Hailed as one of the most consistent and influential pop-Punk bands of the last decade, Chicago quintet Knuckle Puck have upped their game with their fourth full-length record, Losing What We Love (Pure Noise Records). The album pushes the band’s envelope while simultaneously pulling from the oldest songwriting tricks they are known and loved for.
When a band captures a perfect creative moment like The Menzingers did with their sixth album 2019’s Hello Exile, they find themselves in a position of having to measure up to it. While Hello Exile was a creative high mark met with deserved praise from music critics such as myself, its success in terms of dollars and cents was relative as it hit 89 on the Billboard Top 200 Charts.
Punchy album opener “Touch” sets the tone for She Burns Red self-released debut Out Of Darkness (Self-Released) – emotive Hard Rock with fiery riffs, impassioned vocals, and a strong alternative influence. The Scottish rockers first record comes three years after their EP Take Back Tomorrow, and it mixes Metal-style heaviness and grunge soul-bearing, with Foo Fighters’ hooks and Wildhearts pop-punk smarts.
There was either a miscommunication with the final product, or Rock Band From Hell made a head-scratchingly curious production decision as Music For Late Night Activities (Universal/Central Line) sounds like half of it was recorded on Windows Media Player with those calculators that stand themselves up hydraulically.
It’s not often a touted Emo Pop-Punk Rock band manages to sprout up from the underground and into the veins of the mainstream pulse. The Manchester, UK duo behind Hot Milk have quickly honed in their style within their short four-year tenure, as evident by their politically fueled hit single ‘Candy Coated Lie$’ which garnished over 17M Spotify streams. No different, their debut album A Call To The Void (Music For Nations) doesn’t pull a single punch.
Pure Noise Records is well-known for the label’s pop-punk proclivity and delectable array of alternative rock signees, It’s an avenue to both discover up-and-coming acts and to rekindle interest with longstanding mainstays.
It’s hard enough as it is to pick a standout track from Freakazoid (Pure Noise Records). It’s even harder to find any two tracks that sound the same. Therefore, expect a bevy of entertaining, ear-pleasing tracks from The Pink Spiders, because that’s what this new record is. The songs might transport you to another time in your life, or they might play perfectly as a soundtrack to a montage.
Punk is a music genre often associated with grassroots and “sticking it to the man”. Par for the course for the evolution of anything, the harsher edge of punk has softened from studded and spiked leather jackets and mile-high mohawks of the eighties to button-down flannels and sometimes Hawaiian shirts and Vans. But the message tends to be one and the same; rebellion, anti-norm, and angst wrapped in a DIY bow.
I am not going to say that reunion tours are not shameless cash grabs. Up to this point, KISS and Bauhaus are the only bands successful at luring me out to them. However, The Misfits were an equally important part of my youth. The mere thirty-minute drive into Tampa, was too tempting, despite my lingering resentment with Danzig’s terrible Elvis tribute album. Going to an outdoor venue in Florida after May, added to the difficulty level of taking my misanthropic self into a 20,000-seat-capacity amphitheatre. Fear being on the bill provided more motivation, however thanks to misinformation regarding the start time at the venue and Tampa traffic, Fear had finished their set as I set foot into the venue.
Five years and a near-breakup since their last full-length record, Australian rock outfit Trophy Eyes have fortunately returned for the foreseeable future. The long-awaited fourth album, Suicide And Sunshine (Hopeless Records) has reinforced the connection shared between the four-piece band. In the process, they made their most vocally, musically, and emotionally diverse collection of songs yet.