Back catalogue: Punk/Hardcore

Review: Last year saw the release of Only Constant; the debut full-length from New Jersey hardcore punk freaks Gel. Clocking in at barely over a quarter of an hour, their feral batch of sassy, unhinged chaotic bangers garnered them praise from mainstream outlets such as Pitchfork and landed them on festival bills far beyond their humble floor-show beginnings. Newly signed to Blue Grape Music, the band mark their new label-home with the Persona 12" EP, offering up five new bruising cuts that see them push further into rather than straying out of the murk, making for a scathing, intense attack on sexism, racism and bigotry. Where many hardcore acts would assess their growing platform and take a more commercially conscientious route, here Gel double down on their mantra - THE FREAKS WILL INHERIT THE EARTH.

Review: Where do we start here? The band is called GBH, otherwise known as Charged GBH, the label Puke & Vomit, and the album City Baby Attacked By Rats. Suffice to say, if you're after blissful ambient or contemporary classical best jog on and look elsewhere, because, friend, this ain't that. In comparison, this is breakneck hardcore punk with early heavy metal touches that stops for nobody and nothing. With track names like 'Slut', 'Maniac', 'Sick Boy' and 'War Dogs', you can probably imagine how thick and fast the chords, riffs and drum rolls come, with the raw energy, rage and wit that has always made punk so damned vital here in full effect and more than a hint of early Motorhead to the pacing and lyrical flow, which should tell you everything there is to know.

Review: Probably mainly due to the latter day punk rock caricature antics of Billy Idol, Generation X's role in the revolution that overtook music in the late 70s is often overlooked. As members of The Bromley Contingent - a group of early adopters of the Sex Pistols - they rubbed shoulders with Siouxsie Sioux, Sid Vicious and others, but by 1978 they'd released this breathtakingly exciting debut album packed with three minute wonders like 'Kleenex' and 'One Hundred Punks', big on distorted power chords and velocity and low on musical showing off. Ironically, given their roots, this owes much more to the Pistols' northern rivals Buzzcocks than Rotten and co themselves, but that's no bad thing.

Review: If there was a ever a genre of music that made you feel old through its own ageing process, it's pop-punk and emo. The soundtrack to a 1001 American coming of age movies in the 1990s and, to a lesser extent, the noughties, the high energy, high-emotional quality that runs through these tunes can't help but cast the mind back to what now feels like a more innocent time. But, as the songs made clear, we were actually wrought with complicated self-doubt and uncertainty. 1999 was a peak year for this, with Blink 182, Sum 41 and Avril Lavigne vying for chart positions in the UK alongside dominant trance and dance beats. The Get Up Kids were less visible in Britain, but among the noise this Kansas city crew dropped Something To Write Home About. Achieving significant acclaim Stateside, the record would go on to influence the birth of Fall Out Boy, the Wonder Years, and Taking Back Sunday, among others.

Review: Originally released in 1992, Frenching The Bully would serve as the debut full-length from Seattle hardcore punk heroes The Gits. Unfairly lumped into the burgeoning grunge scene at the time due to being a band with guitars in the Grungy City at the cusp of the Grungy Decade, they stood out for their aggro demeanour, energetic live performances and the enigmatic aura of frontwoman Mia Zapata, which ironically also led to their name often being incorrectly cited as part of the Riot Grrrl movement. Tragically, their success would be cut short due to the murder of Zapata while walking home from a show on July 7th 1993, just four days before being set to sign a deal with Atlantic Records. In the aftermath, friends would create a non-profit self-defence group called Home Alive, organising benefit concerts and CDs with the participation of several bands including Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and The Presidents of the United States of America, while Joan Jett and Bikini Kill frontwoman Kathleen Hanna would co-write the track 'Go Home' in tribute to Zapata. Posthumously releasing their second album Enter: The Conquering Chicken in 1994 before calling it a day, the untapped potential of The Gits and their harrowingly abrupt end still leaves a resounding stain on the Seattle punk scene, whereas the legacy of this debut speaks for itself, dictated by the ferocious conviction of what could and should have been one of our leading feminine punk voices.

Review:  Reading-based Garage/Punk/Psychobilly band The Go Go Cult signed to the iconic rockabilly-led Western Star label in 2012. This electrifying new album is their sixth studio record since then and it's an electrifying addition to their back catalogue. Led by a frontman who rivals The Cramps' Lux Interior when it comes to a darkly-theatrical approach, the tracklist is bursting with highlights. 'Black Is The Colour Of My Love' is hypnotic and menacing, 'When The Food Runs Out' nods to Joy Division, whilst 'Regeneration' has an air of Fat White Family about it. The label only pressed a limited number of copies, making it potentially a future collectible, not to mention its stunning, niche work of art thanks to retro illustrator Vince Ray's cover.

Review: It makes sense that Granddaddy's critically lauded second album is getting a second life in 2022. First unveiled 22 years ago, themes of technology meddling with and having a devastating impact on life were so clear many labelled it a concept record, and we challenge anyone to find anyone who wouldn't agree those issues have grown worse, more complex, insidious and threatening in the time between then and now.

