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Hello readers and thank you for reading. As you probably know, the majority of the SSR crew has been away on tour with our band SCARECROW for the past month. I’m sure the updates (and everything else) slowed down a bit from Sorry State, with our beloved skeleton crew holding it down while we were gone. I hope with this newsletter we can pick up right where we left off. A ton of great records have arrived the past month. Rather than bore you with stories of having the time of my life on tour, I will just get right to my Staff Pick. To start off, I want to mention two tapes that are not in the photograph. The first one is NUKIES. While this is a tape, it is going to be an LP sooner or later on Adult Crash. I imagine they made the cassette to get the music out faster since most pressing plants are taking ages right now. I got one of these cassettes from a member of the band when we played in Uppsala. It’s fucking killing me that I cannot find it anywhere... Anyway, NUKIES rules. They play that beat I like, and they’ve got riffs for days. They sound like they are from Sweden, reminding a bit of bands like LARMA or HERÄTYS. I’m not positive who is in the band, but it’s definitely someone from AXE RASH and someone from ANTI-METAFOR. I say ANTI-METAFOR cos it’s the more recent band, but that same guy was in ANGER BURNING. ANGER BURNING is one of the greatest bands of the past 15 years. I first heard them on their Warcharge 7”. The EP is raw as fuck and it rocked my world when it came out. The riffs are very simple and straightforward, but the songs carry so much power. However, their real masterpiece came 4 years later, When. The name is cheesy, and yes they even have songs entitled When and When (Reprise). Don’t be fooled, though. Alright, I didn’t talk much about NUKIES I guess, but do yourself a favor and check out their tape so you’re ready to grab the LP as soon as it’s available!
The next cassette I wanna mention is the Summer Promo tape from INVERTABRATES. Anyone who reads this newsletter surely knows who they are already cos SSR re-released their demo cassette. This promo cassette is an excellent follow-up to their debut, all their best elements are now pushed to the fullest and I can’t handle it. The speed, the riffs... Chubb’s drumming is so fucked up. It makes me just want to quit playing music. I lean towards “Scandinavian” sounding bands usually, but every now and again I hear a band like this that just undeniably rips and it rocks my socks off. A completely unrelated band that had a similar effect on me was CLOSET CHRIST. I know this one came out years ago, but I can never forget it cos it is so fucking good, damn.
Moving onto the LPs, let’s start with BLACK UNIFORMS. We don’t have copies of this, but I am hoping to find us some... this is proving to be a bit difficult since it is a bootleg. I saw some copies on Ebay some months ago as a “pre-order” (for too much money) and I wondered what would come of it. Of course it didn’t say anything about being a bootleg on the listing, but naturally I assumed it was. There’s been no promotion about a reissue and Hard Core Horror certainly did not just repress this out of the blue haha. Eventually I tracked a copy down, and I was happy to return home from tour to it. It is really well done. Almost too well done.. It even has a matching matrix haha. Which is kinda fucked up, but if you look closely, you can see it’s missing the other portion of the matrix. If you didn’t have an original to compare it to, then maybe you could be deceived, which I don’t like so much. The red text is just slightly different in color, and some spacing is just slightly off. Nonetheless, I am happy this killer LP back into circulation. I hope that we can get some copies!
Sticking with reissues we don’t have in stock, I have been so damn excited about the NYX NEGATIV reissue! I think their demo completely smokes. It’s got everything I need from rawness to catchiness. I first heard them on the 2007 “reissue” split with DISCARD and became immediately hooked. It’s a shame I really don’t like their 1986 7" EP, which means the B-side of this reissue doesn’t do much for me. There’s a few compilation songs and an unreleased song on the B-side as well. I had never heard them before, so it was a cool experience. It’s just hard to beat their demo. It was cool to hear the live recordings that finish off the B-side as well, but I would probably rather like to flip it and have DISCARD on this side haha. At least this reissue does come with a nice booklet of cool photos and art. I think this band is pretty obscure, so it’s cool FOAD would do a reissue of it. Definitely check out the link I dropped above if you’ve never heard ‘em and hang tight til we get our copies.
Alright, next is MOCK EXECUTION. This band grabbed my attention with their 7" EP, so I had a lot of anticipation for this one. I have actually been listening to this album digitally for some time, cos I was asked to write a review. But of course, my dumb ass took the privilege for granted and the opportunity passed. At least I’ve been able to jam this beast on repeat. It’s hard to describe what this band sounds like. They have components of what sounds like ‘80s Finnish hardcore, with the riffing and the occasional grooves. But they play wicked fucking fast and the recording is really heavy, yet piercing, so it sounds kinda like crasher crust. In the end, it doesn’t matter, it’s all just hardcore. This one just sticks out quite a bit to me with its blazing, unique hardcore sound. Check it out and grab a copy!
Alright to wrap it up, NIGHTFEEDER. Don’t sleep. Buy one here right now. If that’s sold out, then try here. Their debut 7" was dubbed record of the week, so I’m guessing you’ve at least seen the name before. The 7" is excellent, but this LP is top-notch. They re-recorded two songs from the demo cassette and blast us with 9 new hits. The song “I’m a Letdown” might be my favorite song off this album, but it’s also the one song that sounds drastically different than the rest. Maybe that makes me like it even more? On their debut cassette they covered MISSBRUKARNA and that ruled so fucking much. It was cool to hear them do another catchy one, regardless of having such a gnarly hardcore sound. This band is like hardcore professionals. They know exactly what they’re doing, they know what sound they want. They’ve all been playing in bands together for more years than some of you have been punk, so they’ve got it super dialed in. I can’t wait to catch them live. Keep an eye out for this East Coast tour this fall!! OK, I will wrap this up now as I have other shit to do. Thank you for reading, and thanks to everyone for the support! Peace.