Black Kat Boppers
Four wild ones, their very souls ablaze with good ol' Rockabilly orange-and-blue tongues, taught Rave attendees a lesson that bears repitition ad infinitum: Bop + heart casts children into the promised land of Gone.
Video: "Ask him"
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The Refreshments
Steadily churned Rock 'n'Roll, of the type Mr. Berry built into evergreen luminescence. Group singalong voices, rendering hooks that cannot be declined, wave one and all to join in celebrating liberty from that damned torch.
Video: "Bye, Bye Belinda"
Jo Carley & the Old Dry Skulls
"Lover Love Spell" / "Only When the Moon is Full" CD or digital album
"The Zombie" (Reanimated) digital track
(Voodoo Shack Records)
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Herein slink ghastly, ghostly rhythms. The calcium chassis atop which "Lover Love Spell" reclines is a spooky, tease-dance Calypso one, whose infatuated tale-teller looks to voodoo potions for successful conquest. Flip "Only When the Moon is Full" and solely digital "The Zombie" creep in like cursedness. The former issues a frontal sax moon hymn; the latter claws up through fresh sod, driven by kick insistance and yelps that enrapture.
Were root doctors ever to summon forth a washboard...
Videos: "Lover Love Spell" "Only When the Moon is Full" (official video) "The Zombie" (Reanimated)
Joe Bombast
"Not Wild Enough" single
(Martone)
Municipal pencil jockeys may know him as Joe Martin, but Bombast is the descriptor preferred 'round these streets. To hear the one-cat-band let loose with febrile hoots and off-rocker hollers, you'd suspect the ghost of a legendary, tongue-tied hiccuper must've descended and inhabited. But Joe's plainly more intent on swinging like a gate in bash-down Rockabilly gusto, than seeking ghost-doctors' prognoses. Which is so much to the better, for us.
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Ronald / Fréquence Humaine
Said elsewhere to be reworking of a 1978 French novelty effort, the cut at hand burns past famed askew Tower with sparks shooting. Makes case that no tension encumbers relationship betwixt cranial-plumaged chord-uppercuts and courtliness.
Video: "Je Suis en Gentil Punk"
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Otoboke Beaver
These kittens have claws, and they don't hesitate using 'em to dispense what initially seems Punk shambolism. Upon additional scrutiny, though, one digs that while the Punk part is legit, clever construction is also afoot.
Video: "I Don't Need to Be in Your Strike Zone"
Gum Bleed
"Unstoppable" b/w "Until the Day I Die" digital album
(Ring of Fire Records)
What fresh hell is this? Hurtling thunder run, before which all fall into hectic, bodies slamming dimension. Friedrich miscalculated: From this bellicose order comes cool chaos.
Videos: "Unstoppable" "Until the Day I Die"
Monkey Madness
"You Can't See My Eyes" digital single
(Self-issued)
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Videos: "You Can't See My Eyes" live (2:22)
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Emilio Walter
"I Wanna Dance" digital single
(Self-issued)
Sprawling its path from the blinking Wurlitzer, across the thronged hardwood, past the bar, and clean out the door is stomp-feet-and-snap-fingers Rock'n'Roll boogie of the sort that impels reeling regulars to gulp drinks and dive from barstools into the dancing revelers. Shouts of joy all over the joint - including from the built barmaid.
Various
Compilado 25
(Punk Con Punk)
Anarchy en español. As is always so with voluminous band compilations, merit is inconstant. But the finest presented boast enough strength to flatten heads, and techniques honed but not la-di-da. Translators are not needed; demolition rocketeering is a universal language in our underground. Not only will Punk never strike its colors, so long as mifits with perpetual scowls and guitars in hands stalk sidewalks, but every geographic outpost has been molested by surly shouters. Which is pretty damn cool.
Recommended: "Esto Es Madrid" (The Rejects), "La Basura Que Somos" (Viejos Tiempos), "Tema De Adrián" (Fracasso Italiano), "Policía Corrupto" (Los Puta), "Don't Try This At Home" (Whatever!)), "Bhopal" (Punkonia), "Perros Plaga" (Terranos Baldíos), "Tranki" (Qué Dirán), "Alianza" (Alianza), "Alta Frecuencia Que Cura El Dolor" (Hernán Dolor)
Videos: "Esto es Madrid" "Whatever" "Tema De Adrián" "Perros Plaga"
The Mean Devils
"Make Up for Lost Time" b/w "Pack 'em up, Stack 'em Up, Rack 'em Up"
(Discos Dinamite)
Now and again, one detects a Mickey and Sylvia "Love is Strange" imprint in "Make Up for Lost Time." Not nearly enough to locate the blissed-out track on copycat real estate, just enough to signal true believer literacy. Flipside "Pack" scorches treads on the Rockabilly lost highway haunted by the Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow. Calendar years are as nothing, 'cause fearsome wildcatism ain't goin' nowhere.
Videos: "Pack 'm Up, Stack 'em Up, Rack 'em Up" "Make Up for Lost Time" Live at Hemsby 2025 (9:08)
The Brainlets
"The Gig" single
(Self-issued)
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Headlong raucousness of this ilk induces such gleeful misdoing.
Video (live)
Cherry & the Sours
"Crocodile Smile" "Eat You Up" digital singles
(Melissa Jayne Hernandez)
Astracán
"Siempre Sale el Sol" b/w "El Futuro"
(Beatclap)
Sure, Milton wrote of Astrakhan. But he neglected to mention slouches, sneers, and buzz-blade barre chords. Charging from speakers is feral evidence of the Forest Hills Carbona-huffers' eternal imprint - the headiness of kicks-amped young guerillas fronted by a nasal wise-ass who rails against maturation.
This approaching August 12, a total solar eclipse is predicted to sweep Astracán's homeland of Spain. Like they care.
(Full-length Lethal Puberty is scheduled for next month, Friday the 13th issuance.)
Videos: "Siempre Sale el Sol" "El Futuro"
Crown City Bombers
"Toxic Town" single
(Self-issued)
With matter-of-fact terseness, Bombers' boss man Dave Bertiz relates a dark-truth tale: "Hey little girl gettin' off the bus, you're gonna be a star / You got strung out, you lost your job, well now you won't go far. Hey everybody gather 'round / It's showtime in this Toxic Town." Chugging rockbop makes common cause with his somberness, and is entirely content to monger its mesmerism as poised understatement. Albert Hammond's 1972 radio staple mourned identical dark-side-of-Hollywoodland realities, but lacked the razory soloing Dave deploys with head-turning consequence.
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