Featured Releases: March 24, 2025

Phosphore: BDX 2024 7” (Symphony of Destruction Records) Phosphore, from the French d-beat mecca of Bordeaux, follows up their 2023 demo with this short and sharp 3-song flexi. As on their demo, Phosphore’s sound is straightforward and unadorned, with short songs built around simple but effective riffs in the Shitlickers / Anti-Cimex vein, but with a bigger sounding recording and a mighty, locked-in playing style that recalls the best Japanese hardcore bands of the late 80s and early 90s. These three tracks all clock in at under 90 seconds, and while I miss the mid-paced moments that broke up their (slightly) longer demo, there’s something to be said for the way these three songs coalesce into one sustained roar… it feels a bit like being pummeled with bricks for four straight minutes. This one is all meat, no potatoes.

Farce: Sights of War 7” (Systema Mortal Records) Sights of War is the latest EP from this Finnish band, and while they’ve released a few cassettes and digital releases over the past few years, this is the first time I’ve given them a close listen. When you drop the needle on Sights of War, you’ll think to yourself, “this is some top-notch Disclose worship,” but as you dig in further, you’ll find there’s a lot more to Farce than most bands who emulate this style. First (and like any band in this vein who wants to move from “just OK” to “really good”), they seem to have taken a lot of time with the tones they got on this recording. Sounding really fucked up is a fine art, and Farce are Picassos, hurling an artillery barrage of frequencies that slice, bruise, pummel, and burn, often all at the same time, and listening to Sights of War can feel a bit like being trapped inside a broken down lawn mower. While Farce hews closely enough to the Disclose template that they never sound out of the box, they’re great at injecting unexpected wrinkles like the delightfully odd lead guitars in “Shelling of Trenches” and “Killing for Fairytale.” It all adds up to an 8-track 7” that delivers everything you want from this style while being interesting enough to stand out from the many other similar records on your shelf.

Poguba: Sedem Pesmi cassette (Autsajder Produkcija) / Poguba: V Živo cassette (Autsajder Produkcija) Autsajder Produkcija brings us two cassettes from this young band from Ljubljana, Slovenia, continuing the label’s hot streak. Poguba strikes me as an extraordinary band, and while I’ll attempt to describe what they sound like, there’s something magical about these songs and performances that you really need to hear to appreciate. When Poguba is in hardcore mode, they remind me most of the primitive punk that came from the UK in the early 80s, though not any band or scene in particular… one minute they might sound like Chaos UK’s first couple of singles, while the next I’m thinking of the 4 Skins’ toughest tracks, and fans of the Massacred will dig “Mrtvaški Ples,” which speeds things up to a Special Duties type of tempo. But then there’s this whole other side of Poguba where they bring in these dark, post-punk-ish melodies that recall both 80s Eastern European punk and Joy Division’s earliest recordings (see “Nadgrobnik” and “Anarkist Javisst (Palimpsest)”). While Poguba’s music evokes these past eras of punk, it doesn’t have the copy/paste quality that so much contemporary punk has… there’s some quality of authenticity that’s hard to pin down, but definitely there. Poguba’s other strength is that their vocals ooze charisma. My favorite vocal moment is the closing track on the studio tape, “Z Glavo Skoz Zid” which has this manic blathering thing that makes me think of Amde Petersen’s Arme if they were obsessed with Eastern European punk instead of American hardcore. There’s definitely something special happening here, and it’s easy to imagine Poguba letting their ambitions run wild and quickly outgrowing DIY punk’s limited scope. Maybe they’ll even be like Fucked Up or Ice Age and garner the attention of indie rock fans and labels. For now, though, they are a unique and special underground punk band that you should hear. I recommend starting with the studio demo, Sedem Pesmi, then proceeding to the live cassette, V Živo, which captures (mostly) the same set of songs with slightly lower fidelity and slightly higher energy.

Burning Chrome: S/T 7” (Desolate Records) Desolate Records brings us this studio project by folks from the defunct Minneapolis band Zero, whose records were some of the earliest releases on Desolate. According to the label’s description, these recordings were completed remotely during the pandemic, as members of Burning Chrome were split between Minneapolis and New York, and in-person jamming was impossible. They mention describing songs over the phone and sending recordings back and forth, which is a wild way to compose and record, especially for music like this that typically lives and dies by a band’s ability to create a roaring, locked-in sound. The recording and mix are consequently a bit odd-sounding, with the drums having a different tone from the rest of the instruments and the rhythm guitar quite low in the mix. The songs themselves frequently invoke Death Side’s broad gestures with their soaring guitar leads and commanding vocals, but the recording pulls in a different direction, with an off-balance, introverted feel. The result is a record that doesn’t bowl you over instantly, but instead intrigues you subtly, and listening can feel like trying to make out an image through frosted glass. This self-titled EP is a strange record, but it’s so unique that if you dig it, you won’t be able to find anything that hits quite the same.

Problem: Violence on the Metro 7” (Under the Gun Records) Following up their Anti-You EP from 2022, we have a new three-song single from Los Angeles’s Problem. The artwork and the fact that this is a 3-track single immediately recalls the UK82 classics (the title also evokes Attak’s Murder on the Subway), but Problem adds their own wrinkles. The drums and guitars keep things straightforward and punk, but the more complex bass lines on these tracks add an extra layer of musicality. The vocals also drip with personality, going right up to the edge of being a cartoony, but imbuing these songs with a ton of personality. There’s an emphasis on catchiness, and you’ll definitely walk away from this EP remembering the lyrics to “Bite the Blade.” The closing track “Fuck the Human Race” leans in even harder with a bright, major-key chord progression and the singer changing “fuck you” over and over. You’ve gotta love a classic offensive singalong in the tradition of “Sex and Violence,” and if it wasn’t already clear Problem doesn’t take themselves too seriously, the brief reggae break seals the deal. Despite embracing the punk stereotype so fully, Problem never sounds goofy… like the droogs in A Clockwork Orange, they just like a little fun mixed in with their menace.

EKGs: demo cassette (Kill Enemy Records) Kill Enemy Records—the label behind Speed Plans and Illiterates, among many others—brings us the demo tape from this new Pittsburgh band. Like most of the other bands on Kill Enemy, EKGs play fast and hard, but definitely have their own spin on things. Their songs are mega short (most around one minute or less) and while they use a lot of blast beats, they’re not the slicked-up triggered kind, but the raw and punk-sounding kind that will remind you of Siege, Deep Wound, or Scum-era Napalm Death. The song structures are jagged and linear (rather than circular), rarely hanging on a riff or a part long enough to sink in… this is a band that likes to blindside you with a riff or a tempo change from the opposite direction as soon as you get comfortable. The vocals are really distinctive, in the Damaged-era Rollins school of outward manifestations of existential pain, but with a unique timbre. After 9 short rippers, the demo ends with two longer songs that feel even more like children of Damaged, including the closing singalong of “Permission to Cum,” which shifts the demo’s vibe slightly in an interesting way. EKGs are super fast, super raw, and super punk, but they also have a unique thing going on this demo that’s just bursting with ideas. Killer.