Sadists are hailing from Hartford, Connecticut area and I must admit that I have never heard of this band prior to listening to this record, which is I suppose a collection of their greatest hits, or maybe complete discography, I couldn’t find anything on the Internet that would provide me more information about this band, since it is apparent they don’t have a Facebook or Instagram page, not even their band’s webpage or anything similar. Anyway, this record contains 27 regular plus four bonus songs, making it massive 31 song record. The music of Sadists is horror punk n roll with lots of up tempo and uplifting songs with horror like themes, with songs like ‘ Madman Marz’, ‘Zombies Ate My Neighbors’, ‘Queen of Halloween’, ‘Horror Punk Song’ you just can’t go wrong. Vocals are not your Danzig clone or similar, no, they are harsher and more screaming and remind me a lot of punk bands Anti Heros and Defiance. This album has a healthy dose of street punk thrown in the song structures for good measure. Although there is a great number of songs on this one, the album is interesting, especially for us who are horror punk fans, so it passes very quickly. Besides raw and dirty version of punk rock with melodic touch, there are couple of keyboards in there, and clever use of samples which is always great and fine by me because samples can only emphasize the atmosphere of some song. Try listening to ‘Death Do Us Part’, ‘Murder Junkie’ or ‘Black Christmas’ and try not to be touched by the energy of this band and some of the songs just make you pump your fist in the air and your old punk rock heart beat faster. Excellent stuff!
I must admit I have never listened to Fire Ants From Uranus until this record. These guys are hailing from Lindau area, Germany and are playing their vision of harsher punk rock with melodic punk influences, they reminded me a bit of Off With Their Heads and Menzingers to name a few that come to mind while listening to the music of this band. There are nine songs on this album. Besides midtempo punk anthems there are also faster songs like ‘Act of Sabotage’ for example, being in your face punk rock hymn. Vocals are a bit more harsh voice, but with enough melody to retain excellent vocal lines, topped with superb pop punk backing vocal harmonies. Lyrics are personal, dealing with some engaged themes, but also enough self humor and healthy dose of irony thrown in. Lyrics are great and smartly written and have something to say, something I can relate to, so that is another plus for this band. My personal favorites on this one are ‘Pizza Supernova’, ‘Is It Me’ and ‘When The Skies Fall’. This is great melodic punk rock album coming your way, so check this one out!
Beyond The Lamplight is a project by lead singers of Larry and His Flask, Ian Cook and Andrew Carew and this album contains eleven songs. I can easily say that this is one of the best feel good records that came out this year, both lyrically and musically, Beyond The Lamplight’s music borders somewhere between melodic punk and folk punk reminding me a lot of Frank Turner, who is a guest performer contributing vocals on ‘ Shelter’. I am usually not so much an avid fan of such punk rock, because I don’t like much folk punk, but this one is a keeper. Perfect combination of guitar, bass, drums and vocals together with banjo, trombone and keys, acoustic guitar and multiple nice melodic vocal harmonies give fast, up tempo and uplifting songs. Lyrics are story for themselves. Smartly written, they give hope, they help you battle your inner and outer shortcomings, imagined and real and make you soar above, if not for the rest of the day, make it just for the duration of this album and it is already much. Songs like ‘Beyond the Lamplight’, above mentioned ‘Shelter’, ‘Leave It To Us’ or the title song are sure to bring smile of joy on your face and remind you why you love punk and hardcore so much and how much it means and has to say with each passing day. Great record!
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 