Recovery Project offers a retrospective for fans and an introduction for newcomers as fine as could be imagined. Men's Recovery Project was wildly inconsistent, but never disappointing. For every tossed-off, disarming joke ("Man Urinating, Laughter", "Problem?"), they also offered a song that was fully realized, forceful, and even brilliant ("Normal Man", "Sexual Pervert"). Both halves are equally important to the identity of Men's Recovery Project, and the division between them is unstable (sometimes collapsing in the middle of a song). Their music sounds like the culmination of the punk continuum in an alternate universe, as if hardcore had germinated on a techno-dystopian leisure cruise populated by mutant perverts and android oppressors, as … Read more
If there is one hardcore band in Chicago that truly defines the conventions of "Chicago Hardcore," it is The Killer. … Read more
If Myspace, YouTube, and various messegeboards have shown me anything in 2006, it is that kids love to mosh. From … Read more
In late 2004, The Futureheads punctured the mope-heavy indie rock bubble with the delivery of their hyperactive post-punk debut album. … Read more
The lead off track on Crime In Stereo's The Troubled Stateside is titled "Everything Changes/Nothing Is Ever Truly Lost." This … Read more
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The passage of time signals many changes; life, death, birth – the cycle continues unabatingly, waiting for the next movement and giving no room for change. For Pelican, the six years since their last record, Forever Becoming, has seen many instances of life, death and birth and the passing of former Tusk member (a project also featuring members of Pelican) Jody Minnoch gave them the impetus to create their most aggressive offering to date. But, life finds a way to derail even the best laid plans and as such it has been over half a decade since we heard a full length from this Chicago quartet. Nighttime Stories may have a lovely title; one that evokes images of being cuddled up under a blanket and listening to an elder tell … Read more
The preamble about Hard-Fi is something about DIY, self-financing, self-promotion and the dole. There's something about the middle-English wastelands in which the band live. Something else about inner city tower blocks adds weight to the working class credentials about which, no doubt, Virginia Woolf would have something or other to say. Some quasi-pretentious blurb about wanting to sell records in … Read more
According to Playboy.com, Neko Case is the "Sexiest Babe of Indie Rock." Fortunately for the listening public, such a lofty title hasn't gone to Miss Case's head. "I'm not out to become Faith Hill," she says. "I never want to play an arena, and I never want to be on the MTV Video Music Awards, much less make a video … Read more
Weak. Shallow. Lame. Insipid. All of these words have been used at some point (by me) to describe country music. I fucking hate what passes for country music today and thankfully, so does Hank Williams III. He knows that the crossover into pop music in the late eighties/early nineties signaled the death of whatever creativity or credibility was left in … Read more
It's been a quite wait for Slayer fans, who are as rabid as music fans come. We last heard new music from the metal masters on 2001's God Hates Us All. Well here in 2006 we have been graced - an ironic choice of words I know - with Eternal Pyre featuring a brand new Slayer song, "Cult." On "Cult" … Read more
I love unsolicited review materials, especially when it's a band I've never heard before, and even more so when said band turns out to be surprisingly good. Aoria is a four-piece outfit from Sweden that plays rock music with the electro-pop influence of The Cure. The songs of this three-song EP are strongly written and the intricate composition of the … Read more
A lot of bands claim influence from early hardcore favorites like Black Flag and Minor Threat. Nine times out of ten it is complete bullshit and nothing more than a marketing ploy - "We blend the intensity of Minor Threat with the brutality of Slayer and the social awareness of Catharsis." Actually that band sounds kind of sweet, but you … Read more
Lost in Focus is the debut release from a Southern California five-piece know as Apiary. I listen to a lot of music, and have jaded fucking ears that just don't prick up the way they used to. It takes a good shot of aural Viagra to get my attention. My attention was grabbed not long into "Pain Is The Reason" … Read more
Despite featuring ex-members of Combatwoundedveteran and Reversal of Man, Guiltmaker is distinctly less heavy than you might initially assume they would be. In fact the band does a fairly catchy take on the mid 90s emo rock/ post hardcore sound. Reminiscent of both bands like Rival Schools, Jets to Brazil and Jawbreaker, as well as uber popular present day acts … Read more
Initially released late last year on Japanese label Diwphalanx, Pink now finds a worldwide release through Southern Lord. It also see's the band at their scuzzy rock best. Similar in sound in many ways to their 2005 Southern Lord release, Akuma No Uta, but upping the ante considerably with tighter more memorable songs. Tracks like "Regardless it is not Separable" … Read more
Genghis Tron is something of an anomaly in the world of music. On their Myspace site they list themselves as Grind/Electro/Metal, which is a pretty disconcerting declaration to some. It sounds a bit off-putting, like a botched crossbreeding that has yielded mentally handicapped offspring in the form of songs that should have never been written. That's the way it usually … Read more
My initial experience with Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (henceforth referred to as simply 'tones, to save me a fair bit of typing) was not an audio one. Rather, for sometime the only working knowledge that I had of the band was their lyrics which I read through after Soulseek dropped the ball and returned no search results. This, granted, … Read more
Prog-rock is quite an unstable ground to tread upon. One uneven step can send you hurtling into the abyss of ridiculous pretentiousness. As Silence of Another Kind begins, Paatos is already dangerously close to losing their footing. "Shame", while aptly named, does nothing more than give the impression of a rather uninspired band that is simply going through the motions. … Read more
Hate is a tough thing to grasp for many people. They say they hate, but I'm not sure I believe it because the term "hate" is like love. It's thrown about haphazardly and used in offhand comments and that makes it lose it's true, immensely dark and angry feeling. So when a band aims to go for hatred as the … Read more
My buddy Dave said it best: "This shit makes me want to punch a whale." Ridiculous? Perhaps. But Ceremony's first full-length, Violence Violence is completely ridiculous. And I mean that as a compliment in every way. They released their Ruined 7" not too long ago and the hardcore hype train started a-chuggin'. You'd see kids in Ceremony hoodies and tees … Read more
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