Not many people who know me are aware that besides horrorpunk, one of the other music genres I love so much is doo wop. In this retro review series I will try to bring closer bands and singers I love so much. The Penguins are certainly one of them. They were active in the fifties and sixties and were based in LA. Their greatest hit was of course Earth Angel, song you must have heard lot of times, used in Back To The Future movie series. This is 2 cd definitive remastered collection that came out in 2020 containing practically complete discography of this often underrated band which did quality doo wop and certainly are a must for all beginners and also die hard fans of the genre. Songs like Cool Baby Cool, Heart of a Fool, I Ain t Gonna Cry No More and many others besides best known Earth Angel are sure to win you over.
Petaluma, Bay Area. In sunny California four punk rockers founded a band that would be anything but sunny: On Halloween 2003 Love Equals Death was born, blending typical 90s skate punk with Misfits style horror punk. Their 2006 album Nightmerica was released on Fat Wreck Chords and had the band touring with names like TSOL, Avenged Sevenfold, Tiger Army, No Use For A Name, Distillers and of course AFI. Founding member of Love Equals Death included Tsunami Bomb’s Dominic Davi and Tiger Army’s Nick 13. Their approach called “Deathpunk” remained unique and finally returned in 2020 when the band decided to come back to life on a split EP with The Static Age via SBÄM Records and Say-10 Records.
Hitting the studio for a brand new album in this very moment, the band around singer Chon Travis decided to drop a sick compilation on vinyl featuring B-sides and tracks from different labels and even earlier versions of songs on the Nightmerica album. This is going to be out on 29th October, roughly towards Halloween 2021, 18 years after founding the band.
On September 29 they will drop a single coming alongside an exciting video put together from older touring footage. At War (With Myself) is a very personal song that ultimately shows off the band’s qualities and varieties in their musicals style.
Warsaw s Lazy Class are back with their new full length record. These guys are in no way strangers to the pages of this zine, because I already reviewed their last record two years ago. I just recently read an argument on social media whether new oi and street punk records are too melodic and old purists are angry about that, but I think that is just the way I like it. Lazy Class have been around in the scene since 2013 and they play melodic street punk with oi and hardcore influences thrown in for good measure in the song structures. What I must say here that I absolutely love lyrics and much respect to whom wrote the lyrics to the songs because they re great, clever and I just enjoyed reading them apart listening to the music and then finding out if the songs sound as I imagined them while reading the lyrics. Couple of them are more typical oi anthems, but some of them are really personal and political like Dreams and Hopes, 1905, The Boats Are Coming, World of Your Own…
This is fantastic record. Even better than the last one.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 