Schnogge are coming from Burkardroth, Germany and they play mixture of pop punk and melodic punk/skate punk. There are ten songs on this little beauty of an album. The album starts as atmospheric beautiful intro with acoustic and keys turning into full blooded melodic punk anthem called ‘Antisocial’. What immediately falls to my ears is that vocals have a rougher edge but with guitar melody do mix up really great and belong to the overall picture perfectly. This song, as many on this album has catchy and great sing along chorus with nice backing vocal harmonies. Lyrics on this album deal with antisocial attitudes, humanity, hipsters, punk, fun and a bit of humor. There are also faster songs like ‘Story About Humanity’, sounding great with pop punk influences exploding all over the place. The music of this album brings back smile on your face on a bright and sunny warm day, making you wish that you are on some beach stage, possibly at Punk Rock Holiday enjoying your melon ball and this band in the easy afternoon hours. Songs that I must highlight from this album are also ‘Fuck You’, ‘Love The Hipster’ and ‘What Is Punk’ being my personal somehow favorites, but album as a whole is great pop punk/melodic punk release sure to win you over.
Beyond The Lamplight is a project by lead singers of Larry and His Flask, Ian Cook and Andrew Carew and this album contains eleven songs. I can easily say that this is one of the best feel good records that came out this year, both lyrically and musically, Beyond The Lamplight’s music borders somewhere between melodic punk and folk punk reminding me a lot of Frank Turner, who is a guest performer contributing vocals on ‘ Shelter’. I am usually not so much an avid fan of such punk rock, because I don’t like much folk punk, but this one is a keeper. Perfect combination of guitar, bass, drums and vocals together with banjo, trombone and keys, acoustic guitar and multiple nice melodic vocal harmonies give fast, up tempo and uplifting songs. Lyrics are story for themselves. Smartly written, they give hope, they help you battle your inner and outer shortcomings, imagined and real and make you soar above, if not for the rest of the day, make it just for the duration of this album and it is already much. Songs like ‘Beyond the Lamplight’, above mentioned ‘Shelter’, ‘Leave It To Us’ or the title song are sure to bring smile of joy on your face and remind you why you love punk and hardcore so much and how much it means and has to say with each passing day. Great record!
NUFO are coming from Graz, Austria and this is their new release and it contains nine songs. NUFO are playing nineties styled melodic punk hardcore and if I must compare it to some band, it would be a mixture of No Fun At All and all those California’s bands we love, like Pennywise for example. That means fast songs, ultra melodic beautiful singer’s voice topped with backing vocal harmonies and superb songwriting. Lyrics deal with isolation, hysteria, dealing with personal problems in your head, keeping the faith and trying to stay normal in this crazy world but also with a touch of engaged politics, also humor and self irony too. I think some of the song themes were influenced with covid lockdown and some of the themes remind me of what I was thinking during that pandemic and I can totally relate to most of the lyrics on this album. My personal favorites are ‘Transparent Barriers’, ‘Hysteria’, also ‘Tear Gas’ and ‘Keep Your Faith’. Bandcamp version of the album also contain the lyrics, so it is a whole package, I recommend this one, since this is an awesome melodic hardcore punk album.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 