Regents - 2013 - Antietam After Party

Regents are a punk rock band from "DC / Philly and Alabama." The band is a supergroup, past members having played in such seminal bands as Maximillian Colby, Sleepytime Trio, Frodus, Men’s Recovery Project, Battery, Thursday and Combat Wounded Veteran. Antietam After Party is their debut LP on Lovitt Records, though given the past history of the bands membership this should hardly be considered a debut anything.

At it's best this LP hit's all the high marks of that 90's emo sound we know and love and keeping in that punk rock spirit but not being afraid to try something a little bit different and daring. This album doesn't reinvent the wheel by any stretch of the imagination and that's quite the pedigree and back story to live up to which this album does without even trying that hard. When everything is hitting on all cylinders the songs are fired with a necessary punk rock attitude.

One of the things that makes this record so vital is the diversity in sounds Regents produces. My favourite tracks include Cron Job, Night Soil,  Bowfingers and Start To Beginning and aside from a common punk rock starting place none of these songs sound like each other. This may not be the most consistent album ever but with such different sounds there's bound to be at least something for everyone.

You can stream it for free at the Brooklyn Vegan or buy the LP at Lovitt Records.

Secret Smoker - 2013 - Terminal Architecture

Secret Smoker is a punk rock band from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They are a three piece and Terminal Archictecture is their debut LP. It is chock-full of angry, precise punk rock songs aimed directly at you.  These songs are intricate, each one has a message and it is delivered as clearly as possible while still maintaining a poetic license. Also, the drummer made his own drums.

Mark and Billy started the hungry ghost collective back in 2007 with a bunch of other bands. Terminal Architecture is I believe Secret Smoker's debut LP, their sophomore album after a split with Nothing!Nothing!Nothing! 

Below is one of my favourite songs of theirs. On their bandcamp page Billy explains this song is about watching  people in airports, and also about our culture of fascination with death that we don't like to talk about.

Most of these dudes where in other bands before this. Bands they were in included jenaset, girlscout heroin, sad idea, whimee(why me), the human record, four square, pistols at dawn/code duello, brown leaf vertigo, we are the living and billy the living.

This album is one I keep coming back to. There are really great songs, Volume Diss-Course, Sight In Sound and the title track are quite excellent and the album as whole is very cohesive. Secret Smoker have their own very angular and accurate punk rock sound which works just as well in individual songs as it does making a longer statement.

 You can purchase their LP Terminal Architecture from Protagonist music here

Healing Powers - 2013 - Listing Your Problems, With No Intent To Solve Them

Healing Powers are a three piece band from Durham, UK. Healing Powers play an emotional brand of hardcore that everyone needs to get familiar with. This three song EP, Listing Your Problems, With No Intent To Solve Them, comes roaring out of the gate and doesn't let up at all. I enjoy every part of this album. The singer has a great rough shout, the guitar transitions nicely between more solid, thick riffs to some noodly lead riffs dancing around the aforementioned gruff shout. The middle track I'm No Fun is my favourite, the singer's voice is still gruff but drifts away a little bit which plays with the meloncholy guitar riffs while still having enough energy to keep everything moving forward. Easily one of my favourite EP's of the year thus far. I really can't wait to hear more from this band, they've started on a solid base, hopefully they build on this solid foundation.

Cloud Nothings - 2012 - Attack On Memory

Cloud Nothings are an indie rock band from Cleveland Ohio. Their latest album Attack On Memory is their third LP.This is the kind of guitar driven, moody, indie rock that I like. Cloud Nothings borrow heavily from garage, noise and punk wells which produce a boozy, hazy but still driven album. While it is front loaded the whole album comes together nicely so long as you have an appetite for noise and garage rock.

My three favourite songs, Wasted Days, Fall In and Stay Useless are the only parts of this album I keep coming back to. Those three songs, aside from the noise interlude in Wasted Days, are all excellent songs that bear up to repeating. Seperation, which comes immediately after the previously mentioned tracks, is an excellent instrumental but lacks some of the visceral hooks of it's predecessors.

My main problem with this album are the slow burn and noise elements. Sometimes I like noise, I have a soft spot for A Place To Bury Strangers, but especially when paired with indie rock that is aiming at something retro it just grates on my ears. There's nothing particularly wrong with the second half of this album but after the instrumental things just fail to click as they did with most of the first half.

For all my frustrations with some of these songs in comparison to their brethren there are some truly excellent songs on this album. Which only serves to highlight the noisey, slow burning parts that burden this LP.

Antpile - Black Smith - 2012

Antpile are a four piece screamo band from Georgia and Black Smith are a five piece from Florida. This split EP released by Passenger Seat Records is quite good even though it is a tad lopsided. Antpile play rather straight ahead screamo that owes quite a debt to more traditional hardcore, lots of little melodic guitar lines going every which way while the singer does his rough shout. While I quite enjoy a couple of these songs, Jeremia and  I Said being my favourites, most of them just kinda sit there, not kicking up the kind of noisy storm that I prefer with screamo.

Black Smith's side of the album improves things significantly. Black Smith play a brand of 90s emo that I can rarely get enough of when done well. On their facebook page they point to Jimmy Eat World, Mineral and Texas As The Reason as their influences. Almost all these songs are great and I don't even mind the somewhat obvious punk pop influences. The singer has a beautifully melodic voice that just tends towards sadness,the guitars reach for the stars with an epic sound and the backing vocals tie everything together with their gruffness. While I like the first side with Antpile, it's the second side with Black Smith that I keep coming back to.