The Carbonas – Your Moral Superiors: Singles and Rarities 2xLP (Goner)
For whatever reason The Carbonas never quite clicked for me despite many attempts and many recommendations from highly trusted sources. They always seemed a bit too conventional during their time but I’ve been slowly backing into their back catalog, mostly on account of band member G.G. King’s first rate output since The Carbonas ended. And while I still lean a bit towards the boundless creative calisthenics of G.G. King’s oeuvre, it’s hard to deny the righteousness of the 37 snotty razor-sharp punk rock bangers by The Carbonas collected on these two slabs ‘o vinyl. Cheers to the Goner label for delivering the the massive payload necessary to finally convert my dumb ass into being a fan.
Chandra – Transportation LP (Telephone Explosion)
Toronto record label Telephone Explosion worked its way into NFZ’s heart through a consistently solid lineup of garage punk’s finest, but recently the sound of the label has mutated into some interesting new directions. In particular, the label has released some really intriguing reissues from artists like Bruce Haack, Steve Roach, Melodic Energy Commission, Fist of Facts, and this gem from 1980, Chandra’s Transportation. Suspicions about the novelty of a 12-year old girl fronting a post-punkish new wave group in the 1980s New York club scene are immediately tabled as the tensely-wound lead track “Opposite” stomps with the righteous thump of ESG, the loose energy of The Fall’s “three R’s” of rock n roll (repetition, repetition, repetition), and the Slits’ dub-fused punk punch. It sounds fresh by today’s standards and even has a bit of a no wave edge with clashing, discordant keyboards and violin that are guaranteed to repel normals and delight weirdos.
Cows – Effete and Impudent Snobs (Amphetamine Reptile)
AmRep’s boutique reissues continue to mine noisy gold from their back catalog, this time resurrecting one of the Cows’ more overlooked records. While every Cows record is worthy of your attention, I’ve always thought this one has a slightly different vibe than the rest of their discography. To me, Effete always felt grimier and more akin to the dingy bludgeoning of Drunks with Guns than the drunken warble of their earlier records or the punchy skronk of their later, more widely known classics like Peacetika and Cunning Stunts. It’s bleak and relentless, caked in noise, almost like an R-rated version of the Brainbombs. Granted, this is still the Cows as evidenced by the stomping old gold classic track “Cartoon Corral”, a song propagated by the first Dope, Guns, and Fucking Up Your Video Deck compilation with a doublespeed oompa oompa wobble kinda like the Butthole Surfers playing a demented polka. A couple other tracks kick up the pace a bit too, but overall, the pace is lumbering and queasy, and a bit gnarlier than their other records. Recommended!
ESG – Come Away with ESG LP (Fire)
Along with the Chandra reissue and Superior Viaduct’s Liquid Liquid reissues a couple years back, the minimalist NYC beat party never has to end. It’s shocking how badass and fresh this 1983 LP still sounds after 35 years. It’s a stone cold classic that defies genre, slipping somewhere in the space between new wave, hip-hop, post-punk. And even though 98% of Record Store Day releases tend to be utter wastes of oil (Sugar Ray on vinyl anyone? Anyone?) causing record dorks to convulse with vulgar spasms of consumerism, it’s essential reissues like this that almost justify the whole lurid affair.
The Fall – The Rough Trade Singles (Superior Viaduct)
Of the hundreds of releases from The Fall, some of their (specifically Mark E. Smith, R.I.P.) finest moments were captured on wax during their first stint on the Rough Trade label, four of which are collected here. These pillars of postpunk progeny have been reissued in many formats over the 40 years since their initial run, including 7″ box sets and expansive double CD collections of these four singles and a grab bag of related recordings, but the fine team at Superior Viaduct have lovingly packaged these indispensable classics into the perfect format LP with great sound and liner notes by WFMU’s Brian Turner. We lost MES in 2018, but his music lives on.
Goblin – Profondo Rosso Original Film Soundtrack (Death Waltz)
With nearly 50 reissues of this classic Argento movie soundtrack (aka Deep Red) and counting, there’s no shortage of options when it comes to experiencing this piece of wild ass Italian prog rock from 1975. This edition from Death Waltz however is one of the best-looking and best sounding editions you’ll hear, as it fully lures you into the era with enough slithering bass lines, percussive calculus, and analog synths to paint your world into the psychedelically-tinted world of psychotic killers and blood red splatter.
