All Things to All People Vol 25 / Featured Release Roundup for December 20, 2017

Gee Tee: Death Race 7” (Neck Chop) Third EP from this Australian project, and last time I wrote about them (which was regarding their 7” on Goodbye Boozy) I thought they had kind of a D.L.I.M.C. / Coneheads vibe going on, but this new EP seems to go beyond that and hit upon something a little more distinctive and original. In particular, it reminds me a lot of Brian Eno’s first two solo albums, when he was still making pop music but started to be really aggressive about bringing different sounds than just drum, bass, guitar, and vocals into the mix. Death Race is similar in that it feels a bit like some of the best neo-garage on the surface, but upon closer inspection it’s made of different ingredients. There are a remarkable number of different tones and textures here, but they’re all wrapped up in a completely infectious package. The whole new Neck Chop batch is very strong, but this one might be my favorite of the bunch.

KNOWSO: Look at the Chart 12” (Neck Chop) If the artwork wasn’t enough to clue you in, about 30 seconds of listening to this record will make it clear that it spawns from the some of the same minds that have recently brought us bands like Cruelster and Perverts Again. While all of those bands are similar in some ways, they’re also different in others, and that’s certainly the case with KNOWSO as well. Instrumentally, the thing that seems the most notable to me are the surprisingly melodic guitars, which are double-tracked in this Greg Sage kind of way that could be really melodic and beautiful in different hands, but of course KNOWSO continue the artistic exploration of moron headspace from their other bands. Some of my favorite lyrics on Look at the Chart include “They sick the dogs on my people / They sick the people on my dogs,” and “I keep seeing you around / Why? / This is my town / Me and my friends’ down / Me and my mom’s town.” On this record smart and dumb are used like sweet and salty to balance one another out and give the whole thing a unique flavor. If you’re really averse to one or the other the whole thing might fall flat for you, but I think this record is totally great.

Parsnip: Health 7” (Anti-Fade) Debut 4-song EP from this Australian band, and man is it killer! The retro sleeve design looks super cool, but for me it simultaneously raises and lowers expectations… since it looks like an old Kinks single I get up my hopes that this will be some great pop music, but then when I think about how few retro-60s bands actually pull that off I have a kind of mental backlash before I’ve even heard the record. However, once the needle drops on this thing it’s hard not to fall in love… Parsnip sound to me like the perfect mixture of sophisticated 60s pop and charmingly rickety late 70s post-punk… like the Raincoats or Kleenex incorporating some hammond organ, taking a stab at Zombies / Box Tops / Left Banke-style baroque pop and arriving at something I feel like I’ve never heard before. The sound of this EP is wonderful in its own right, side-stepping the modern habit of having every frequency in the range of human hearing occupied. However, the real treasure here are the songs themselves, which are fabulous… try your best not to hum along with “Health!”

Very Mental: Misconstrued 7” (Total Punk) Debut single from this band out of Olympia, and that’s pretty much all I know about them. However, I know that Olympia hasff a very high standard for punk rock and Very Mental very much meet it… this isn’t one of those throwaway garage singles that seems like it was conceived, written, and recorded in the space of an hour. Very Mental have serious pop chops, and when Total Punk compares them to the Dangerhouse set it’s an apt description, both because they have some of that X-esque vocal interplay going on and also because these songs feel sturdy and meaty in the same way that many of the tracks on those classic singles did. Throw in a perfectly gritty recording and you have another keeper from Total Punk.

The Celetoids: Pupal Stage 12” (Drunken Sailor) Debut 12” (I think it was released earlier as a cassette) from this Croatian band. The Celetoids have a sound that’s tough to pin down, combining elements of hardcore, post-punk, and the darker end of garage-punk (like the Marked Men and Radioactivity) into something that’s really beefy but also super catchy. I’m reminded of countless darker, heavier, pop-infused punk bands over the years, from the Buzzcocks (particularly Steve Diggle’s tracks) to the Wipers to later Government Issue and Naked Raygun to Pegboy… the Celetoids are a pretty comfortable fit in that tradition, and they have the songwriting chops to warrant the comparison.

