The Expanse Of The Internet
“May Have Missed Volume 19” is an attempt to counter the volume of requests I receive in the various Ear Nutrition inboxes as I type away. The venture of EN, when it boils down to its barebones of itself, is a spare-time hobby. I try to do what I can, as there is only so much I can electro-scribble down on a screen. Some don’t fit and others are simply irrelevant to the site but overall, if they pique my interest or “fit” the site and whatever trend it’s pursuing at that time, they get featured. I obviously don’t have the time to cover everything and even though I would if I could, it’s just not possible.
So, without further waffle, here is some music that I haven’t had the time to sit down with-proper. The purpose of this series is to provide some varied new noise as an enticement to indulge in the plethora that is the underground music scene worldwide. “May Have Missed Volume 19” consists of cuts from the inbox but also a few from outside of it. Enjoy!
Volume 18 and the past volumes of May Have Missed can be found – Here
Pink Snot – ‘Dead Messenger’ // ‘Clown’ (September 2022/October 2022) (Hardcore Punk/Crossover Thrash/Melodic Hardcore/Skate Punk)
Another making their first foray into the global Punk scene this year is Winnipeg’s Pink Snot. The former locales’ history regarding Punk and Hardcore is uncontestable and within the greater scope of Canada as a whole, is only doubly so. Canada’s propensity to always be at the forefront of the scene is as well versed as its hall of seminal names and with the tenacity at which Pink Snot have released music this year, they are a key part of this scene’s DIY contingent.
If you peruse the band’s bandcamp page, outside of the singles featured in this “May Have Missed” volume, Pink Snot have a veritable library of Punk-Rock variants, from the above all the way to Power-Pop and back again via a slew of other deviations. However, the band’s mainline debut single came in the form of ‘Dead Messenger’ in September. Cut between pummelling Hardcore, virulent Crossover Thrash and melodious charges of soaring Skate Punk guitar work, ‘Dead Messenger’ is beset with buoyant basslines and Hardcore-to-Post-Hardcore vocal alternation.
‘Clown’ then arrived in October with its scope decidedly widening the path ‘Dead Messenger’ set. After a furious blast of Melodic Hardcore. the band’s more “Post”-isms take hold in a refrain lambasting a being whose actions are far from sustainable, positively anyway. With an air of early 2000’s Hardcore reminiscent of Comeback Kid’s earlier work but still arguably including elements of the titan’s work in general, ‘Clown’ sees the band’s aforementioned Thrash contrast the powered melodic leads as a perfect counterpart and sonic equation to the derision-imbued lyricism.
My advice? Keep an eye out.
Pink Snot: Facebook / Instagram / bandcamp / Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music
Crystal Axis – ‘Black AF’ (August 2022) (Punk-Rock/Post-Punk)
It’s been some time but Kenya’s Crystal Axis have returned with another not only memorable but stylistically exploratory track to supplement their fervent, amorphous Punk sound of existential defiance and targeting derision to those who have or do oppose their existence. You can find an introduction to the Nairobi five-piece – Here but now, it’s time for some relevant, nutritional babble on their latest ‘Black AF’.
Outside of saying these voices are crucial and necessary, it is not my mandate to “explain” or “talk over” the meaning of this song, for it is both obvious and absolutely not my place. That said, the fervour, conviction and poignantly powerful display in ‘Black AF’ is impossible to negate or criticise in its articulation and accompanying, wholehearted soundtrack.
An eerie Post-Punk-esque lead guitar twists and turns, meandering through the melodic Punk-Rock structure favoured this time over the brooding, Alternative Rock-heavy and Grunge-adjacent, Hardcore aware sound prevalent in their previous work. Though melodic, said lead is driven hard and back again through the gaps it creates, then only forced wider by the low rhythms accompanying it, themselves pace set by frantic drumming slowly gaining more control as it moves decidedly forward.
‘Black AF’ reverberates in its verses, spooling and jabbing incessantly until the truth-laden chorus, marking the band’s proud incursion into 2022 as one requiring and imploring you to pummel “play” to satiate yourselves ahead of whatever they are planning next.
