Featured Releases: March 17, 2025

Siyahkal: Days of Smoke and Ash 12” (Static Shock Records) Static Shock Records brings us the debut vinyl from this hardcore band from Toronto who sings in Farsi. While Siyahkal has issued three demos in their nearly ten years as an active band, Days of Smoke and Ash is my introduction, and it’s an original and powerful statement. While the pogo beats and power chords bring to mind 2010s New York punk on Toxic State Records, Siyahkal excels at creating a foreboding atmosphere. As the label’s description notes, there’s a steady rhythmic throb at the core of Siyahkal’s sound and everything else exists in relation to that pulse, swirling around it, bouncing off it in counterpoint, and sometimes locking into it for battering ram power. While the instrumentalists have their moments (like the thrillingly off-kilter drumbeat in “Karbobalaa” or the atmospheric lead guitar in “Bootcamp”), they often hang back in favor of letting the charismatic vocals take the spotlight. Siyahkal’s singer has this breathy, desperate vibe that seems to come in part from all the guttural sounds in Farsi, but they also have this way of drifting away from the beat that’s unique and exciting. The inchoate screams in the opener, “Your Head in My Arms,” make that track sound like Hell opening up, while the next track, “Beshin Pasho,” ends with another pained scream that’ll give you goosebumps. Days of Smoke and Ash isn’t an easy listen, but its intense, gritty atmosphere and thoughtful lyrics give it real gravitas.

Kronofogden: Lägesrapport 12” (Flyktsoda Records) Flyktsoda Records brings us the latest 16-song full-length from this eclectic and long-running hardcore band from Hudiksvall, Sweden. American d-beat fanatics know Hudiksvall as the hometown of the almighty Totalitär, and a similar strain of very Swedish-sounding fast d-beat hardcore forms the backbone of Kronofodgen’s sound. However, from the first track, “Ropa Varg,” it’s clear Kronofogden isn’t interested in sticking too close to existing templates. That song starts with a big, catchy riff, but as it moves into its next part, it falls into this lengthy, complex series of rhythmic punches that you’d need a protractor to figure out. Across Lägesrapport, Kronofogden finds a cornucopia of ingredients to mix into their d-beat hardcore. “Självförsvarsmord” ends with a blast of grindcore, while “Driver Blydagg Faller Syraregn” has an intro that borrows sludgy rhythms and dissonant chords from later Black Flag, and tracks like “En Mordgalen Tonåring” and “Hälsingeliv” incorporate octave melodies that make me think of the later records by Norway’s So Much Hate. While there are sixteen tracks and what feels like a million musical ideas, the album is over before you know it, so you’ll need several plays to parse everything that’s happening. If you’re looking for something that’s dense with ideas but uniformly intense, Lägesrapport fits the bill.

1-800-Mikey: Digital Pet 12” (Erste Theke Tonträger) I missed 1-800-Mikey’s debut full-length from 2022, and since (like this new album) it came out on the classic egg punk label pairing of Under the Gun Records and Erste Theke Tonträger, I assumed I knew what I was missing. Turns out that’s not really the case. While the label names on the back and the fuzzy sound indicate a spiritual affinity with the egg punk set, Digital Pet sounds to me like a dyed-in-the-wool melodic punk album, landing somewhere between the gooey pop-punk of Lookout! bands like the Queers and Sweet Baby Jesus and the more urbane, punky power-pop of the Boys. The songs are straightforward, built on a familiar verse-chorus-verse skeleton, but they’re packed with memorable guitar and vocal hooks and never overstay their welcome, generally clocking in at 90-120 seconds. While the penultimate track “Story” features the album’s most memorable chorus, I love the rock and roll swagger of songs like “W.F.H.” and “Welcome Back,” whose extended lead guitar passage reminds me of the great song “T.C.P.” by the Boys. Often bands that toe the line between punk and power-pop can lack the energy and heft to keep them punk and/or the big hooks that make you sing along, but 1-800-Mikey gets it just right.

