Sweden always had excellent melodic punk hardcore bands with Satanic Surfers, Millencolin, No Fun At All, coming to mind immediately. I discovered Bash Brothers when I reviewed their ep for this zine a while ago. Now, they released their debut album with 10 songs. Hailing from Eksjo, they play melodic hardcore punk with all lyrics in English. All of the songs on this album have a more hardcorish vibe with fast paced drumming, excellent riff and hook solutions topped with great vocal handle, courtesy of the singer Johan. There are two songs featuring guest vocals by John Harcus from Pmx. Personally, the top songs of this album are “Life Lessons” having an excellent anthemic chorus that I wish I wrote. The next favourite is “Suit Yourself” because of the great Swedish almost Gothenburgesque middle melodic metal part of the song. The third top song for me is “You Are Fading Away” with great energetic fast paced screaming vocal parts. The first ep was okay but nothing special, and this debut album is something that will make this band one of the greatest Swedish melodic hardcore bands in the future. This is an album that both hardcore kids into more harder music and both skate punk kids will love. Bash Brothers are the picture fresh, modern and energetic melodic hardcore punk should sound like.
As legendary Monty Python would say:And now for something completely different! These punks from Washington DC just released their new album on Sister Polygon Records and it is waay different than the usual hardcore punk and stuff that I review here. Priests play some sort of early punk mixed with alternative indie music, keyboards, I think that I also heard some saxophone thrown in for good measure and it all starts interesting for the first couple of songs. There are 10 songs on this record, so it is not too long but while listening it feels like two hours passed when the record finishes. So, it got me bored. Call me asshole, but I dont like that experimental stuff and I am rather more fond of straight forward hardcore punk music. The lyrics are political and smart but the vocals sound more talking than singing so they also miss the point in my opinion. I am sure that there will be some people who will love this stuff, but this is just not my cup of tea.
This is the first ep made by this four piece band from Los Angeles, California. The ep has four songs, three new ones and one old made by guitarist/vocalists old band named Felix. The opener “Timmy s Doing Drugs” is a fast short hardcore fun song in the vein of 80-ies bands. The second one “Soda Pop and Cigarettes” is a melodic midtempo punkrock song with some catchy melodic hooks and nice singing. “Teenage Altar Boy” is faster, skate song and in my opinion the best song on this ep. “No Clout” that closes the ep is superb hardcore punk fast paced song. This ep is a great piece of hardcore punk done nicely in an old school way.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 