Out Of The Box On Sunday XXI

  listen to Grandma in the Trenches by s n e e z e

In this wave of pop punk bands appealing to the hardcore kids, I wanted to do my part in getting Sneeze (their blogpage), featuring members from L'Antietam, Genders and Ape Up, some attention. This band has a refreshing grungy sound added in the mix, so this record oozes with 90’s appresh!  When you get those grunge groove with punk rock sensibilities, it feels like you get a perfect balance of catchy music that’s just that bit less poppy and rocks out way grittier. Like a  mix between Nirvana’s song Territorial Pissings, Jawbreaker’s I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both or The Offspring’s SMASH-era.

click the image above to buy a copy of the record!

Circle Takes The Square - Decompositions Vol I. Chapter 1. Rites of Initiation

Circle Takes The Square (blog) are back as well. You may have noticed.

Last fm tags as screamo, hardcore, experimental, real screamo,emo 

click the image above to buy stuff directly from them!

Ampere – Like Shadows

 listen to Flightless by Ampere, from this album

They’re back. And how. This long-awaited release, by American pioneers Ampere (their blog), shows no compromise in their sound. This is still the crushing lighntning-speed chaos of emotional despair, socio-political angst and anxious melodies. This is unrelenting punk drums, facemelting melodic guitars that cry out on top of the endproduct and that frenzied raspy voice, into a mix of complexely organized and fast-paced screamo music. In its level of melancholy contrasting with its devastating sound, this band still remains to oversee the branch of hardcore music it represents, from their point of sheer supremacy.
Last fm tags as screamo, emo violence, hardcore, real screamo, emo

click the image above to buy Ampere stuff from No Idea Records

Fallacies - Bastille/Empty Canvas

Bastille by Fallacies

This band proved to appear very promising, with their EP that I recently wrote about. With this 2-song release, they display the same approach to entirely different form of hardcore music. These 2 songs sound like the kind of tunes you would expect from an interlude on a good hardcore record. The title track to Converge’s Jane Doe.  Mors Semper Certa Est on Gold Kids’ Ode To Youth. The intro and outro on Give Up The Ghost’s  We’re Down ‘Till We’re Underground. This is the  downtempo(almost ambient) sounding vulgar display of musicianship hardcore bands like to parade with, in their prime. Only an entire –all be it small- record of nothing but that kind of hardcore music. Closer to post-rock/post-hardcore than the actual punk rock music they are founded on.
Last fm tags as melodic hardcore, hardcore, progressive, experimental, metalcore

click the image above to buy stuff directly from the band!

Out Of The Box On Sunday XX

 listen to Blak Nite's remix of the Gutter song called Thunderskank

A 100% electronic music posted on the blog! Blak Nite (facebook) had released an EP and is now back with Versionen, in which the UK DJ makes dark electro remixes of run WALK, Rollo Tomassi, Kerouac and an eclectic range of other artists. The minimalistic foundation of dub music with a bare minimum of  gritty breaks work as good by themselves as they do with the sampled bits of the remix songs on this record. all of it pitch-black dark electro that lingers on endlessly as well as creeps creeps the fuck aawt.
last fm tags as dark electro

click the image above to buy a copy of the LP

Trainwreck - If There’s Light, It Will Find You

listen to Smaller Than Smaller by Trainwreck, as a preview to this EP

There has been some sort of shift in this band’s sound, during the process of this record. It shows Trainwreck (facebook) without most of their rough edges and with a more elegant style of modern melodic hardcore. Still their own take on it, which they displayed since day one, but this time that aspect is much more prominent with little to no raw metalpunk inbetween. as they did before. First time I saw them was their first show abroad and on this edition of Fluff fest they showed they did not lose their gritty musicianship ever since. It’s probably just succesful experimentation that severs the continuity between from this record and their earlier ones.

click the image above, which I am in, to contact the band and ask them for merch. 

Mountain Man – Grief

 listen to Bargaining I by Mountain Man, as a preview to the album

Mountain Man (myspace) is an extremely dark hardcore band, with former members of Last Lights. Wether the pace is swift or sluggish, from the drone intermezzo’s to the pummeling powerviolence and the raw thrashy punk in between, the sound gets under your skin and provokes the urge to wildly flail about. Every single note, squeal and word has a flavour of agression, misanthropy and emotional torment that would even ignite signs of emotion on Kristen Stewart’s apathetic face.

click the image above to buy their merch

Plague Town - Antverp Smög

Plague Town by Plague Town

When a narrow branch of music gets overflown with a very distinct style of said branch, it can get difficult to see the forest from the trees. When that Entombed-sound was suddenly the touchstone for a new breed of metallic hardcore, a lot of bands popped up that might never get the recognition because too many others are hogging the attention. (all-star bands, the bigger label bands, …) While most of the outstanding names pulled through, there comes a band who deserves all of it, and more. Plague Town (facebook) is a band with members from The Setup, Bliksem and Millions Of Them that have a melodic groove off the richter. While having only played a few shows, they put out this demo to help spread the word and everyone should take note.

click the image above to buy the demo cd-r

Out Of The Box On Sunday XIX

I am not up to speed with whatever’s happening in any division in indie music. Despite listening to a great deal of it, and mostly pretty recent stuff, I would still refer to In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, Reconstruction Site, Daydream Nation, The Sunset Tree and Source Tags & Codes as my favorite records. So I have no clue what attention these guys are getting, but I also can’t imagine it being as much as they deserve. I don’t care if they’re headlining Werchter or Roskilde, WU LYF (site) is to be absorbed with awe. The twinkly melodies, raspy vocals and dreamy feel tot hem make them one of the freshest sounds in the 2500 songs on my online streamable playlist, of office-appropriate music, that plays when I’m working at my office cubicle.
Last fm tags as  lo-fi, indie, experimental, psychedelic, heavy pop

click the image above to buy stuff directly from them!

A† DAGGERS DRAWN - New Bruises

Old Motions by At Daggers Drawn

This record, by At Daggers Drawn (website), is all about the building of momentum. Overall, in the 5 songs on this release, the ambient build-ups unleash distortion-layered havoc  with rather uptempo drumpatterns only for about 2 brief moments. Everything else is twinkly or sludgy guitars, spoken/screamed vocals and marching drums that seem to be moving towards a climax, that in 3 out of 5 songs just doesn’t show up. Much like intermezzo songs on hardcore releases, this is dreamy yet heavy punk rock music that creates an emotional and atmospheric ambience, meant to pump you up for the songs that follow. With these clever songstructures, the absence of said climax does not necessarily resolve in leaving you with an appetite for it, they hold their ground just as they are.

last fm tags as hardcore, melodic hardcore 

click the image above to go to the band's merchstore