DOGSTRUM – Murtsgod EP

dogstrum epDogstrum? Dog? Strum? It’s true – all the great band names are spoken for. You’d have to wonder how many other supposedly worse names this Seattle band discounted before deciding that Dogstrum would be their best. Luckily, though, for this particular power trio, their music shows more than a glimmer of greatness. Labelled ‘grump-punk’ (whatever that might mean) by a local paper, their sound is hard and dirty, energetic and sometimes raw in spirit, though fidelity-wise, these six tracks are well recorded with plenty of punch in all the right places.

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LIGATURE WOUND – Ligature Wound

Ligature-WoundDeath metal is never easy listening, but it often comes with varying degrees of accessibility and with the best stuff you can always tell where the talent is. This album from Ligature Wound goes firmly against the grain, pushes all the dials into the red and never cares about allowing any kind of melodies – no matter how obtuse – get in the way of the band’s musical art. For it must be considered a kind of performance art, as it’s hard to believe that there will be people out there who’d have enough patience to tackle this debut willingly.

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Louise Distras: Upcoming tour dates

UK-based punk oriented singer songwriter Louise Distras has a run of live dates upcoming.  The dates follow her appearances at this years Rebellion Festival and coincide with the release of a new single, ‘Aileen’, which is available via Street Revolution Records on September 30th.

Someone who uses her position for social activism and change, recently, Louise joined Real Gone, Stay Up Late and Skin Back Alley in our fight surrounding the release of the new Descendents album and against the usage of the word sp*z.  (Real Gone’s original piece can be found here…and a follow up can be found here.)

Louise and her band’s next live dates are as follows:

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HUMANITY DELETE – Fuck Forever Off

humanity deleteFrom the outside looking in, this second album by Humanity Delete seems a bit…silly. They’ve got a clumsy band name, a dodgy album title and even dodgier artwork. It’s 2016 and yet these Swedish death metallers present themselves with two raised middle fingers, a giant horned demon and a couple of severed heads. Not especially impressive. First impressions are important…but in this case, the music is far more important and ‘Fuck Forever Off’ is a solid, well produced slab of metallic intensities that brings past death metal traits into the present via classy playing, great production and the presence of a band who clearly know not to meddle too much with a classic musical formula.

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