Category Archives: Reviews

Reviews, Various

(record review)BASH BROTHERS-Downhearted(Thousand Islands Records)

Leave a comment

Sweden, besides having plenty metal bands, was also very fertile ground for hardcore punk bands. Do you remember Bash Brothers? We already featured these melodic hardcore punks from Eksjo, Sweden in our zine when we reviewed their first record. Now, I am lucky being able to listen and review for our zine the new, second full length out on Thousand Islands Records.

a0004133828_10

The new album features 12 songs of epic, high energy fueled fast melodic hardcore punk. Compared to the firs album, it is a great progress for these guys, being more technical, even more musically tight and having great guitar hooks, even very metalic vibes in some songs but yet retaining the punk hardcore edge we all love so much. The vocals are awesome, shouted and screamed yet at the same time melodic sung with great backing vocal harmonies. I can not escape the comparison to Satanic Surfers, but Bash Brothers are more hard and brutal sounding although both bands have some similarities, I would say that Bash Brothers have more hardcore sounding vibe. There are some guest performances on this record, John Harcus from Pmx, Niklas Karlsson from Orbit Culture and Vince Fournier from Our Darkest Days deliver a little support with their voices to the awesome songs. It is so hard for me to say which songs are best to me from this energetic bomb of an album, but I will try, here it is: Dark Passenger, Twist Your Tongue and Green Street. Judging by this record, 2019.started really great.

10/10

https://www.facebook.com/bashbrotherspunkrock/

https://www.facebook.com/thousandislandsrecords/

https://bashbrotherspunkrock.bandcamp.com/

 

 

Reviews, Various

(review)Hi! Spencer-Nicht raus, aber weiter(Uncle M Music)

Leave a comment

Hi! Spencer from Osnabruck, Germany quickly rose to become force to reckon with considering melodic punk with indie and noise influences. I was lucky to listen and review their brand new album that comes out via Uncle M Music for our zine.

655986

There are 11 songs on this record. The music of Hi! Spencer is hard to categorize because the guys managed to create their trademark sound with fresh pop punk melodies topped with darker sounding riffs and melancholic yet hopeful choruses. The lyrics to the songs are in German language, but I understand and speak German so it was no problem for me to understand that the lyrics are mostly personal dealing with fighting and confronting your own personal demons and coping and having hope in today` s fast and sometimes merciless world. It is also about love and friendship and the things we should hold dear in our hearts and I am still warm around my heart when I write these lines, because I love this music, I love this album and the music such as this remind me why I still do this and why I still believe and support this scene after all these years. It is hard to choose, but for me the best songs on this record are: Wo immer Du bist, the title song and Richtung Norden.

8,5/10

https://www.facebook.com/hispencerhi/

https://www.facebook.com/uncle.m.music/

 

 

Reviews, Various

(book)James Herbert-48

Leave a comment

Do you love your horror in written form? I sure do! I love the movies, the tv series, horrorpunk but the best for me are still horror short stories and novels. The late legendary James Herbert happens to be one of my favorite horror writers of all time, so I read his books with joy and fear.

1250315

48 is one of Herbert´s more sf and fantasy and less horror novels. As the title implies the story takes place in 1948. At the end of Second World War, defeated Reich in its death throes shot rockets with deadly virus and the whole world became ravaged place. In empty London, full of corpses, lunatic survivors, American pilot Hoke tries to survive and escape the army of British nazi blackshirts who want his blood to make an andtidote to the sickness. Sounds familiar? Richard Matheson´s I Am Legend first came to mind with some segments of this story, but insted vampires, here we have lunatic nazi soldiers. But, there is enough of action, excitement and breathtaking turning of pages to make this one interesting novel. It is not one of my favorite Herbert´s books that I read, by far not, but it is a decent one to make your winter evening great reading. The ending is okay, the story evolves nicely page by page, so worth your reading, but if you would love to check some of Herbert´s stuff, better read couple of his better works before this one.