It's imperative that you read what I here say.  The new Street Justice record is going to tear your eardrums and make you shit blood.  We found the brown note, and painted it with our violent and childish fantasies.

I'm especially proud that this is our first recording with no punched in riffs or overdubs or scratch tracks or any of that "fix your music in the studio" bullshit.  We only had to splice the last six seconds of drum track on one song, and as far as I can remember that's the only wizardry we needed.  Super proud of us for pulling that off, and getting six songs in an 8 hour session including setup and breakdown times.

Now here's some nice friendly happy music!

I've always thought Planes Mistaken For Stars never quite got the credit they deserved for the level of composition and dynamics they incorporated into their sound, and I hope their EP's can help the uninitiated idiots who pass one of my favorite groups off as "another emo band" realize that they are in fact another beast altogether. The drummer smashes, the bass has a mean fuckin rumble, and the guitar work is as weird as it is heavy, with tons of harmonized shred attack parts, and a nasty unison sound during the rare times when they do coalesce onto the same riff all together. There's weirdo jams and spoken word and feedback and all the other freakout stoners-with-microphones shit you could want, in raging emotive sludgy-yet-fast punk rock songs.  Listen to this loud, on headphones, or both, then go buy the records.  Here's their last three ep's, Fucking Fight, Knife in the Marathon, and Spearheading the Sin Movement. 

WE RIDE TO FIGHT

Do you like positive hardcore? Me too!  Thats why I'm giving you a Youth of Today album, in itself a reason to get off your ass and go skateboarding or get into a fistfight with your friends just because it beats watching tv.  Ray Cappo (before the Shelter pop-punk days obviously) has one of the best nyhc voices, probably third only to JR or John Joseph;  it is my belief that Eric Ozenne's entire vocal style is built almost entirely upon Cappo's snarls and yaaaaooowwws. And that's a good thing.  Seriously, this guy has a fucking pepsi tattoo.  This is some legendary posi shit, all the weight of classic nyc hardcore with a fun vibe throughout.


We're Not In This Alone


Finally, some music which is in no way fun.  When you're just totally fucking miserable being alive and can't understand what girls want from you and drink enough that even your present reality has a weird eerie feeling of already being just a memory, Arab Strap are there to play beautiful and thoughtful compositions that were meant just for you over drum machines while a literary drunk talks in a Scottish accent.  Here's one of their earlier albums, which has scored many late night drunken stumbles with headphones for me.  I've probably cried while listening to this before. Fuck you, don't judge me.


Philophobia

Post-script:

I love comic books and you should too.  If you don't already have a .cbr reader, you should go get one (they're all open source and free, you cheap piece of shit) and then download the Trade Paperback of WHITE TRASH, a terrific book that was written by Gordon Rennie and drawn by the fantastically talented Martin Emonds (RIP).   This is some whacked out rock and roll gonzo weirdness, down to the Ralph Steadman-worship art and constant Metallica references.  Also, it's about Elvis as an armed robber on the Great American Road Trip with an Axl Rose type character.  AMAZING!

WHITE TRASH