Sonoma County is a place where nineties melodic punk rock existed and thrived with bands such as Tsunami Bomb or Bracket falling to mind immediately. North Bay in California has new and superb melodic punk bands and One Armed Joey is one of those. This trio has been around since 2014 and this is their first full length album after releasing couple of e.p.-s. This one contains ten songs of absolutely beautiful melodic punk rock with some pop punk influences and it is so sweet to listen to. Vocals are such honey and cinnamon sprinkled melodies and backing vocal harmonies deliver such overlayer of beauty to the main melodies. Guitar work is awesome, songwriting is totally great and this album or music does not get boring or repetitive for one second. Lyrics are another story, so carefully and well written and handle with today´s anxieties that any of us have and hold, and teach us to somehow try to turn those anxieties to happiness and cope with that in everyday rush and all day running and trying to catch something. The album as a whole is at the same time melancholic but also full of hope and not giving up. Besides playing pop punk, there are also a bit of reggae influence like in part of one of my personal favorites Mirrors. Also, songs I mention as my highlights are Rot and Lost Dog pt 1 and 2. This is a great album.
Veterans Cypress Hill are back with their new, tenth album. These hardcore hip hop legends cooperated in creating music with various musicians from hardcore scene, like Sen Dog with Biohazard, Powerflo, to mention a few, so much respect to being kinda part of both scenes and creating great music. What do we get on this new record? Well, we get new set of songs somehow creating darkened vibe to the whole album, speaking of violence, death, streets and every day life and hardships one can endure and must endure to survive. There is no violence worshipping or gang worshipping lyrics on this one, rather speaking their voices as witnesses to the shit they had to see and make through to get where they are now. There are also couple of songs about ganja and smoking weed like Open Ya Mind or Come With Me, but my personal favorite is Bye Bye being somehow the darkest song on the album, both lyrically and musically. The usage of samples and loops is superb, so is songwriting and lyrics. Also, songs that I must mention as being somehow highlights are Break Of Dawn and The Ride. Great album by these legends.
Slovenian hardcore heavyweights Reach A.D. are in no way strangers to this zine. They were formerly known as Reach and they delivered couple of fine hardcore releases and energetic gigs, especially here hailing from Pomurje region of Slovenia. Well, after couple of line-up changes they decided that a new era is upon us and changed name to Reach A.D. and continued soldiering on with this new e.p. This one features four songs and music of Reach A.D. leans more into metallic side of hardcore at the same time never forgetting their streetcore roots. If I must compare it to some bands, it would be Earth Crisis nineties era and also all those Belgian H8000 nineties hardcore bands. That means aggressive but not necessary fast songs, angry vocals, great gang backing vocals, guitar work which is awesome and nicely done lyrics about fighting your inner demons, hypocrisy in the scene, quasi toughness and fakes, ignorance and hatred and all other merry themes. I personally think that this e.p. is by far the best release Reach has ever done and if this is a indicator how new era of this band will sound like, I am damn looking forward to it!
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