Good Throb - Demo 2011

Coming in the same package as The Love Triangle tape reviewed below and featuring a common member is as close to comparisons as you will get from the two tapes. Instead Good Throb deliver 9 tracks of noisey and atonal punk that drags and scrapes like the early Flipper albums.

The drums are super primal without being fast, the guitars are stabby in the right places, the bass is clangy and wire-y and the vocals grope at the song for dear life. It sounds aggressive but not macho, so maybe it is because 3/4 of this band are female that this demo shows a different side to aggressive and angry punk. The whole thing is pretty catchy too, unlike a lot of no-wave noise punk, and 'Toner Loner' has remained in my head all week, with it's office life critiques and screams of 'Paper Jams / Beyond Repair!'

Buy this tape HERE and check Good Throb out HERE

Side A

Animal Fuck

Bag

Culture Vulture

Detritus In The Kitchen

Drink 2

Sexual Pension

Side B

Shit Wife Day

Sick Party

Toner Loner

Animal Fuck by Good Throb

The Love Triangle - Tape # 4

I totally love this band and love this tape! Their 7" on Dire Records last year was incredible, and the fact that 2/3 of this band are also in The Sceptres and The Shitty Limits only makes it better. These 4 new songs are not as blink-and -they're-over as previous recordings and make me hungry for an album of The Love Triangles paisley garbage punk.

This tape is only £2, it has 4 catchy as hell songs that mix garage rock and 80's punk perfectly, no reason not too really. Look out for their new 7" dropping soon, again on Dire.

Tracklisting:

Empty Head

Take Me To Bed

Simple Language

When We're Alone

The Hipshakes - Sounds We Found (Scotch Tapes)

The second album from Derby garage punk kids that was only released on tape by the lovely Scotch Tapes a year or two ago. It has been in my review pile for a while, and i had forgotten that they really speed through their tracks, no psych breakdowns here. I love the group chant vocals over chaotic and fast three chord jams, which sounds like a hardcore band who picked up a Pebbles Box set instead of the obligatory Black Flag / Dead Kennedys LP's.

I don't know if this came out on vinyl, some Internet snooping suggests not, which is a shame, as these speedy garage punk tracks would fit in with both fans of Black Lips and Circle Jerks. Time someone made a tape of all their out of print 7"s maybe?

Side A

Lets Get Acquainted
I'm Alright
Wasted Time
Real Woman
I Try
Days of Destiny
Searchin'

Side B

Not Like I've Had before
Five Years Time
T-Shirt
I hate Hipshakes
Stuck In This Life
Now We Know
Bruces Party Song
Rovin Down The River

Strike a Match - Demo (Self Released)

This little red and yellow tape arrived in the post this week from Norway, stuffed with gig flyers and a really cool hand written letter that made me wish this was how all packages were still sent, rather than a one line email and a link to a soundcloud account that drops into my inbox pretty regularly. Send stuff to my postbox please, not imy inbox.

From the Peanuts style ink drawing on the front, i didn't think i would be getting the Norwegian Revolution Summer style Hardcore that fills the two sides of this cassette. It kicks off sharply with the self referencial and titular track of pure anthemic Strike Anywhere esque melodic hardcore with its Anti-Capitalist lyrical content that is begging me to point my finger in the air!

Then the mood changes and the hints of Rites of Spring and One Last Wish creep in with a slightly screamy drawl which stays on the right side of not being screamo. I would put his scream closer to that of the JR Ewing vocalist when he was pushing it rather than some generic screamo band.

I dont know if there is something they put in the water in Norway, but there seemsa to be a stylistic sound that flowed from JR Ewing to The Team Spirit to Kaospilot to I.O.U and now to Strike a Match. It's the non macho approach to hardcore music and the angular lines that cut through, with a nice dose of killer rock n roll riffs which is probably why it sits in the Dischord camp.

I dont know if they still have any copies of this tape left from its 50 copy run from 2009 but you can download this demo from http://www.strikeamatch.no/ , and finger point at the guy opposite you on the bus on the way to work!

Tracklisting:

Strike a Match
1000 Eyes
Dead Time In The Living Room
You Don't Have to Fuck
Sleepers Awake
Let's Be Human Beings


http://strikeamatch.bandcamp.com/