my top ten of 2011

well 2011 has been the year of my full re-engagement with DIY hardcore as it currently stands......going to shows, making new connections and capturing alot of it for posterity in the form of video and pictures......i feel re-energized about the scene and the people currently making the music/doing the zines or just doing whatever they can to support their friends and touring bands....the scene is vibrant right now, and although i cant really appreciate certain styles that have become popular within the past few years, there seems to be more than enough music made over 2011 to fit my taste and worldview........its also been a year of discovery of new sounds to addict me........so many bands/people i would never have known about if i hadn't checked out a bandcamp or went to someones basement/club/resteraunt to see.......im so glad that i was able to make the connections that i have over this past year and hopefully they will all stay with me for many years to come.....

anyways here are my top ten records for the year:

10.

one of my first surprises this year...excellent psychotic noise rock/sludge/hardcore from dearborn michigan....fans of today is the day and dystopia take notice.

9.

cynarae "s/t"

from seattle washington. this band plays huge crushing hardcore with a semicrusty edge....another excellent surprise of 2011

8.

degollado "dark of the day"

amazing, unique, indescribable, all terms accuratley applied to this band.....hypnotic post-sludge... a must listen

7.

judas iscariot - lost prophets

the most surprising record of the year,if only because the band has been dead for a decade.....still this record more than holds its own against anything released today..

6.

goddard  "bishop"

unfortunatly haven't had the chance to review this one here yet, but ive been jamming it for a couple months now(since jason sent me a copy) and it truely deserves  spot in my top ten....spacey math rock at its best...

5.

procession "fade" 

this was always a lock for my top 5.......amazing shoegaze from grand rapids (at least originally) one of the best things i've heard this year easily.......on tour now, so go see em! (also new album comming soon on forward records)

4.

black kites/convulsions split lp

two of the best bands in recent memory squaring off on one piece of vinyl....... unfortunately black kites have decided to call it a day...........the world will be less enriched with the loss of their presence.....

3.

cloud rat/oily menace/wolbachia 3 way split

cloud rat has been one of my absolute favorite bands since i first saw them a year and a half ago.....just amazing people playing amazing music.......oily menace play great straightforward grind and wolbachia are a canadian band that im still waiting to see.......together they made this record an unstoppable juggernaut of sonic brutality......and one of the highlights of the year.

2.

psychic blood "strain"

one of the absolute best things ive heard all year........noisy, dreamy, awesome stuff with a huge recording.....i cant wait to see this band!

1.

shoppers " silver year"

without a doubt, hands down, the BEST record of the year.........i cant say enough about this band's music or about them as people...........simply incredible on all accounts......im literally counting the days untill i see them again on january 28th......they will kickoff their nationwide tour tommorow night in syracuse.......do whatever you have to do to see them......bands like this come around maybe once every decade......and im so gad that i was able to make a connection with them........meredith/josh/kari, if your reading this, i love you guys and i always will.....

Cynarae @ The Stein House 12/23/2011

halo perfecto "hospitals in other countries" lp (2003)

this providence outfit featured members of  palatka and anton boardman (among others) and played  tuneful, catchy rockish stuff with some noisy twang...........kinda reminds me of a slightly calmer new brutalism......this was released on mountain collective in 2003 if your curious.........excellent stuff from a band that was here for a short time and then broke up and was quickly forgotten....

hospitals in other countries

countdown to putsch "handbook for planetary progress" (1999)

the debut record from this NYC band sporting members of judas iscariot, your adversary and  thats all she wrote..............the sound here is jerky, energetic hardcore with a definate jazz lean.......screamy vocals spit political lyrics and the music here is a combination of all the best parts of each member's former bands..........definatly one of the better bands to have existed in the late 90s/early 2000s and an all but forgotten  member of both the mountain collective and ebullition catalogs........if i remember right, this cd came packaged in a really elaborate booklet chock full of  song explanations and liner notes of a socio-political nature..........its been a loooong time since ive seen the whole package so i dont really remember what went where or how exactly the whole thing was packaged so im just going off memory here.......anyways an excellent band that produced innovative unique hardcore thats not been heard since.........

handbook for planetary progress

psychic blood "strain" "7 (2011)

i guess December is determined to pack in a few more musical surprises for me before the year is out.......i got this in my email early this month from a dude named jason, who i'm presuming is in the band.......not sure how i sat on this for the last two weeks without playing it...........anyways i  have and its a small (as in two songs), but sonically huge slice of wonderful ..........the volume on this is huge and is reminiscent of the overwhelming sound of the shopper's silver year lp from earlier this year...though the music isn't really the same at all.......its big  boisterous guitar rock with two faces, one facing the late 80s/early 90s world of  squirrelbait, treepeople and bitch magnet, and the other facing the modern scene of bands like condominium and  tenement........the whole thing sounds like it was recorded in a Quonset hut, the guitars coloring over eachother and filling the space while the vocals kinda echo off in the distance and the rhythm section just chugging along........both songs are catchy, yet rough in a way that hits my sweetspot just the way i like it.......i think these dudes hail from somewhere on the east coast, but im not sure.........i just know that they made my top ten of the year with this record.........hopefully ill get to see them live in 2012......really good stuff and defiantely recommended........

psychic blood - strain

cloudburst "7 (1999)

another product of digging back through old records......this french band from the late 90s played  excellent energetic emotive mosh..... reminiscent of certain american bands, but with an edge all their own.......im not sure how long they were around but im pretty sure they were a dead band by 2002 or so......this came out on mosh bart records in 1999 and its still well worth a listen or 3 today......M.I. approved.

cloudburst

reblogging this because its fucking important

http://abortedsociety.com/2011/12/mixtapes-for-aceh/

We read the news about punks being apprehended and detained in the Aceh region of Indonesia recently, and like many of you, were extremely disturbed at the thought of the police sweeping these kids off the street, shaving their hair, and forcing them into some sort of bullshit military training to deprogram them.  We are privileged to live in a society where we are free to express ourselves as we wish, and while the US and other Western states have their fair share of police injustice, this incident is a harsh reminder to how good we really have it.  That is why we are starting a small initiative in solidarity with our friends overseas, to let them know that we stand behind them and fully support them.

