New releases this week: Punk/Hardcore

Review: Hailing from London's East End, there's few Oi-punk outfits who were as quintessential or authentic as The 4-Skins. While only releasing a small handful of albums with their definitive 80s line up, this live/demo/unreleased cuts compilation offers an aural fly-on-the-wall experience of being confronted with their signature brand of seething anti-authoritarian, anti-police brutality, anti-fascist, football loving, skinhead sporting, Doc Marten stomping punk in real time. Packed with cuts pulled from radio sessions, Bumper sessions, demos and even two tracks from a previously unreleased 7" 45, including the ska-punk-inflected 'Seems To Me'; offering a more subdued side to the OG Skins than most long-time fans would be accustomed to.

Review: The latest reissued compilation of 4 Skins' greatest works contains the hits and misses of the band at the height of the oi! era, which evolved in tandem with their breakout success and helped them along more than a fair little. From the opening jump of 'One Law For Them' and 'Evil', twin charges of unrelenting chant-punk and brawly sonic brashness, to the latter-siders 'A.C.A.B.' and 'I Don't Wanna Die', as well as a second Bumper Session of 'Evil', this retrospective harks back to a distinct early 80s subculture - as well as a band who, in their concern for police brutality and social injustice, defy common misconceptions of skinheads as all bad.

Review: Self-described "putrid, drug-fueled gutter rock from the filthy streets of NYC", Couch Slut deal in ugliness, and boy is business a-boomin'! Meshing the most challenging facets of grindcore, hardcore punk, noise rock and black metal, the resulting cacophony is as unpleasant as it is impenetrable, yet the commanding presence of vocalist and primary songwriter Megan Osztrosits demands you suffer the audible torment while she details harrowing depictions of sexual violence, drug abuse and more singular inner-city horrors through subversive, vitriolic and grimly humoured phrases. Working with industrial hardcore manglers Uniform's Ben Greenberg (with previous production credits for Drab Majesty, Portrayal of Guilt, Metz), You Could Do It Tonight marks the fourth overall full-length from the group, and utterly refuses to dilute or smoothen their ethos of audibly healing through pain, or just pain for the fuck of it.

Review: Following on from their 1980 debut full-length No Questions Asked, the very next year would see Los Angeles based punk legends The Flesh Eaters unveil what many a fan considers to be, not only their magnum opus but one of the finest punk experiments ever contributed to the scene. A Minute To Pray, A Second To Die purposefully eschewed the breakneck pace of the expanding hardcore scene to channel outsider influences from the likes of swampy, Bayou-inflected roots rock to spasmodic jazz dirges to blues-laden malevolence. With depraved B-movie horror tales of violence and religious scandal; ultimately weaving a lyrical tapestry of the underbelly of LA, punk poet prophet Chris Desjardins immortalised himself as a commanding vocal presence with the type of penmanship to hypnotise, disgust and enthral.

Review: Though soliciting some confusion as to whether it was written in 1977 or 2023, Pleasants' latest sonic gut-jab Rocanrol In Mono is a raw and toothy nostalgic throwback. Recorded in its entirety by frontman Al Uminium on four-track cassette, this whirlwind of an album revels in the unserious and fleeting, squashing every blues lick, top-reg solo and/or drum line under flattening walls of compression that nonetheless allow for much hilarity and dynamism and finding joy in the little things in life ('Loose Change', 'Interwebs', Rubix Cube').

Review: Serving as a self-analysed response to 1998's ska and reggae-oriented Life Won't Wait, as well as growing criticisms that the band were slowly morphing into some form of Diet The Clash, punk legends Rancid would come to cave skulls at the turn of the new millennium with their second self-titled LP (after their 1993 debut), with many fans referring to the project as Rancid (2000) or simply Rancid 5. Reuniting with Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion to handle production duties (a collaborative role he has maintained with the group ever since), the project easily serves as the most aggressive offering in their entire catalogue, drawing on elements of hardcore and Oi! and imbuing them into their established ska-punk formula, moving far away from any Clash comparisons, and sharing more of a sonic kinship with the type of aggy, scuzzy, brassless hardcore ska of Choking Victim. At 22 tracks spread out over a near-40 minute runtime, you do the chaotic math.