British punk band Al Pacinos Sister formed during the pandemic lockdown in 2021, but it wouldn’t be until the following year that they really exploded into life. Their ‘Trained In Karate’ and ‘DOGZ’ EPs (released in February and July of that year) marked their place as one of the UK’s noisiest underground bands. It almost immediately placed them alongside Pizzatramp and Socks On label mates Get The Fuck Out of Dodge – a role that the somewhat faceless act seemed to be taking very seriously.
Tag Archives: punk
THE FALL – Fall Sound Archive Vol 7: 1970s
The Fall’s early work has been reissued several times, but with a few of their “Fall Sound Archives” releases, Cherry Red Records managed to go above and beyond to give some well worn material the best send off ever. Both ‘Live At The Witch Trials’ and ‘Dragnet’ were released as lavish three disc editions in 2019, but even better, the seminal ‘Hex Enduction Hour’ formed part of a brilliant box set, ‘1982’, later that same year. By making the much loved album the main feature of a 6CD anthology, it set a precedent for similarly great reissues.
Taking the same approach as that box set, ‘1970s’ is a hefty 12CD tome that claims to include all of the band’s work from that decade. It doesn’t – there are notable omissions – but it pulls together a huge wealth of material, including several live shows that have never been officially released. There’s always a question of how much bootleg quality Fall material you need, but as the old fan mantra suggests, “you must get them all”, and the lure of six unavailable live sets here will certainly be enough for the hardened fan to want this set – quality be damned-ah.
PAVID VERMIN – Dumpster Diving
Despite the global pandemic side lining most bands’ plans, Pavid Vermin made the best of the downtime, recording and releasing some great DIY punk straight from Glenn Robinson’s home studio. The resulting ‘Cutting Corners’ LP was, aside from one nasty lyrical faux pas, one of the greatest pop punk releases ever, and its timely follow-up – ‘The Beach Boys Never Surfed’ EP – suggested they’d be more future greatness from this one man project.
FLESH CREEP – Bullets / King Of The Hill
Hardcore punks Flesh Creep made their mark on the first quarter of 2022 with ‘Distributed Lethality’, a brilliant EP that delivered four pieces of unrelenting noise that mixed the classic anger of bands like Discharge, Government Issue and early Black Flag with the more contemporary sounds of UK bands Pizzatramp and Incisions. The fact that the release came packed with speed driven riffs and incendiary vocals would have been enough for it to make an impression, but the fact that Cult of The Fly Records were happy to release the material with a really unforgiving, heavily distorted production job gave the material even more of an edge.
SWEATPANTS PARTY – Sweatpants Party
A new band for 2022, the terribly named Sweatpants Party marks a long overdue return for the almost legendary Kevin Aper. Marketed as sounding “just like The Apers”, fans are automatically given a heads up as to what they can expect, and indeed, the new band’s core sound recycles many elements of Kevin’s past works brilliantly. Although working from a solid pop punk stock, there’s a little more to the Sweatpants, though, since this musical vehicle – teaming Kev with members of Jagger Holly and Stockkampf – takes in bubblegum punk and a little power pop along the way. The focus is on unashamed pop punk and trashy lyrics, of course, and that’s enough to win over The Apers’ entire fan base in a heartbeat.