A new era does demand a different reading, though, and as the name suggests here this version of the album -- round two, if you will - involved the band's Jason Lytle heading to Los Angeles and hitting three studios to play three pianos that would be the focal point for the songs themselves. One listen to opener 'He's Simple He's Dumb He's The Pilot' should be enough to convince you that was time (and money) very well spent.

Review: If you want to talk about landmark albums, how about Dookie? The third LP from a then-fresh faced but already-jaded Green Day represented a true 'moment' in the development of skate rock and punk, pre-empting the rise of pop punk. Casting a mind back to 1993, when the record hit, and memories prevail of record walls lined with t-shirts sporting the iconic artwork, and a sense that the future of guitar music would be anything but the overblown stadium mega rock that dominated much of the 1980s. Perhaps that never quite became the truth - Green Day catapulted this sound to the top of main stage festival bills in just a few years - but the raw energy, voice of generation X attitude still hits today. We could try and namecheck the highlights, but ultimately, from 'Burnout' to 'All By Myself', Dookie is the largely upbeat driving force of a very special time.

Review: It's 1997 and Green Day have just unveiled Nimrod, their fifth studio album, with the clear intention of trying different ideas, en masse. Rather than specifically looking to release an album per se, the band convinced Reprise Records to let them loose on what's effectively a series of singles. Lacking the coherency of a full record, the fact it still bagged universally positive reviews - with many rightly pointing to its rousing and invigorating qualities (surely a product of its shape-shifting nature) - is testament to the band's deft abilities.

It certainly showed off the outfit's ability to craft these huge, memorable hook lines and melodies, the sort of tracks that you instantly feel you know, even on first listen. Veering between folk, punk, ska and skate rock, what's here may not have had quite the same impact as Dookie, but many ways this is a more convincing argument for their legendary status.

Review: If Dookie was packed full of raging adolescence, last summer highs and formative experiences, Insomniac, Green Day's follow up record, marked the band moving into a new life stage, sonically and lyrically. Exploring their most punk-punk sound yet, a heavier, growlier, blood, sweat and tears-ier take on the immediately arresting, riff-focused formula that first grabbed our attention.

So it stands to reason a quarter century later things still sound powerful and pleasurable. Of course the singles 'Geek Stink Breath', 'Stuck With Me', 'Brain Stew/Jaded' and 'Walking Construction' will be more than familiar even to those who have only heard the band in passing. But the record is packed full of depth and quality elsewhere it arguably far exceeds its older, more widely remembered sibling.

Review: This album is the ultimate treasure for fans of the legendary American rock outfit Green Day. It is a special limited edition and hand-numbered yellow marbled vinyl pressing of the band's legendary 1994 Woodstock broadcast, which has never been available on wax before. As we as the tracklist form that historic night when the band were at the height of their fame, it also includes a rare gem from Saturday Night Live with an explosive performance of 'Geek Stink Breath.' But that's not all, as it also features three ultra-rare acoustic recordings from WMMR radio making it a must-have for every Green Day nut.

Review: Formed in 1981 under the name of Green Jello, before being forced to change it following legal pressure from the actual owners of the Jell-O brand, 1993's Cereal Killer Soundtrack would be the comedy-punk collective's final album with this original moniker before rebranding as Green Jellÿ, with all subsequent reissues (such as this one) featuring the updated (no lawsuit required) name. Originally released as the video-only album movie Cereal Killer, both the film and this subsequent soundtrack would equally go Gold in the US according to the RIAA, while the single 'Three Little Pigs' would become the biggest hit of their career. Spanning over 100 members since their inception, all revolving around lead vocalist and all-around mastermind Bill Manspeaker, the collective are infamous for their juvenile humour, purposefully crude musicianship and chaotic yet theatrical live performances, although they're also noted for being one of the early creative stops for both Maynard James Keenan and Danny Carey, who would both later go on to form Tool.

Review: Much more than just a solo indie project by an alt-music darling (though it does fall under that bracket), Priests' former punk frontgirl Katie Alice Greer presents her first full-length solo LP, 'Barbarism', following a slew of EPs detailing her crazed new electronic sound. An interesting sonic take on the absence of culture or civilization, the LP is a rapturous, entirely unique bridge between indie, art and noise rock, and is packed with rippling nuances and details that make Greer's voice sound quite literally drowned. A strange, dreamy and breathtaking take on a sound that Greer's built up over years.

Review: Following on from their self-released 2022 debut EP Spiritual Disease, UK based blackened metallic hardcore newcomers Grief Ritual make good on all of their initial malevolent promise with the debut full-length Collapse. Combining the low-end, chug-heavy beatdown style of Knocked Loose with more heinous elements of extreme metal, they conjure an oppressive atmosphere that looms over every breakdown, crunching riff or guttural, tortured bellow. Exploring themes of human extinction, capitalism, genocide, ecocide, as well as the rise of populist right authoritarianism, this is as punk as it gets in ethos and message yet conveyed with more viciousness and caustic horror than any death metal act of the modern era.