Part Time Killer are from north, precisely Finland and play the style of punkrock that I love the most. That means melodic skatepunk with both legs firmly in the nineties and all those old school Fat and Epitaph influenced bands. This record contains 12 songs with lyrics bordering on the fine line between personal and political and I as a fan, also as hardcore kid can relate to. Vocals are superb, hard yet melodic and backing vocal harmonies are heavenly. The songs are catchy, varied and I love every single minute of this album making it one of my favorite listens in the last two weeks or so. Personal favorites: Giving Up!, Welfare State, Insane And Free.
F.O.D. from Belgium has a large fanbase in Europe and also the world, making them one of the jewels in the crown of European melodic punk scene. This new record contains 14 songs and what is more better, this is a concept album. The story revolves around two characters, an elderly woman called Annie who, together with Harrison, reflects on the past and tries to put the pieces of the puzzle that is her life back together. The story works out just fine through the song structured with fast more skatepunk songs but also more calmer mid tempo punkrock bordering with pop punk in some parts of the songs. Hans˙ vocals are better than ever with very harmonic backing vocals fitting perfectly to the songs. It reminds me a lot of best No Use For A Name opus. For me, the songs that I somehow love the most on this record are Fall In Line, Annie, Changes Rise. But, this is the album you should listen to as a whole, not song by song to understand it better. The anguish, the pain, the sweetness, the beauty of skatepunk and melodic punkrock.
Blacked Out are from Vancouver and this is their new e.p. out with Thousand Islands Records. There are five songs on this e.p. The music of this band is fast energetic hardcore punk, leaning more on melodic side of things, more like skatepunk. But, they are enough technical to satisfy fans of technical skatepunk, yet leaning enough in the nineties old school genre waters, to satisfy also fans of old school melodic punk with some metal thrown here and there in the song structures. For me the best songs on this e.p. that I recommend are I Don˙t Know and Tribalism. Nice one indeed!
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 