!FUCKED BY NOISE MID-YEAR ROUND-UP! - Brayden's Picks

So I've been without a dedicated computer for a fair portion of this year, hence I'm a little behind on this year's releases - but I'm gonna pretend like I haven't just been exclusively listening to cloud rap and shitty beatdown and give this a shot. Here goes nothing:

'Afterthoughts In Limbo'
White Walls

Shoegaze is such a woefully underdone and over saturated genre you'd be forgiven for overlooking this band - but also, don't - you dummy. White Walls are a suuuuuuuuuper heavy 'gaze band from Melbourne who pair their walls of fuzz and feedback with ethereal vocals and lush melodies. For three guys they make and ungodly amount of noise. This double LP's been on my watchlist for a while and it did not disappoint. Do check it out.




'Antipodean Sickness' - Tanned Christ

I kinda sorta maybe wrote this band off as a shameless 'Farewell All Joy' era Idylls clone initially, but this new LP has totally swayed my opinion. While's there's some definite similarities to the aforementioned band, tanned Christ warp their tinny, mathy grind into their own gnarly, fucked up creation. Angular, noisy and pretty scary to boot.

'Preservation Measures' - Gay Kiss

Arizona once again pulls another fucking rager out of the hat, thanks to Gay Kiss. It may have taken its sweet time to get here, but Preservation Measures delivers the goods in the form of manic, unrelenting hardcore. If you're on the prowl for some obtuse, angular guitar work and raspy vocals look no more - hell even if you're not, give it a listen anyway.

'Slurping At The Cosmos Spine' - Dawn Of Humans

Up until this LP dropped, I was certain that Dawn Of Humans could never really translate their trademark weirdness to record without sounding too forced or contrived. There's no sign of this on Slurping... however - just an array of bizarre vocal performances, caveman-like rhythms and stompy punk riffs. A winning combination of catchy and disorienting slime.

'Fantasy Empire' - Lightning Bolt

Rhode Island's loudest two piece churn out even more fuzz drenched goodness on album number seven. The grooves are monstrous, the drumming is utterly insane and the bass guitar manages to sound like just about everything other than a bass guitar. I've been on a huge Lightning Bolt fix this year, and a new album has made it just that much better.

'Wingwalker/Prayer To God' - Great Falls/Thou

90's style angular post hardcore meets a sludge cover of actual 90's post hardcore on this gargantuan sounding split. Great Falls bring the dissonance with metallic crunch and yelping vocals while Thou cover a beloved Shellac song and FUCKING KILL IT. In a good way, I mean.

'終焉' - Gentlemen

Gentlemen are easily one of my favourite punk bands in Australia at the moment, so naturally I was stoked when I head they were dropping TWO 7"s earlier this year. 終焉 sees the Melbourne band trying their hand at both dirgey post punk and hyperactive, Siege-esque hardcore across three tracks. If you dug the filthy, raw self titled EP from last year, you'll definitely dig this one.








'Autism Vision/Auto Warfare' - Brando's Island

When you're dealing with a band that has members of Pathetic Human, Velvet Whip and serial pests The Zingers, you know you're in full a wild ride. Brando's Island are a four piece art punk/new wave band that play jarring tunes by way of vibraphone and synthesizer. No guitars, no bass - just a very stripped down version of a school big band. The deadpan vocal delivery and unusual instrumentation are a winning combo.

'Cult Of The Technocrat' - Coffin Birth

Coffin Birth get better every time I see them live, and not surprisingly this translates to their releases too. Absolutely manic, riff laden grindcore a la Insect with a healthy dose of noise and death metal grunt. This stuff will make you want to neck domestos and run through brick walls. Also holy shit I hope these guys record their cover of 'Fluids' by Neanderthal at some point.





'War.Fire.Death' - Ripped Off

Brisbane band Ripped Off finally got around to releasing some music this year, and boy am I glad I did. Imagine Scandinavian, Japanese and noisy US hardcore thrown into a blender and played through really nice amps and you'll have a pretty good idea of what this is like. It's like the apocalypse, but with more d-beats.






HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Prurient - Frozen Niagra Falls
Thou/The Body - You Whom I've Always Hated
Sumac - The Deal
Rectal Hygienics - Ultimate Purity
Foot Hair - Self Titled
Soma Coma - Dust
Rule Of Thirds - Self Titled LP
John Carpenter - Lost Themes

Gentlemen - Pro Famine
No - Treating People Like They Don't Exist 12"
Sadist - The Shadow Of The Swastika EP
Ho99o9 - The Horror Of 1999 EP
The Coneheads - Selected Ringtones Tape 3
Triac/Sacridose - Split
Disciples of Christ - 2015 Demo
Faceless Burial - Demo
Nervous Habit - Demo
Avian Terror - Demo

ANTICIPATED RELEASES:
Destruction Unit - Negative Feedback Resistor (!!!HYPED!!!)
Burlap - LP
Last Chaos - LP
Head Wound City - LP
New Daughters LP?? (I hope??)
NASA Space Universe - LP (RIP you beautiful band)
CØNDITIØN - Actual Hell 12"