Seems kind of silly to reflect on this year when the world really feels like it has lost its centre, but hey - here goes nothin. Keep up the pressure.
After next Friday’s INTEGRITY gig, we’ll have put on 103 gigs in 2023. Without a doubt, the most gigs we’ve ever put on in a year. If you’ve been at any one of them, thank you. Sincerely. Extra special thanks to the crew of folks that contribute year round to making sure the gigs run well. There’s several that pitch in with door, stage managing, production managing, hauling gear and doing sound. Major contributors to making this stuff happen. I’d fuckin lose my mind without’em.
Of course, the best gigs I saw this year were largely ones I had nothing to do with. Seeing LEWSBERG at the Tranzac was a highlight, for sure. Exceeded expectations. Incredible live band. Saw ALVILDA on a boat in Paris and they lived up to the due hype of that phenomenal 7” from the other year. Can’t wait to hear that LP, whenever it may arrive. And I’ve been obsessed with the ABISM record since I caught them in NYC a couple weeks ago at Punk HQ. Hypnotizing d-beat with zero pretence.
Other things that were music related and cool: The RAPUNK book delivered. As did Another Subculture (and their associated radio show), General Speech Supplement, Possessed & Mundane Moshers fanzines. Also, Snake’s SHEER DRIFT. I haven’t had a chance to really sink my teeth into the Kleenex / Liliput book, but I doubt that it will disappoint.
As with every year, before I put pen to paper on this year in review thing, I thought ‘this year was kind of rough.’ Then, as it goes, the list gets longer and longer. This year, like many others, was filled with excellent music.
So, here’s some writing on 20 releases I thoroughly enjoyed over the past twelve months. There’s more music than ever that is worth attention. These are some that I feel are worth you spending your attention on. It seems really easy to toe-the-line with the whole ‘every band is the next Turnstile’ era of punk and hardcore we are in, but let it be known that the truth is, as always, that the best shit is in the margins. Rumour has it that democore is back.
Before getting into the list, I’ll say that the new Poison Ruin, Home Front & Nuovo Testamento LPs got extensive play around these parts. I’ve put those groups on year end lists in the past, so skipping em here because you should already be familiar!
Of course, here’s a playlist of 20 tracks from 20 records. Not all 20 are listed below, because, you know, Spotify isn’t the only way you can hear music.
Abism “Self Titled” [Toxic State]
Seeing this band sealed the deal for me. It’s no secret that the best DIY music is style before proficiency - it’s about willing something into existence before it’s about being ‘good’. Music made by people with a point to make. ABISM is that. D-beat at a tempo that is uncanny. Borderline hypnotizing. Indebted to the likes of Firmeza 10, Otan & Cisma. Wouldn’t be out of place on Alta Intensidaz tapes. My absolute favourite kind of shit.
Asinin “Demo” [Roachleg / P.M.T.]
Just beautiful. Hardcore Punk from Norway. A scorching demo that goes into all sorts of different places at breakneck speed. I’m certainly tired of hearing about ‘music for freaks,’ and this easily bests anything that someone is presently trying to market to you. I’ll always be a sucker for a song that’s written with absolute disrespect for the principles of music theory. The only way to pick chords for a hardcore punk song is eeeni, meeni, miney, mo. Just play fast and it’ll figure itself out. Perfect recording too. I hear they rip live.
Bar Italia “Tracey Denim” [Matador]
This one got a lot of play around here. I was MIA when we booked them this year, and am so fucking bummed about it. Can’t really tell if they take themselves too seriously or not seriously enough. Nostalgia laden, in a way you can’t exactly put your finger on it. An excellent 2am spin.
Béton Armé “Second Souffle” [Roachleg]
Man, I spent a week in Paris this year and didn’t find one French Oi record I didn’t already own. Easy to get over it, when Béton Armé are cranking out fresh tracks like this though. Top to bottom, front to back, fist in the air. It’s a true miracle when punks with fists like cinderblocks create melodies like this.