Chemotherapy: S/T 7” (Time Change) If you’re the type who chases after the rawest, most inept punk rock you can find, let me introduce you to your new holy grail. I actually hadn’t heard of this Chemotherapy EP before this reissue came out, which I suppose makes sense because 1. the original vinyl is insanely rare and 2. it’s really only noteworthy because of it’s horribleness. This is, quite frankly, one of the most inept musical recordings I’ve ever heard in my life… it’s like a punk rock Shaggs, with the bass and guitar completely and totally out of tune with one another, a drummer who clearly has no idea what they’re doing, and a singer who nevertheless sells it like he’s fronting the second coming of Minor Threat. A lot of music that other people describe as inept I actually think is quite beautiful, but there’s nothing beautiful about Chemotherapy. I honestly can’t tell if they’re joking or if it’s merely the best they can do (and the must-watch video on YouTube of them playing in their high school cafeteria doesn’t provide any further clues), but if you want to see just how raw, abrasive, and ugly music can get this is a record you need in your life.

Rolex: demo cassette (B.L.A.P.) Debut cassette from this band out of LA, and man it’s a ripper! Very much in the “weird hardcore” vein, Rolex have a clean guitar sound, a noodly bass player and a lot of quirky (but really, really fast and tight) rhythmic changes. It sounds a lot like early Die Kreuzen played about 20% faster, which basically means that it sounds a whole lot like Nasa Space Universe in places. In particular, it reminds me a lot of NSU’s first EP which had a much brighter, clearer recording than their other records. This one has a similar vibe, and the production being so clear and open just gives more room for the quirkiness of this one to shine. Highly recommended.

The Mark Vodka Group: The Debut EP cassette (Big Dunce) Big Dunce gives us another hit, this time from Halifax’s The Mark Vodka Group. Unlike a lot of the other Big Dunce bands, Mark Vodka doesn’t rely on synths or drum machines, but instead turns in an EP of organic, poppy (but still quite noisy and messy) rock music. My favorite here is the first track, “Shadow of Your Former Self,” which reminds me of the early Television Personalities stuff in the way that it brings a kind of 50s influence to the post-punk DIY raw home recording style, and like the TVPs the pop hooks on display here are first rate. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that there’s a Booji Boys connection here because Mark Vodka has a similar ratio of pop to fuzz, but these tracks are a little more straightforwardly pop. If you dig the kind of neo-DIY being put out on the Market Square label I’d highly recommend checking this EP out.

Pobreza Mental: Demo (self-released) Demo cassette from this new New York band that, judging by the names, features a bunch of familiar faces. While Pobreza Mental sing (mostly) in Spanish and will certainly scratch your itch for Toxic State-style hardcore punk, to my ears they have more of an early Italian hardcore type sound… wild, raw, and just a little bit loose. Like a lot of the early Italian bands (Negazione or Upset Noise, for instance), they’re also a little bit metallic, which comes out on tracks like “Are You Ineffective.” That track almost has an Agnostic Front Cause for Alarm vibe in the way that it dumbs down and hardcore-ifies thrash metal. Much like the Μάτι demo we got a few weeks back, Pobreza Mental’s demo shows that New York is not done giving us innovative and exciting hardcore punk bands.

Fragment: In the Dust 12” (Desolate) Debut full-length from this Canadian crust band, and boy is it intense on the ears. Honestly, I don’t have much time for middling crust these days, so something needs to be really extreme and over the top to catch my attention and Fragment certainly fit the bill… there’s a real Framtid / Gloom-type “everything louder than everything else” sensibility at work here and the production is surprisingly rich and detailed for such a loud and noisy record. This is one that you can either listen to and pound your fist along with the drums or you can get lost in the swirling layers of noise and feedback. While the whole thing is really enjoyable, my personal favorite part of the record is the latter half of side two where they really cut loose, incorporating some surprising mid-paced riffs as well as some more abstract, riff-less parts (there’s one intro where the only noise you hear from the guitars is picks scraping against the strings for a good long while). Whether you’re coming to this one looking to rage or looking for some high concept art I think you’ll be pleased.