Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter! I feel like I’m running on fumes this week as I moved two large, thousand-plus LP collections multiple times yesterday, which put a big hurtin’ on my body and my back in particular. Still, the new releases keep coming in, and thus the newsletter must keep coming as well. This week I’m very excited to once again plug a new record from Scott Plant, and there’s a ton of great new stuff in besides that. Read on for your weekly dose!

Scott Plant: Alone / With Us 12” (Ordinary Weirdos Records) Alone / With Us is the second solo EP from Scott Plant, following a lathe cut 10” from a few years ago. Through projects like Civic Progress, Broken Prayer, Droids Blood, and Canal Irreal, Scott has made some of my favorite music of the modern punk era, and his turn toward pure electronic music has not dampened my enthusiasm one bit. Indeed, it seems like Scott’s music evolves one step ahead of me, with him experimenting with new styles just as they’re coming onto my radar. Indeed, I’ve been listening to more and more electronic music lately, and Alone / With Us fits in with artists I’ve enjoyed (like Mandy, Indiana and Rakta, for instance) while carrying forward the things I love most about Scott’s previous music, namely his brilliant lyrics. The title of this EP is the name of the first two songs, and they seem like a matched pair here, the first song presenting a portrait of a loner who “hustles” in the “dog eat dog world,” while the second track shifts the perspective to a group (religious? professional? something even more sinister?) that targets those loners by offering them the sense of belonging they insist they don’t want but secretly crave. The music, like all of Scott’s music, is just brilliant. There are no guitars here, just driving electronic drums and a symphony of synths playing off one another with the deftness of a well-seasoned band. I’m not articulate enough to explain what is so distinctive about Scott’s music, but it’s instantly identifiable here and I’m as in love with it as ever. If you’re a card-carrying member of the Scott Plant fan club like I am, you need this, but I can’t imagine any hardcore punk kid with a curiosity about electronic music won’t love this.

You may have caught wind of this on our social media accounts last week, but Sorry State is about to release the debut cassette from new Raleigh punk band Headkicker. The cassette is beautifully packaged, featuring elegant design and an obi strip with the band’s name embossed in braille. How cool is that? You can listen to a preview track on the Sorry State Bandcamp site right now. Watch for a preorder to go up on the site soon!

Yep, we’re going to keep reminding you as long as it’s going on, but Zorn is still on tour! Their set in Raleigh was blazing, and judging by what I’ve seen on Instagram (seriously, you gotta follow @zorn_philly), their shows only seem to get bigger and wilder. Right now they’re in Texas, where they’re hooking up with Ninth Circle (a great pairing), and will swing through the Midwest on their way back to Philly.

Social Napalm Records revealed the artwork for Savageheads’ debut LP, Service to Your Country, which Sorry State will exclusively distribute! The vinyl is in stock now and the jackets are at the printer, so hopefully we’ll have this available for you soon! Sorry State will be the spot to grab Service to Your Country (that goes for wholesale copies too if you do a shop or distro), and in Social Napalm’s words:

No pre-orders.

No limited versions.

1100 black vinyl only.

More news on this soon!

This week’s edition of Hardcore Knockouts is yet another tough one! Even though these records are only three years apart, I think of them as being from very different eras. Both total ragers, though!

Cast your vote in the next edition of Hardcore Knockouts on our Instagram stories next Tuesday!

My pick from Sorry State’s Discogs listings this week is this 12” from Japan’s Assault. This pick goes out to my friend Osamu. He didn’t introduce me to Assault, but we used to talk about them all the time. Even though they have a little “epic crust” in their sound, they still rage. Grab this 12” from our Discogs for just a couple of bucks.

Remember, you can always combine your order from Sorry State’s Discogs site with your order from our webstore and save on shipping!

1. Rudimentary Peni: Death Church 12” (Sealed Records)
2. Golpe: La Colpe É Solo Tua 12” (Sorry State)
3. Axe Rash: Contemporary Ass 7” (Not for the Weak Records)
4. Alienator: demo cassette (self-released)
5. Torso: Sono Pronto A Morire 12” (Sorry State)
6. Reckoning Force: Broken State 12” (Not for the Weak Records)
7. Necro Heads: Mindless 7” (Kill Enemy Records)
8. Insect Warfare: World Extermination 12” (Iron Lung Records)
9. Thatcher’s Snatch: S/T 7” (Hardcore Victim Records)
10. Chain Whip: Two Step to Hell 12” (Neon Taste Records)

Here’s your weekly roundup of the top sellers at Sorry State! Hardcore punk is the order of the day! With Scott Plant’s solo 12” getting Record of the Week, we’ll see if we can shake things up a little for next week.

The Chisel’s Retaliation LP is back in stock! Our first round of copies sold out in a day, and now we have another small stack for you. It’s already flying out the door, so be quick if you don’t want to wait until the next repress.

Also on La Vida Es Un Mus, we have the new Fatamorgana album in stock!

Speaking of restocks, we sold out of our initial allotment of the North Carolina exclusive edition of Superchunk’s new album, Wild Loneliness, but we got just a few more copies. Grab them while you can, because after this batch, they’re gone for good.

Philly’s World Gone Mad dropped three new international ragers on us this week. We have two LPs from Yakutsk, Siberia’s Crispy Newspaper and a vinyl reissue of the legendary French compilation tape Rhapsodie En France. See Jeff’s staff pick for more info on that one.

Speaking of staff picks, Usman wrote about Sycophant’s new 12”, and we have that in stock too. Some of you bought the tape version we carried a while back, but you probably need the vinyl too, right?

Denver’s Convulse Records continues their fire streak with two new ragers from Colorado’s Televised and Oakland’s Urban Sprawl.

Everyone was talking about that Smirk 12” EP on Total Punk last year, and now we have a new split tape with them and the ever-prolific Zhoop.

Finally, we have two new releases from Ozzuario. When they hit us up, they said they were like a combination of GISM and DJ Screw… how can you not fall for a description like that? It’s pretty apt too!