Bloody Flag “Demo” [Bunker Punks Discs & Tapes]
It’d be really easy to be snide here and say something like ‘one man is making better proper d-beat than pretty much everyone’ but that would be a lie. There is a mountain of killer ripping hardcore punk this year indebted to the beat. But I’d be damned if this tape didn’t stand out at least a little bit more than some of the others. That magic spot of Discharge meets Motorhead meets the absolute disrespect for volume that Disclose lived in.
Carcascara “2” [Hegoa]
The curveball on this list, I suppose. Meditative guitar explorations, not unlike some of Orcutt’s later work. All within a subtly built sonic landscape. I find it a challenge to give something like this type of description that it is due, but I found myself going back to it constantly this year.
Destruct “Cries the Mocking Mother Nature” [Grave Mistake]
This band does not get their due in punk and hardcore. Destruct was undoubtedly the best live band I saw in 2022, and this LP delivered on high expectation. Many a band member will rock the Japanese hardcore shirt, but few will study the art, even fewer will practice it. Destruct is among the best of the best going right now. Unrelenting in the best way possible. Also worth acknowledging their participation on the SCREAMING DEATH compilation as well. That might as well be record #21 on this list.
Eternal Dust - Spiritual Healers, Defence Lawyers [Lulu’s Sonic Discs]
This one landed in my headphones as a subscriber to the LSD Club. Was entirely unfamiliar with them until it was in my mailbox. Brilliant dream pop, truly cinematic in nature. That I can’t really place it is part of it’s charm. Night time in a city I’ve never visited. No lore I’m familiar with behind it. It exists on its own plane. At points the vocals blur into the music, entirely lost. Sounds like the singer is just going to get swallowed by the noise. That Australia can produce so much excellent music, year over year, will continue to confound me.
Kinetic Orbital Strike “The True Disaster” [Self Released]
Militaristic drumming, unhinged guitar tone, vocals from the maw of hell. Zero fucking frills. Philadelphia is ground zero for American Punk music once again, and the list of top shelf shit the city (and adjacent towns) breeds just gets longer and longer.
Lewsberg “Out and About” [Self-Released]
Lewsberg were likely the best band to tour North America in 2023. That I didn’t get to book their show in Toronto will continue to haunt me. But what a pleasure to just enjoy it! I don’t know that I liked this one as much as I did “In Your Hands,” but it really is a marvel of restraint. Each performer firmly in their own lane, but so locked in. Remarkably tight. Remarkably simple. Primitive music at its best.
Lucy Railton “Corner Dancer” [Modern Love]
This is genius shit. A marvellous use of musical expertise to create something that shape shifts in and out of becoming visceral. A record that never sounds like what it is, and that never is what it sounds like. It’s rare that something so experimental can feel so grounded.
Piñen - Nicolasa Quintremán [Self Released]
Piñen are perhaps the best actual punk band of the past decade. A pure, unwavering DIY force, that uses their music as a means of communication first and foremost. Can you believe this is just drums, guitar and voice? It’s not unlike the aforementioned ABISM LP sonically. This record makes the point of communicating the story of Nicola Quintremán, an indigenous woman who was murdered by the state for attempting to defend her land. Fucking important music.
Salenta + Topu “Moon Set, Moon Rise” [Futura Resistenza]
A beautiful suite of piano & cello recordings. I guess the story goes that these recordings were just a couple of relatively new friends, playing music together. They formed a habit of playing together weekly and bred this beautiful record. Just get together with a friend and play. Seems magic can happen.
Salvaje Punk “Self Titled” [Toxic State]
About as brutal as a modern punk record can get. Certainly indebted to the likes of Lobotomia, Blasfemia, Parabellum & early South American primitive music. Will blow your hair back on first listen. Blink and you miss it changes, raging top to bottom. Can’t think of another record from this year that sounds this angry.