Hammerhead – Into The Vortex (Amphetamine Reptile)
Happy to see another one of AmRep’s finest get a reissue of their killer sophomore album, even if it is a limited edition art version that sold out before it was even a twinkle in Tom Hazelmeyer’s eye. But hey, you can still get the CD version or stream it somewhere (gasp!) and revel in one of 1994’s best documents of midwestern noise rock. While Hammerhead’s debut Ethereal Killer still holds up and their raging swansong Duh, The Big City is worthy of your attention as well, Into The Vortex is the record where these Minnesota-via-North Dakota-via-Nowhere spazzoids kicked their amped up their aural attack to a whole new level with obscenely propulsive guttural buzz bombs that leveled every wanker wannabe “grunge” band and their impotent distortion pedals.
Punk 45: Approaching the Minimal with Spray Guns – 5×7″ Box Set (Soul Jazz)
Also justifying Record Store Day 2018, maybe, was this exquisite collection of primo punk singles by the fine folks at Soul Jazz, whose expertly curated Punk 45 compilation series has revived tons of obscure and way out of print gems with copious liner notes, excessive titles and electrified mastering that pumps new life into these lost classics. This set collects full, faithful reproductions of 5 raging 45s, with a mix of large holes and small holes, accurate labels and even the origami-like sleeve from The Scabs 1979 EP. And despite being featured on two of the LP comps, Cleveland’s X____X’s A-side from their second release, “No Nonsense”, not included on the LPs or featured as the comp title like the B-side for this limited edition box set, is an essential chunk of mangled, tense weirdo punk that still sounds fresh 38 years later. Also included is the stomping Bizarros/Rubber City Rebels split 7″, the KBD-approved Hollywood Squares “Hillside Strangler” 7″ and the Flesh Eaters’ essential “Disintegration Nation” 7″ EP from 1978, all lovingly reproduced
Simply Saucer – Cyborgs Revisited 2xLP (In The Red)
Cult archival collection that’s been issued by at least four other record labels gets a deluxe double LP treatment from the always reliable In The Red label. The 16 tracks here, 6 studio recordings from 1974 and an extended live set from 1975, demonstrate how completely out of time and ahead of their time they were. There’s a touch of punk snarl, some expansive VU-like jams (whose influence is captured in 2 additional bonus tracks, “Sweet Jane” and “I’m Waiting for The Man” with a download code) and a wacked out space vibe that falls somewhere between the trance state of Hawkwind and the jarring sci-fried buzz of Chrome.
Unwound – Leaves Turn Inside You 2xLP (Numero Group)
In addition to a stellar box set reissue campaign from 2013–2016, the Numero Group saw fit to provide a deluxe reissue of Unwound’s 2001 swansong, Leaves Turn Inside You in 2018, a record which marked the end of one of the most dependably solid bands of the 1990s without much fanfare. At the time of its release, Unwound had evolved so much from their 1991 debut that most saw this double album simply as the next step of the band’s forward thinking approach to post/noise/wave/indie/core/whatever/etc, rather than the final transmission of a group whose 10 years of constant touring, evolution and reach were clearly taken for granted. While Unwound seemed to be a known quantity in 2001, Leaves proved to be an elusive beast that could be identified as Unwound, but an alien form of Unwound that had evolved into a hard-to-pin genre in a league all of its own. Kudos to Numero Group for resurrecting this monumental document.
Vector Command – System 3 LP (Hozac)
System 3 is a previously unreleased archival album by two members of Crime that taps into a sci-fi strain of chilly electro postpunk orbiting in the same stratosphere as early Chrome. While not as cut-up and revolutionary as Chrome, Vector Command certainly stands on its own as a noteworthy otherworldly demonstration of punk’s wide-open possibilities in 1983 as members of one of U.S. punk’s earliest groups (Crime’s Hot Wire My Heart 7″ released in 1976) could make a departure this dramatic from the codification of the genre in the early ’80s. Deviating from the fiery stomp Crime was known for, Vector Command took a detached, robotic approach that coils like mildly-stimulating electrodes through the cerebellum with seductive, analog electronic buzz and thump.