Punk | Hardcore Vinyl Sale 201 Items

Texas trio Bad Sports release their fourth full-length to Dirtnap and with it, push their sound into a more modern sphere of punk. Orville Neeley (guitars / vocals), Daniel Fried (bass / vocals) and Gregory Rutherford (drums) have spent over ten years together and this progression is justified. This time, the production quality is more lean and tense, giving an air that is decidedly frustrated, and more world-weary, but is still the great stripped-down classic-leaning punk band with deep power-pop vs. proto-punk undercurrents. They are not a “retro” band, however—Constant Stimulation is simply a timeless-yet-modern masterpiece.

If you mention Heresy's 'Face Up To It!' album many people will tell you what a great HC album it was but, let down by horrendous production. Now, 30 years since it was recorded, the band undertook a mammoth project to make the album finally sound how they had envisaged. The original multi track master tapes were unearthed and baked to allow a transfer of all the raw recorded material and for the band to do a total ground up restoration/remix on not only the original album, but also the rest of the session that included the bonus tracks originally only released on the Japanese version of the album 'Voice Your Opinion'. To say that the results have been remarkable would be an understatement and have exceeded the band's own expectations.

Hellions' thrillingly raw debut album is now available on LP in the UK & Europe for the first time ever. While the band would later shoot
to prominence with their subsequent albums, Die Young is a riot of colour, youthful energy and righteous anger.

Parasite kicks off with the title track, a rowdy throwback to a younger, angrier
incarnation of the band. Crafted in the wake of the election and during a tumultuous
period in the band members' private lives, "Parasite" is pure catharsis. "During the
making of our last album, I didn't want to scream anymore, I just wanted to sing and
focus on melody. When we came to this recording, I just wanted to scream and
curse," says guitarist/vocalist Julia Kugel. If the EP is meant as a journey through the
various stages of the band's career, it certainly storms out of the gate with the same
kind of piss-and-vinegar of their eponymous debut. And while "Wipe Out" is another
rowdy venture, with bassist Meredith Franco taking over the lead vocal duties over a
steady barrage of pointed power-chords, it also showcases the rousing choruses that
elevated the trio from underground heroines to an internationally renowned garage
act. Despite the adverse times, The Coathangers' mastery of pop cannot be contained
forever, as is evident in the EP's single "Captain's Dead", with its sultry verses,
triumphant chorus, and a bombastic freak-out of noisy guitar. The journey through
The Coathangers' musical evolution leads to a revamped version of "Down Down" off
2016's Nosebleed Weekend LP and the smoky twang of "Drifter", in which
drummer/vocalist Stephanie Luke demonstrates her knack for solid Dusty Springfieldstyle
ballads.

Some last copies, found in the bands rehearsal room. When Von Spar made their ciritcally acclaimed entrance in the pop circuit in 2003 (e.g. coverstory in Spex Magazine) they were regarded as the German answer to the Post-Punk/No-Wave-renaissance. But their debut was more a clever parody about eighties-style-hipster-bands. Three years later and wiser the supergroup (with members of Urlaub in Polen, Oliver Twist, Aggro Cologne) returns with an uncompromising album that gets ahead of all expectations and will surprise their audience and critics who will be shocked. This is not a band following the latest trend. Detached from the usual style issues Von Spar have exorsized the Zeitgeist and overtaken the discourse. There is no scheme. Anything goes. Their new musical language is inspired by seventies Krautrock taking lines of flight to Fluxus art, Minimal Music and early TripHop. Apart from ringtone-compatible hits Von Spar reanimate the classical album-format. The two 20-minute long songs combine the spirit of exploration from Can and Kraftwerk with the conceptual aesthetics of Steve Reich and John Cage and techniques of dark, psychedelic multi-layering by Neurosis and Bohren & Der Club of Gore. All references are permantly ruptured, adopted and newly interweaved. With two new members the five-headed pack recorded in the legendary Electric Avenue Studio, Hamburg, with producer Tobias Levin (Tocotronic, Blumfeld, Kante). Their new labelbase Tomlab offers the congenial platform for this unusual journey. The new album of Von Spar reclaims music as a truthful place for concentration and collective energy from which newness enters the world.