Category Archives: Reviews

(review) Jerry Only – Anti-Hero

I was wondering what was Jerry Only up to since Misfits now play reunited with Danzig under the moniker Original Misfits, so I guess Danzig made ultimatum to Jerry not to continue that ghastly version of family band under the name of legendary horror punk icons and one of my favorite bands of all time.

Well, here is my answer. Jerry Only released solo album and the music continues in similar path of last Misfits studio effort Devil’s Rain and couple of singles afterwards. That means a mixture of horror punk roots, melodic hard rock and even stadium metal. There are only eight songs on this one. So let us present this one:

Fear The Walking Dead – generic hard rock/horror punk song, boring and unimaginative with stupid synth intro. Not great beginning.

Snake Eyes – more up tempo metal punk rock song with good chorus and it is a decent effort, I liked this one.

Anti-Heroes – great melody and anthemic begin, but the song is just plain boring with piano parts where there should be no such thing, kinda reminding of seventies glam rock in some parts.

Taboo – just horrible, this is probably the worst song on this record, just horrible generic rock n roll with horror lyrics, a plain disaster.

(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care – the title reminds of some Motorhead song, but in fact this is a decent doo wop influenced punk rock song reminding of old Misfits spirit in a way, I liked this one.

One Cell From You – again, so boring and uneventful song, no verse, just lame chorus and plain emptiness.

Dead Men – has all those old school Misfits shouts when the song starts, even decent melody on the verse but the chorus spoils it all, ruins the song absolutely.

Illuminati – well our old Jerry Only is having his revenge upon Illuminati and their conspiracies, this is in fact a decent song again on melody and verse, but chorus is also massive and strong made for singing along and this is for me best out of three decent songs on this record.

So, three decent, five just bad. Avoid.

(review) Malatesta – Unter Tage

Long time no crust hardcore punk on the pages of this zine. So, it is time for me to correct that mistake and I can safely say that Malatesta are best band for that. These guys are hailing from Munich, Germany. This brand new opus contains eight songs. Lyrics are in German language and deal with inner struggle and battling inner demons, machoism, sexism but from personal side of things. So, that means lyrics are not your usual d-beat crust punk about war, nuclear terror, post apocalypse and similar merry themes, though there is nothing wrong with that. Malatesta play d-beat hardcore crust punk but guitars create lots of melody that sounds so great, haunting and melancholic, so I can say there are also, or at least I hear it, some black metal influences in guitar work, I can hear some Darkthrone in their crusty albums in some guitars but I can tell you, this album contains great songwriting and does not get boring, that means not every song is similar, like it is often case with bands that play this kind of music. This is energy, melody, melancholy and darkness in eight opuses. I would so like to see this band play live, I am sure their show is energy pure. Go check this one out. You will not regret it.

Bandcamp

(review) Cockney Rejects – Power Grab

Sons of East London, legendary Cockney Rejects are back with new full length album. I must admit that I have never been a big fan of this band, but I did not pay attention to their albums, apart of few anthems that everybody knew from Oi compilations. Well, the new album is here. There are fourteen songs on this one, celebrating 40 years of being undefeated and other merry street punk themes like being stabbed in the back, not having your heart in the scene, fighting if attacked, celebrating life and living every day like there is no tomorrow…Lyrics are great because I always love such themes in punk and hardcore bands. But, music is another thing. There are couple of songs that stand out as highlights, like Paper Tiger, Stab In The Back or my personal favorite being My Heart Ain´t In It. But, other is just too hard rock, with couple of nwobhm influenced guitar songwriting. Melodies are okay in some choruses but I never quite liked hard rock influenced punk, so this one could have been much better than it really is. At the end of the album there is a cover of Tom Petty´s Learning To Fly sounding practically same as original. There are more songs that somehow passed under my radar as fillers than anthems. Okay album but nothing special.