Shatter: Deny the Future 7” (Desolate Records) Minneapolis’s Shatter released a demo tape on Desolate Records last year and now they’re back with their debut vinyl. As Joe B’s description for the label notes, Shatter is a tough band to pin down. In some respects, they sound like a Japanese hardcore band—Death Side in particular—but they don’t lean on the same tropes as most bands who emulate the Burning Spirits style. There’s some cool lead guitar, but Shatter doesn’t aim at the epically triumphant quality of Bet on the Possibility, but the lean-yet-sophisticated bluster of Death Side’s earlier records. The riffing is inventive, memorable and hooky without being overtly melodic, and the rhythms are totally locked in, resulting in a huge, driving sound. While that’s what I hear in Shatter’s music, the vocals come from a different place, sharing the throat-ripping rawness of Dani from Flower, but with a willingness and ability to carry a soaring melody. The most memorable of these melodies is on the opening track, “Up to You,” whose chorus lodged itself in my brain on the first listen and hasn’t let go. I imagine some people will hate it because it breaks the rules of what this kind of heavy, crusty hardcore is “supposed” to be, but “Up to You” sacrifices none of its power by having such a distinctive and memorable vocal hook. The other three tracks are similarly inventive and compelling, and it’s great to hear a band that can take a classic sound and carry it forward a few steps.

Puppet Wipes: The Stones Are Watching and They Can Be a Handful 12” (Siltbreeze Records) The Stones Are Watching and They Can Be a Handful is the debut record from Calgary, Alberta, Canada’s Puppet Wipes, and while it came out in 2022, Siltbreeze recently repressed it. I totally missed out on it the first time, so here I am writing a description three years late. Puppet Wipes shares members with the Calgary band Janitor Scum, who released an LP on Lumpy Records in 2016 that I was just gaga over. If you also remember that record fondly, you’ll definitely want to check out Puppet Wipes, but be forewarned that things have gotten way weirder. The cloudy 4-track production is still there, as is the influence from the early years of the Fall, but rather than the danceable grooves of “Totally Wired,” it’s the eerie, inchoate Fall of Dragnet and Room to Live that looms over this album. Honestly, though, I’m reluctant to lean too hard into any comparisons because this record doesn’t sound much like anything I’ve heard before. The songs follow an idiosyncratic logic that is beyond my grasp, with instruments and vocals wandering in and out like tweakers making their way through a 7-11 at 3AM. It’s not like XV’s stream-of-consciousness “free punk,” but more of a fragmented dreamscape where nothing seems real or stable. The production is very raw and bathed in tape hiss, and while most songs are mixed to place the focus on one or two instruments, there are misty impressions of a lot more happening in the background. There aren’t really melodies you’ll walk away humming or grooves you’ll shake your hips to, but there’s something that holds my attention nonetheless. The Stones Are Watching is a confounding record, but I like being confounded, and the way this enigmatic record floats in and out of focus, just outside my intellect’s grasp, leaves me feeling like a pleasantly puzzled panther.

Cult Crime: S/T 12” (Ugly Pop Records) Ugly Pop Records brought us the debut single by this Toronto band last fall, and now they’re back with the full-length. Cult Crime exists in the long lineage of punk bands that seek to recapture that magical moment when punk became hardcore, when the sound reached a fever pitch of energy but hadn’t yet abandoned the pop song format. Think Dangerhouse Records, the Lewd, early Black Flag, up through more recent bands like Career Suicide, the Carbonas, the Imploders, and Chain Whip. Cult Crime’s drums and vocals are total Black Flag Mark 1, with lean-forward rhythms and a singer who barks out his words through a film of snotty post-nasal drip. The guitars are where the pop comes in, favoring Pistols-style dramatic chord changes flecked with Johnny Thunders-derived rock and roll swagger. Melody is largely relegated to the back seat, so riff-worshippers will get the most out of this one. If you dug the recent full-length from Pittsburgh’s Snarling Dogs, Cult Crime scratches a very similar itch.