France gave many excellent bands and records in the history of its scene, this band is one who will yet make history. Taiwan Balek are melodic hardcore punk band from Toulon, France and I listened and reviewed their new record for this webzine.
The record contains 6 songs of melodic and highly energetic hardcore punk. “No Arms, No Candles” is a fast 90-ies reminding song, with great harmonic melodies. “At Morning” and “Daisy” offer excellent mix of faster melodic parts mixed with atmospheric emotional parts in between. For me, the best song on this record is No Use For A Name sounding “Digital Soul”, punkrock song that had a strong impact on me as a listener being an anthem that I wished I wrote. “Minx” and “Big Box” continue in the song structure as the first third of the record and finish it leaving you wanting for more. That means, good record! Not something new, not something unheard of, but hey, it´s melodic punk and it˙s good, so get it and give it a chance or two!
Time for something harder to grace the pages of this zine, namely the review of the new e.p. by Probation If you are a fan of harder and more dirtier side of hardcore punk you came to the right place. The record is out on mighty Wtf Records. Read on!
Hailing from Limburg Noord area, these Dutch trio plays a dirty mixture of hardcore, sludge and some d-beat thrown in for good measure. This record contains 6 tracks of bleak despair, hatred, autoirony garnished with black humour and sarcasm. The titles like “Life Sucks, Kill Yourself”, “Imperial Needle” or the title track imagine the lyrical themes well, don˙t they? The songs are mainly fast paced with almost crusty old school d-beat sound turned into modern hardcore punk but retaining that dirty and greasy vibe in the production and also easily changing pace into lower downtuned sludge core stuff. For me the best song on this record is “Wrong Answer”. This record is one more proof of greatness and versity of European hardcore punk scene.
D.O.A. are back! The Canadian hardcore punk legends are celebrating their 40th anniversary! 40 years! That is my current age! This is their new album and I listened to it and reviewed it for this webzine.
My friend once wrote that only old people listen to D.O.A. and he was kinda right. I first listened to this band via tape that one of my best friends in life gave me around 1994. or 1995. It was some greatest hits tape and I remember that “Disco sucks” immediately made me love this band. Fast forward to 2018.and the new album. Joey Keithley and his gang deliver the new batch of 13 songs that are both likeable to punkrockers and the hardcore kids. Now, even 40 years later, the problems are the same and there is still no compromise by these Canadian veterans. “You need an ass kickin´ right now” is a kick in the ass, a wake up call same as “Killer cops” and “Time to fight back”, very melodic punk song. “Gonna set you straight” is a very dirty sounding song with anthemic chorus. There is almost country vibe with a punk attitude in “Wanted man”, so the album has a very different sounding vibe in some songs, but all in some hardcore punk area but with maybe a wider scope. Good album.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 