The mixtape is a crucial part of our subculture, and is solely responsible for the spread of punk influence worldwide.  Mixtapes have introduced myself and many others to so many amazing bands, and the act of making them is one of the most sincere forms of friendship that exist in our world.  So, we are asking our friends, our community, and anyone else who remotely gives a shit to make and donate one mixtape cassette to the kids in Aceh who were forced into detention solely for being punk. It’s a small gesture, but it means a lot to people who need our support.  The content entirely of their choosing as long as it’s somewhat falling in the punk/hardcore/crust genre.  If you have an awesome tape you never listen to anymore, or would like to make a new one specifically for this endeavor, that would absolutely rule.  We are collecting these tapes to send out in early January, so your deadline to submit is December 30th, 2011.  We know that the post office is fucked right now with holiday shipping, but right after xmas it frees up largely, so it shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Please try and pack as much music onto these tapes as possible, and try to avoid sending a short 10-min long demo cassette.  This is an out-of pocket initiative for me (Rob) personally, and I’d like to make what we send as substantial as possible.  And include your address in the tape, you might just make an international buddy out of the process!

 You can send your mixtapes to our label address:

Aborted Society Records
attn: Mixtapes for Aceh
1122 E. Pike Street #1377
Seattle, WA 98122-3934
USA

diavolo rosso - "groove down to the riot rock" (1999)

digging in my vaults i found this gem from a decade or so back.  fast pissed hardcore from germany........4 blistering ragers here.......great lyrics too....."listen asshole, this aint no fuckin tough guy bullshit"..........love it!  not all too dissimilar to their fellow pissed off countrymen like stack or asmodians leichenhaus......if you like it fast and fucked, this is your jam.........

diavolo rosso - groove down to the riot rock.

oily menace - modulistic terror demo (2009)

the demo from lansing's  oily menace.........this could almost be a full length to itself......the music this time around is more slow and paced than the stuff on the three way with cloud rat and wolbachia which sounded like these dudes had a limited amount of time in the studio and they had to blast em all out fast........its still grimey and nasty as fuck, but theres an extra dimension here.........if you like brutal pissed grind with great lyrics, oily menace should be right up your alley.....mid michigan is currently pretty active as far as punk/hardcore goes and this release is just another testament to that fact.....



oily menace - modulistic terror

siamese twins demo (2011)

this is a new boston band featuring members of Libyans and ampere among others.  im not sure but i think there are two girls singing in this band.....anyways 6 songs of 80s goth/post punk ala bauhaus and other bands of their ilk.......even though i was never into the first wave of this stuff, its very good, and a change from all the throwback thrash/hardcore bands that seem to be overpopulating the american scene nowadays........they don't have a bandcamp or blog to my knowledge so i have no idea when/if they will tour............if they do i hope they come out here........good stuff



saimese twins demo-2011

catherer/laughing dog split lp (2000)

my introduction to both these bands was seeing them play back in 1999 at the 10 weston in grand rapids.... in fact it was only my second live exposure to grindcore (the first had been acrid/assuck in 1997).....it was a great show, (malakhai was on the bill too and kicked ass.........) and both bands brought it hard..............i talked to alex & joe of laughing dog after the show and found them to be incredibly nice chill dudes......they wanted me to write them but i promptly lost the tapejacket (the art above isnt the original album art BTW) with their contact info  =(.........the thing i remember the most about catheter was their sodom cover, otherwise its was pretty good straight ahead grind......laughing dog were much more technical and "blasty" (for lack of a better term) anyways on this split catherer do pretty much what they do live, harsh fast no-frills grind (yes, the sodom cover(outbreak of evil) is there too) while laughing dog play fast choppy tech grind like a crustier dischordance axis but mixed with some hiphop tracks that i can only describe as "amateur".......all in all its good, laughing dog comes out the victor on this record for me, even though the recording is kinda tinny and doesn't really capture their live intensity at all........im pretty sure alex & joe both ended up in noisear, or may have even been in that band when i saw laughing dog as i think both bands co-existed for a while........anyways cop this...........

laughing dog/catherer

BWAHAHAHAHAAHA!

im seriously wondering how many couches are burning in east landfill right now..........great game sparty, too bad #9 fucked you out of your first rose bowl appearance in 23 years....or, you know, any shot at the BCS whatsoever................




GO BLUE!

herr k cd (2005)

now for something more obscure.......herr k were a california band  that existed between 2000-2006 and played some energetic, clattering, spastic hardcore.....impassioned vocals and all........one of those bands that packaged their recordings inpeccably.......excellent on all counts......one more in a long procession of bands over the years that never really got any attention whatsoever....anyways check it out cause its fucking cool....members went on to silver daggers......

herr k

.......

yea, ive found that i dislike new zealand greatly over the past few hours.............