Sin Offering - Charnel House [Sound Grotesca]
This tape unfairly floated under the radar of 2023. There was an era when most punk and hardcore end of year lists would have CC or the Paincave all over them. Let it be known the master is still at work. Many moons ago, there was a MENTALLY CHALLENGED 7” with a cover of “Bloodfeast” on it. This tape, at times, feels like the spiritual successor to that very moment. Gloom, dirge, goth. Glad to see him revisit that string and tug on it. Unlike anything else out at the moment.
Spirito Di Lupo “Vedo La Tua Faccia Nei Giorni Di Pioggia” [Iron Lung / La Vida Es Un Mus]
Proper surging anarcho punk out of the Sentiero Futuro Colletivo in Milan. Some of the familiars from KOBRA or LUCTA. Veering into that phaser laden, repetitive anarchism where a punk band can find their inner-Hawkwind. Indebted to the likes of Contropotere, Disperazione and that mental Italian punk mindset that you know and love. Not untethered from the Rudimentary Peni / Flux world of putting a hammer to your head.
Tara Clerkin Trio “On the Turning Ground” [World of Echo]
As someone trapped in a big city, I marvel at the Tara Clerkin Trio. In some ways, the Bristol gang has come to represent a certain hopefulness in experimentation. What is this group? Jazz verging on pop now? At the heart of what DIY in Bristol UK is? I’ve gotta experience whatever they are. Will never not be enamoured with artists who believe in building their own world for those around them to live inside. Doesn’t hurt that it’s all tracks.
Tomb Mold “The Enduring Spirit” [20 Buck Spin]
Seemed unrealistic that I had never included a TM record on a best of but here I am, unsure. Either way, perhaps good timing. The band emerged from their cocoon with what is undoubtedly their most absurd record to date. Not one punch pulled. Full commitment to their true selves. Some lamented that they have departed their OSDM roots. Others know, Tomb Mold have now carved a new path for the followers. One true to some of the greatest Death Metal there is. Transcendent is the word, I believe.
Tube Alloys “Magnetic Point” [La Vida Es Un Mus]
I will forever be a sucker for pounding drums, chorus’d out guitars and sardonic lyricism. As that goes, ‘Magnetic Point’ delivers. In the modern age, DIAT set the bar quite high for this type of nonsense, but Tube Alloys don’t miss. Crisis (or Cro-Mags) forever the best reference point.
The Tubs “Dead Meat” [Trouble In Mind]
It was over a pizza and a caesar salad that Tom Ellis put to me that The Tubs “Dead Meat” was his favourite record this year. He showed me the cover. I recalled skipping past it earlier in the year. Well, wasn’t that a mistake. A rare record in that it pulls in influence from everywhere, The Clean, The Cure, Tom Petty? Who knows? A record that constantly takes left turns without going in circles. Original music, charmingly indebted to the past. I dare you to turn it off. You won’t.
But that this is all you should hear from this year is a phenomenal understatement. This year, Ryuichi Sakamoto gave us “12” before leaving us. Tzusing reminded us that he’s on an entirely different level than most Techno artists with “绿帽 Green Hat.” “One Day” was Fucked Up’s best work in years. 3D & The Holograms. Speed Plans. Existence’s “Go to Heaven” - a monstrous tribute to NYHC in a way most bands just don’t deliver. Rat Cage. Deletär. That Global Thermonuclear War tape, while we wait for more Rigorous Institution. Fugitive Bubble. Shitstorm. People’s Temple. Scarab x 2. Sei Sega. Natural Wonder Beauty Concept. Tiikeri. Fashion Change. Anti-God Hand. A veritable stockpile of real deal official Les Rallizes Denudes releases for the first time ever though - maybe that’s a bummer! Even this paragraph isn’t enough for the honourable mentions. There’s honestly too much to call out.
Thanks again for fucking around with our nonsense. Hopefully you enjoyed some music live, recorded or otherwise this year. We’ll see you at Integrity, and then in 2024. Big things coming.