The Kingshakes

Hard Knocks

(Milkshake Records)

High-octane go-juice (laced with some under-the-counter substance) gushed straight from the pump into these bopification implements - of that, one feels confident. Those words are in no manner intended to slight the fracture-daddies wielding said jive tools; indeed, it is through their knowing administration that eardrums the globe over have been turned inside-out and upside-down - to owners' gratification.

The combo issued three singles besides this 2024 maiden wax: "Those Lips" (2024), "Car 89" (2024), and "Rockabilly Gay Bar" (2026).Also issued was 2024 EP Back Tracks.

Recommended: "Gunnin for the Dog," "Hardknocks," "Hooker" (Sharks forever!), "Bye Bye Girl," "Breakaway," "Lookin' Back," "Do Bad Things," "Down the Dust Pipe," "You Belong to Me," "Big Boys"

Videos: "Gunnin' for the Dog"   "Breakaway" (live)   "Big Boys"

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Lorne Behrman

If Heaven Didn't Hurt

(Spaghetty Town Records)

My own laudatory appraisal brings up the rear of an impressive conga line, one whose merrymaking scribes hail from Exile SH Magazine, Add To Wantlist, Veglam, and Faster and Louder. Lorne made his bones flinging PunkChunks from positions of passion, but the sole indicator here of that oats-sowing juvenescence is lyrical trenchancy (plus brash bearing). The Jazzy understatement against which the cancer vanquisher now arranges poetic pictures is elegant and mature in the finest of manners. And his reserved, matter-of-fact articulations present imagery without diverting gazes from them.

Recommended: "If Heaven Didn't Hurt," "They Won't Take Us Alive," "Pink Cocaine," "I Want to Love You Again," "Every Motherfucker She Sees," "Bitter Town Blues"

Videos: "If Heaven Didn't Hurt"   "They Won't Take Us Alive"   "Bitter Town Blues"

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With Dickie Leonard Graves Phillips

Trauma Illinois

White House

(Self-issued)

My fictional suspicion is that a bunch of jeans-jacketed kids with six-packs and MD 2020 swarmed over a cemetery fence and sent up collective supplication to whoever presently rules from the moon. Doing the turntable spin before us is the 12-track realization of those teen scofflaws' plea: a slamming endeavor in which massive slabs of guitar crash, skins are thrashed without remorse, bass-string bedevilment twists ears, and vocals soar cleanly on highest trails above.

No ungoverned adamantium bluster, this; rather, one appreciates the intellects that determined wise maneuverings and intricacies that populate successive passages. All of which hard-lashes a galaxy of headbangers, just back from the cemetery, blinded by science fiction and waving signs of the horns.

Subsequent to full-length White House's issuance, Trauma Illinois loosed three singles featuring further labrynthine riffing: "Pink Motel" (2025), "Prost!" (2025), "Villain" (2026), and "2007 Toyota RAV4" (2026).

Recommended: "Galileo," "Sometimes Wine," "Frogtown USA," "Certain Kind of Stupid," "Backdoor Love," "Broken/Get Off Your Ass"

Videos: "Galileo"   "Frogtown USA"   "Backdoor Love"   

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The Horny Wackers and the epileptic reaction

Top of the Garbage   vinyl and digital

(Self-issued)

From behind the tricolore door of a garage beat-laboratory/boudoir flood jungle percussives, unbalanced intimacies, guitar brickbats maddened with fuzz, Gone-and-staying-there Rockabilly, and more Crampsian curiosities than you can shake a furry handcuff at (if that's your idea of a good time). The best sort of fun is where not all are guaranteed return.

Recommended: "Get Down," "The Big Green Cock Monster," "She's Cruel," "Wackin' the Dark," "My Rendezvous Under the Moon," "Sexual Ghost," "Happy Flesh," "Strum Strum Strum Again," "Cold Sweat"

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Phantom A.D. package deal now available

In order to obtain The Phantom A.D.'s recently announced LP-etc package, one can either sign their name in blood or send $29.99. (Ordering address below. S&H is free.)

Swag that will accompany the limited green vinyl full-length platter are an exclusive 1.25" button, exclusive 3" sticker, and digital download version -- including six bonus tracks.

In the Phantom A.D.'s cobwebbed, latex-monster hood, darkness is a 24/7 proposition. Splenetic chords race like risen-from-beneath, demolition terrors hip to the ways of lost-avenues Rock'n'Roll. Swirling his cape whilst surfing atop a saucer, The Phantom A.D. growls enunciations that bespeak horrors good men know not.

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Video: "MK Ultra Rock"   "I Go Where the Party Takes Me"   "The Brain That Wouldn't Die"

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Discharger

Firing off conflagratory ruckuses are Haymaker's ringleader Tim S. and confreres of infamous repute. "Don't let punk and skinhead gigs be fucked up 'cause of politics / So leave your fucking politics at home." An armored Oi! anthem that cudgels wisdom as sound in 2026 as when it first jumped up from 2015 LP Until We Die's slashy grooves. 

Videos: "Politics" (live)   Live at Vault 27 in Barnsley, 9/13/2026

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Planet Strange

Against Doc's insistent snareskin hammerings, and with Dan Davies ensuring rigorous slap-bass rattlings resound up front where they belong, Steven Siddle (he of towering wedge and nightshadow cheaters) spits a tale coldly credible -- given his dirt-nap pallor -- with gravel-throated disdain for mortality.

Video: "I Ain't Dead"

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Mental Records