#10 SKEPTIS Demonstrasi Oleh Skeptis
Wake the fuck UP and listen to the new Skeptis record Demonstrasi Oleh Skeptis. This rings the alarm of action and I’m here for it! Their music is super gloomy but packs a punch aimed at our downpressors!
#9 IMAGE OF DECAY S/T
Turn the TV OFF! Turn the TV OFF! Turn the TV OFF! Turn your TV OFF and blast the new IMAGE OF DECAY. This band reminds me that we live in a world of illusions and what we think is real is not! IMAGE OF DECAY rules, nuff said!
#8 HELLSCAPE S/T
To say that Hellscape’s self-titled record is amazing would be an understatement because this joint is fucking fantastic!!! When I heard their song “Cujo,” I was taken back to June 26, 1984, which is the night I saw 45 Grave perform with Faith No More (Cliff Burton of Metallica joined them this night and I was high on X-Tasy for the first time). The point being is that this band has found a way to balance legit Death Rock with the urgency of Peace Punk. The tones and melody on this record are total blackened perfection! Their song “The Grave” is a release-the-bats anthem that means the world to me now and would have had me dancing with ghoulish homies during the 80s. Don’t get it twisted, Hellscape’s sonics give a nod to the past while pointing us to the real future of Death Punk aka Deathrock. What I love about their sound is that at no time do they come off as pretentious or contrived. Actually, on every second of this EP, all I can hear is their undying passion for their craft! The song “Dybbuk” is spot on and full of the right amount of dirge. Both the vocalist and the lyrical content are beyond awesome. Unholy hell yes, the basslines on this EP rule, and they way they inject their songs with the right amount of morbid atmosphere leaves me wanting to hear more them for sure. If Hellscape reads this, I would like for them to know that my 15-year-old self would love to have seen them live and my 55-year-old self can’t stop thinking that Deathrock will never DIE!
#7 AGE OF FEAR
Always and forever 1753 will be one of my favorite underground labels from the turf — L.A. to be exact! The new AGE OF FEAR record E.P. hits harder than police brutality! This release proves that this band deserves all of the shine that they get because they are that fucking good!!!
#6 VAMPIRE What Seems Forever Can Be Broken
I was born into this world ready to fight for the rights of the oppressed! I was born into this world looking up to the Black Panthers! I was born into a world that I knew was fucked up from the get go! At the age of 14, I discovered Peace Punk aka Anarcho Punk, and from the moment I found this genre, my political views where never the same. Being young, I believed that if we stood up against the shitsem that wanted to fuck us up all over the world would become a better place!
40 years later, I see I was wrong because the world is in a more fucked state in 2024 than it was in 1984. This is why bands like VAMPIRE mean so much to me. Their new album What Seems Forever Can Be Broken out via Televised Suicide Records is a modern classic Peace Punk record that is really AWESOME AF! I never knew that all these years later I would be listening to an Anarcho band that is truly pushing the genre forward. With all of the injustices and wars that have happening globally, bands like VAMPIRE must exist and must be heard! As I blast songs like “Human Capital Markets” or “The Zone,” I realize I’m not in alone in believing this shitstem must be demolished! This band’s anthems of direct action uplift me and make me realize the fight isn’t over. Musically, they knock out UNREAL Anarcho jams that are both intense and urgent. On the vocal tip, the two vocalists are perfectly balanced, and their unwavering passion is infectious! VAMPIRE, I want to say Thanks to y’all for manifesting an album that means so much to me. It’s 2024, and The Struggle Continues!
#5 NEGATIVE GEARS Moraliser
WTF this NEGATIVE GEARS record is pure Anarcho Punk bliss on all levels!!! With each listen they show me that this genre will never die as long as this world spins on its axis of filth! Big-time respect to Static Shock Records for releasing this unreal album! 43 years after hearing my first CRASS album NEGATIVE GEARS hits me in the same spot!
#4 INDUSTRY A SELF PORTRAIT AT THE STAGE OF TOTALITARIAN DOMINATION OF ALL ASPECTS OF HUMAN LIFE
Awesome AF and Intense as Hell are a couple of thoughts that come to mind as I bump the new record by INDUSTRY! I can’t front, while being a Peace punk in the 80s, I didn’t know that there would be Anarcho punk bands straight killing it decades later!!! Straight up and down, A SELF PORTRAIT AT THE STAGE OF TOTALITARIAN DOMINATION OF ALL ASPECTS OF HUMAN LIFE is a classic album. Every song on this album is an anthem!
#3 STRAW MAN ARMY EARTHWORKS
Off-kilter rhythms and dissonant melodies, krautrock meets punk on the way to jazz school, a vibrant lantern in a dark night of the soul…meet the latest creation from STRAW MAN ARMY. It’s called Earthworks and it’s out via La Vida Es Un Mus Discos. Earthworks completes their trilogy of records that started with Age of Exile and then SOS; a past, present, and future of a flailing nation project that will be a blip on the historical timeline of humanity — just hopefully not the last blip. Actually after watching the most recent Madison Square rally, I wouldn’t be so mad if it was the last blip, because goddamn, the population is racing down the toilet fast. At least I have this record to carry me into the uncertain days ahead, it’s driving percussion and addictive guitar lines reminding me that if I’m the insane one, there’s others out here seeing through the madness with me. And the lyrics really are poetry, the kind that confronts us with our own delusion and apathy and helplessness so we can wake up and refuse to participate in the fuckery all around us.
#2 SUBDUED Abattoir
Unholy hell yes, SUBDUED is back and they are not fucking around! Their new album Abattoir rocks harder than cement! These songs are a call to action for punx worldwide to stand on business! Big time respect to LA VIDA ES UN MUS DISCOS for pushing our culture forward! Fuck normal, just listen to SUBDUED all day long on repeat!
#1 BAD BREEDING Contempt
I want to say thank you to BAD BREEDING for creating their new album Contempt out via One Little Indie and Iron Lung Records. There is so much I could say about this amazing collection of songs that I know will stand the test of time! We’ve been blessed with a track by track breakdown of the album by the members of the band themselves. If the humans from BAD BREEDING are reading this, just know that y’all are one of my favorite all-time bands going back over 40 years of being a part of the Global Punk community!
Read the track-by-track here.
