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Saturday, July 12, 2025

The Brains

Crazy Monster vinyl, digital, and compact disc

(Cleopatra)



With Crazy Monster, Canadian, moon-shadowed The Brains - wreckers of stages the world 'round - assume the status of genre masters. Necromancers who are always good for a fresh round. For years, of course, they've clawed toward lofty situation. And with each successive issuance, they've ascended nearer. 

Now that Rene de la Muerte and his morbid accomplices have plunged their crimson-smeared marker into that topmost plateau, one anticipates unending cursedness. Oh, happy day.

Recommended: "Evil," "One More Time," "Feel No Pain," "Crazy Monster," "Candy Apple Red," "Darkness," "Shakey Queen," "The Blood is Warm"

Videos: "Evil"   "One More Time"   "Feel No Pain"   "Crazy Monster"   "The Blood is Warm"


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Cleopatra

ca7digital.com

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Rough Trade

Proper Music

Josey

Apple

Spotify


Plastic Section

Revenge

(Chaputa!)


Up-for-anything wild-siders raised by JDs, hunting kicks and slingshotting down highways first dug by 1950s dervishes. Amps are set to astronomical ranges, ensuring no one misses messages of heedless abandon. Club-crawling revelers are a surging expanse of pomps, quiffs, buzz-cuts, and razored neon explosions. Observers' only options are to leap aboard or dive ditchward.

Recommended: "Insane," "Party Crashers," "Din Daeng," "Breakin' Out," "Revenge," "Frenzy," "Make It Out Alive," "Deuces Wild"

Videos: "Insane"   "Revenge"   "Deuces Wild"


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Chaputa!

Bandcamp


get hip

Sonic Rendezvous

Drowned World Records

iMusic

Amazon


Forklift Assassins

Ripsnorter   limited vinyl, limited CD, digital

(Self-issued)



Three jaws jutted, three brains honed. Opening moments feature sound bites from President Trump and James Stockdale, cluing jagged adherents in to the truth that, for all the brutally metallic, savage-underground lip-curling, the Forklift Assassins' world-knowledge extends beyond high-amped confrontationalism. Now, here's the turnaround:  Despite that conciousness, the robust onslaught will likely hoist one aloft, deliver a sound thrashing, and leave eager victims demanding additional portions.

Recommended: "Lorem Ipsum," "Curse of the Mayans (Living on Borrowed Time)," "Brown Note," "Blink and You'll Miss It," "Something We Want," "Living on the Edge," "Wake Up (Rapid Eye Movement)"

Video: "Something We Want" / "Brown Note" (live)


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Vi-nil Records

Bandcamp


Suitcase Records  (May be sold out.)

Music Farmer

Apple

Amazon

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Back in the Day, 1978

Sham 69

Tell Us the Truth

(Polydor / Polydor Japan)


Easily as non-negotiating as anything wrought by 1970s English spike-topped fellows. Giving a sound booting to the tedious indulgences annoyingly produced by navel-gazing hippies would by itself have been sufficient for celebration. But Jimmy Pursey and his surly flick-knife mates larded anthemic projectiles with enough prideful working-class glare to incite teenage malcontents to stomp down the cobblestones.

Recommended, live side: "We Got a Fight," "Rip Off," "George Davis Is Innocent," "They Don't Understand," "Borstal Breakout"

Recommended, studio side: "Family Life," "Hey Little Rich Boy," "I'm a Man, I'm a Boy," "What About the Lonely?," "Tell Us the Truth," "It's Never Too Late"

Videos: "We Got a Fight"    "They Don't Understand"    "Borstal Breakout"  (live)   "Family Life"   "Hey, Little Rich Boy"   "Tell Us the Truth"


Detour Records

Discrepancy Records

Hepcat Store

Discogs

Amazon


Wednesday, July 9, 2025

The Stingrays

Stand By For Action

(Western Star)



There being no reason not to take up examples mounted by 1960s British Pop confectioners, the three involved here do so winningly and with beaming good cheer. (Inspiration arrives, too, from Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.) One marvels as spring-heeled melodies romp. Unanticipated twists ensure that matters hum steadily. The voices croon exultantly, and remind that lives lived with songs in heart and  smiles wreathing faces know no grayness overhead.

Recommended: "It's Been Nice," "Why Little Girl," "Magic Carpet," "A Tribute to Buddy Holly," "Little Baby," "I'll Never Get Over You"

Videos: "It's Been Nice"    "Why Little Girl"   "Little Baby"   "I'll Never Get Over You"


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Western Star

zdigital.com.au


imusic

Juno

Rough Trade

Deep Discount

Apple

Collectors' Choice Music

Spotify


Dead Bollox

Go Mental!

(Katabomb Records)



France's Dead Bollox have demolished international stages, before top-of-bill, quiffed satyrs Demented Are Go and Mad Sin had opportunities to wreak gruesome pandemonium. So, throngs already know well what this album documents: that sledgehammering fulminations into the brains of blissful misfits engenders horrid-yet-savory impulses all-too-familiar to mental-health clinicians and armored riot squads.

Recommended: "I'm a Man," "Big Mouth," "Shake Your Bones," "Wicked," "Go Mental"

Videos: "I'm a Man"    "Big Mouth"    "Wicked"


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Katabomb


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Discogs

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iHeart

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Los Sex Sex Sex

Control   7" black vinyl EP or digital

(Slovenly Recordings)



I forsee no dissent, when I state this is precisely what Garage mavericks and leathered spiky sorts slapping hands in a back alley sounds like: a fierce union of LOUD outrush and uncultivated posturing. Walls collapse and windows shatter, as delinquent agitators knock all hell out of Rock'n'Roll that couldn't care less about wreckage it perpetrates.

Recommended: "Control," "Algo Salvaje," "Campos Mutantes"

Videos: "Control"   "Algo Salvaje"


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Slovenly

Bandcamp


Midheaven Mailorder

Tower Records

Amazon

Apple

iHeart


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About Me

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FORMER staff writer for Rockabilly and Pin Up America magazines. FREELANCE credits include Daily Caller, American Thinker, Free Republic, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Independent Political Report, USA Today, Des Moines Register, Iowa City Press-Citizen, Waterloo Courier, Cedar Falls Times, Marshalltown Times Republican, Cincinnati.com, IndyStar, Arizona Republic, No Depression, Goldmine, Blue Suede News, Rock and Rap Confidential, Crackerjack, Blues News, Wrecking Pit, Punk Globe, Prairie Sun, Music and Sound Output, BAM, New Music, and 1980s NYC fanzines Shake, Rattle, and Roll, Rebel Rouser, and Off the Wall. AUTHOR: Shake, Rattle and Rocket!, Ghost Saucers in the Sky!, Stratosphere Boogieman!, Flesh Made Music, That a Man Can Again Stand Up: American spirit vs, sedition during the incipient Trump Revolution, and Ideas Afoot: Political observations, social commentary, and media analyses. WORKED as 2004 Iowa coordinator for Ralph Nader independent presidential campaign; co-founded Iowa Green Party, also served as statewide media coordinator; press coordinator, 2002 Jay Robinson (Green) IA gubernatorial effort. Wrote extensively re Trump campaign..