A few more words on poppunk...

The celebration will take no end in my house, since my newfound love for poppunk has begun to blossom. I will sort of pick up where I left off in the last post on this topic, in that I will present you with the brilliant record We are still alive by Latterman. For a detailed description of the bands sound, read the stuff I wrote about Iron chic. Its some of the same people, and its got the same Long Island sound, and also the same amount of sheer genius.

I simply cant praise this record enough, and its been getting ridiculous amounts of airtime lately. There is not much to say except, get it. Now. And dont be a lowlife with no sense of aesthetics and just sit there wanking to your mp3's. Get off your ass and buy the physical record, and support this amazing band already.

Latterman - We are still alive

Secondly; have you ever (and I know you all have) wondered what it would sound like, if your favorite sludgeband like, say Thou or EyeHateGod played poppunk? As I stated, I am perfectly aware that several hundreds of you have lost many a good nights sleep, contemplating this question. Rest easy, the answer is finally here, and it is: Unfun.

This unique Vancouver band has all the musical makings of a good poppunk band, but they play it like theyre playing dirty, gritty sludge. This means downtuned guitars and raspy, almost pissed off whiskeyvocals. Easily the most innovative band I have come across in the genre.

Unfun - Sick outside view

Lastly, totally off topic, I bring you the superb Nude Beach, by way of IfYouMakeIt.com. This site has their debut full lenght for free and legal download. If you have a softspot for great garagerock, that smells like summer, lukewarm beers and organic pot-joints, this is place. This record is so good its almost stupid! Get it now, and when you listened to it, order it!

http://www.ifyoumakeit.com/album/nude-beach/self-titled/

On forgotten 7''es

You all know them. Those 7''es that someone once gave you, that you liked, but never really really liked, and as such filed in the end of your collection where you dont come that often. Well Grouper's 7'' He knows, he knows, he knows was one of those for me. A friend, who knows Liz Harris (aka Grouper) personally once gave me this record, and though I liked it, it never really caught me. Thus it just sat there for a good while, untill someday, I dug it out, for whatever reason, and became interested to see what else there were in her discography, apart from the three songs on the 7''. What I found blew me away.

Grouper made quite a few records, so what I'll share with you here, is simply the one that is most to my liking. It should be said however, that everything I've heard by her so far, is pretty good.

The record in question is called Dragging a dead dear up a hill, and was made in 2008. Musically Grouper deals in variations of drone. But not bassheavy, hour-long drones, meant exclusively to destroy you speakers with subsonic terror. Instead we are dealing with beautiful, dreamy and sometimes almost delicate and fragile songs, with Liz Harris vocals and her guitar lapping against each other, like waves upon the beach. The music gives me an impression of lying just below the surface of a body of water, and beholding the world sliding by me, in slow motion. I cant recommend this record highly enough.

As always, if you like it, go and find it somewhere, and buy it. Good artists are worth supporting.

A few words on poppunk

Poppunk was THE genre that eventually lead me to hardcore punk, grindcore, powerviolence, slugde, doom, death metal, black metal and all those other genres that I now love. One might also say that "In the beginning, there was Satanic Surfers".

My gripe with this genre is, that since I first got into it, in the mid-nineties, it hasnt really done a lot for me. That is to say, that a lot of the "new" bands popping up, never really reached the level of my old heroes, that got me into punk in the first place. The bands Im talking about here are Satanic Surfers (first and foremost!), Propagandhi, Millencolin, NOFX, No use for a name, Bad Religion and so on.

Almost none of the bands that followed these could quite measure up, in my opinion, and thus I started to focus more on other genres, that were still able to produce new acts that could catch and hold my attention. However, a few years back, good friends set me on to a handfull of bands that could easily match my teenage heroes. It is bands from this bunch, bands that hold that particular sound and drive that I'll present in this post.

Initially I'll present the first band that really reached me in the same way that the early Satanic Surfers did, namely Iron chic. I first caught wind of their self titled demo from 2008 when it was repressed not to long ago. Five songs that instantly floored me, had me craving more, and had me waiting like an anxious teenagegirl for Justin Biebers... uhm... next single.

Iron Chic features members of the now defunct (and amazing) Latterman, and just like Latterman we are dealing in full on anthemic, sing-along poppunk, with a strong (read STRONG) sense for writing good songs.

Well, the follow up did in fact come out last year, and instantly made my top ten records of 2010 list. Not Like This, picks up the thread from the demo, and perfects the sound even more. A brilliant record packed, back-to-back with "hits". Not one song lagging in quality. Not one song seeming like its just there as filling. A masterpiece, pure and simple.

Fast forward to about a week ago. The same good friend that put me on to Iron Chic, points me in the direction of the band Boilerman. A fairly new act, they only have a five song demotape out, and just now, a four song 7''. In a genre that is packed with excess, both in musical terms and in terms of how many crappy bands there are, Boilerman is the antithesis of all this. On the 7'' Bright young things, three of the songs only just ticks past the one minute mark. This is no-bullshit-poppunk, with a great energy and just enough attitude to keep things interesting.

Included in this package is both the demotape and the 7''.

Go on. You know you want to. And when youre done with this, go listen to The Dopamines, Wax Phantom, Latterman and The Dents.