Category Archives: Reviews

(review) Ten Foot Pole – Winning(People of Punk Rock Records)

Ten Foot Pole are legends from the nineties and all those Epitaph and Fat nineties melodic punk bands that ruled the Earth when I was a kid growing up and which I still love and listen to and sing along to their lyrics and songs.

Thanks to Dennis Jagard, frontman and mastermind, this band still exists and has released two great studio albums in last couple of years. This new one contains 13 superb alive and kicking songs, just made for listening to all over and over again. What I love is upon first listening that this album is better than the last studio effort with fine mixture of up tempo and really fast skate punk songs, but somehow there is behind that energy also a melancholic feeling that continues to connect all the songs. Lyrics are personal and great vocal lines besides fine songwriting is what makes this album a superb punk rock listening must and one of the greater albums of this year that have come out. Special mention must be made of Dennis’ vocals which are gentle and sweet, but they fit so nice to the songs. I love the opener Can We Stop Trying To Win? bein an instant classic and I am sure it will fit nice into the live set list. Some songs like Bogeyman or I’m No Good At Sharing reminded me a lot of Swedish nineties school of melodic punk and Millencolin especially. One other mention must be made of great drumming which is like a human metronome. My personal favorites are more faster songs like Take Back Your Voice but the album as a whole is a worth listening. This band is one of the rare nineties skate punk legends that still play and I didn’t catch them play live somewhere yet, hope it will change in next festival season somewhere. Until then, check this one out.

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(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