Like a lot of people, Nora Kelly ended up with with a lot of time on their hands during the pandemic lockdown. For the alt-rock/punk musician who’d previously released a string of digital singles and an album with the band Dishpit, it was a time for thought and an eventual re-invention. Meeting with friends on the street and playing country music covers during Montreal curfews led to the formation of an eponymously named outfit – an act whose debut release ‘Perfect Pig’ showcases Kelly’s alt-country talents as if channelling bits of the Neko Case catalogue, combined with a love of the DIY approach of early Giant Sand.
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ZARRAZA – Kreated In Blood EP
On their 2018 release ‘Necroshiva’, Kazakhstan’s Zarraza really tightened up their blend of thrash and groove metal. The album, although centring around a couple of tried and tested styles and obvious influences, was incredibly well produced and came loaded with impeccably played riffs. On the best tracks, elements of Lamb of God jostled against bits of Slayer, which resulted in something incredibly powerful, especially when dressed with a dirty hardcore-tinged bottom end. In terms of their abilities with a riff, this underground act were now on a par with French metallers Backdawn, and Atlanta’s Bless The Dead. This tight and mean approach carried the following year’s ‘Rotten Remains’ where the arguably more professional band set about revisiting and re-recording some of their earlier DIY recordings, again with brilliant results.
SCUM – For Health And Well-Being EP
It’s brave move to open a release with a spoken word passage, especially for a band who are barely out of the starting blocks in terms of their career, but Scum come in with such confidence on their second EP – and a semi-pretentiousness – that it makes the listener wonder what else they’ve got up their collective sleeve. “The primal scream of the modern team”, sneers a very natural sounding voice, before being particularly scathing of modern TV and its watchers who “do not see what they need”. It all sounds very jaded for a band whom, at the time of recording, appear to have a combined age that’s less than a third of Jello Biafra’s own.
EL TUERTO WILLY – Vamonos!
Argentinian punks El Tuerto Willy are no strangers to a cover tune or two. On their earlier releases, they can be heard hammering through tunes by NOFX, Rancid, Sublime and Elton John (often in Spanish), but in terms of all round entertainment value, their 2021 digital EP ‘Vamonos!’ tops the lot.
HEATHEN HEARTS – Heathen Hearts EP
Hailing from Finland, Heathen Hearts play an absolutely crushing brand of hardcore. On this debut EP, their sound takes the guts of bands like H2O and Agnostic Front and applies a huge metallic crunch. The result is a sound that’s sometimes blisteringly fast but always oppressively heavy – a musical sledgehammer where the riff is king, and the guttural roars clear everything in their path. It’s the kind of introduction that’s both unsubtle and brilliant.