Say what you will, or what you want, but Anti-Flag continue to release great albums for decades now. Pittsburgh punk rockers are back with new batch of songs, to be correct kind of intro and ten songs and they are needed now more than ever. War in Ukraine, produced mass economic crisis and recession, poverty and great rift between rich and poor having nothing to eat, rising tide of right wing and fascist populism throughout Eastern and now Western Europe too, those are all themes just ripe for singing along. You will say, melodic punk preaches to the converted, because who will listen to Anti-Flag? Punks, mainly. But, those themes are never to be forgotten and need to be addressed and that makes us think about what is important in life. Anti-Flag have quite a lot of guest performers on this album. My personal favorite songs on this one are hard to pick, but I will try: ‘Modern Metamedicine’ with guest performance by Jesse Leach of Killswitch Engage, ‘The Fight Of Our Lives’ featuring Tim McIlrath of Rise Against, ‘NVREVR’ featuring Stacey Dee of Bad Cop/Bad Cop, but all songs are fantastic. Justin and Chris No 2 interplay with their vocals and band delves mainly in mid tempo melodic waters but there are occasional excursions into more faster, aggressive hardcore punk waters. Great album, long awaited, but the wait was worth it.
Formed in 2021, HOLYFANGS is a new punk rock band based in Los Angeles, California. The sound is instantly familiar, yet fresh, heartfelt and pulsing with life. A driven, angst-fuelled combination of tasty riffs, crunching grooves and blood-soaked melodies that bite. For fans of Banner Pilot, No Trigger, The Menzingers and Dillinger Four.
As I stated before, Canada has great punk rock scene and 86 It are from Ottawa and this is their EP, this one is out for couple of months now, but deserves attention and listening. This band provides 6 songs of fast hardcore punk/skate punk with melodic punk thrown in there for good measure. Male and female dual vocals interplay perfectly in songs like my favorite ‘It’s Gonna Blow’, added to fast drums and guitar that sounds like all those old school California hardcore bands, this one crosses between Circle Jerks and Black Flag mixed with melodic punk parts. Lyrics deal with every day life, hope, coping with troubles and emotions, so every one can relate to that. This is a short one indeed, but remains in memory with songs like ‘Long Gone’ and ‘Always Better’. I would love to hear full length some time in the future if possible, that would be great. This one is free at name your price, so if you go download it free at least drop a word or two to the band if you like it, I am sure they will appreciate it.