Crystal Axis: Facebook / Instagram / bandcamp / Spotify / Apple Music / Deezer / YouTube Music
Give You Nothing – Songs For The Broken (October 2022) (Skate Punk/Melodic Hardcore/Hardcore Punk)
“May Have Missed Volume 19” continues with the latest from Give You Nothing of Santa Cruz, a band whose’ Punk sound is one on a path clever and considered, pulling from a plethora of influences from North American Punk history. The band’s back catalogue transcends, intertwines and cascades through melodic Punk-Rock. Be this fast tempo-junkie Skate Punk, Hardcore tempered with melody or just downright hybridised Melodic Hardcore, the Give You Nothing journey is a recommended excursion prior to Songs For The Broken.
Though the band have never hidden from their variety of influences, nor the spate of “technical” fast Punk so populous outside of US borders, on Songs For The Broken, all are in a far more either incendiary or shamelessly soaring abundance. Thrash and other metallicized licks and refrains, Post-Hardcore leads and song structures, grounded Hardcore groove and bouncing odes to Pop-Punk are all present, sometimes wholly and other times hybridised and nuanced across the first five shots of Give You Nothing’s twelve-shot salvo. That and their fast, sizable Skate Punk underpin. Obviously.
‘Precipice’ yields nothing but another use of the word “pummelling” as it doubles down on all the Hardcore-rooted tracks the band have thrown at you throughout their career, with their token but by no means trite, overtly melodic vocal display in contrast. ‘Price Of Words’ perpetuates the same rumble with a playful ’90s swagger above whilst ‘Permanent’ ends the alliteration of sorts with infectious, chugging Punk-Rock. ‘Ashtray’ accentuates the positive Punk of H2O and its clear influence on Give You Nothing racked with a shameless Skate Punk blast ahead of the tenacity and amplified technical maelstrom of ‘Under Shadows’. From ‘Ashtray’ to the above and onward to ‘Antidote’ and the near total class in melodious old-school Hardcore that is ‘Elemental’, Give You Nothing offer their best.
Over-encumbering existential duress, mental health and general well-being are thematic and actively pervade Songs For The Broken. With this in mind, ‘Fight The Current’ boasts excellent vocal interplay, anthemic guitars and shredded Skate Punk, all before and en route to its cranially sponsored, Hardcore thud of an outro, the band finish framing their latest via People Of Punk-Rock Records.
Give You Nothing: Facebook / Instagram / bandcamp / bandcamp (label) / Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Deezer
Other Half // Negative Measures – Split 7″ (August 2019) (Post-Hardcore/Hardcore Punk)
The structural integrity of the Hardcore scene is nigh-on indomitable as it stands, so as it stands (again), it’s entirely likely that much of its wealth of releases this year “may have missed” your attention, unlike my shitty SEO dependant puns. Both Other Half and Negative Measures have had a busy year regarding releases AND live shows (what a time to be alive) which consequently includes a four-track Split 7″ EP from this August past.
Individually, as much as they are together, both bands purvey different but not entirely removed veins Hardcore Punk and Post-Hardcore boasting an acumen you’d come to expect from their respective back catalogues. Heavy-set, lumbering and as broodingly aggressive as they are eerily and enthrallingly melodic, the “story-telling” formula of Other Half is a continuous hook. ‘Marxist Mark’ epitomises such in the more melodic wing of the band’s work that can sometimes veer off to the more Noise Rock-led opposite. Though, that’s not to say that ‘Marxist Mark’ doesn’t allow a little of the band’s more unrestrained side to incrementally exude itself post-1:30.
‘Slump’ on the other hand follows a more fluid route with rounded, cycling rhythms within the context of the amorphous tendencies of the genre. These grounded cycling riffs rule uneasy verses, only relenting to allow cutting vocal interplay and a stressed, concerned guitar tone to make sense of the band’s slump. Other Half are masters when it comes to controlling the intensity of their work and with each incremental increase in unbarred power, it reinforces how skilful band’s Post-Hardcore Punk really is. This is particularly the case in the closing half of ‘Slump’, where after spooling throughout, the band’s drummer is set free, allowing Other Half’s whole “mighty three-piece” formula to pull in and out of prospective further chaos, teasingly so with each change in dynamic and tempo.
The Negative Measures side of this EP is no less unhinged. The Brighton band’s fervent Hardcore Punk cuts across styles both Hardcore and “Post” and with the whirling lead, flexing, reverberating drum patterns and anticipatory bass behind, the band unleash a two-stage burst of kinetic energy, led by frustrated vocals fed by the definition of tracks title. From this charging mania of Post-Hardcore, Negative Measures cross into an abrasive, jabbing, chugging Punk filtered through a Hardcore gauze before an energised dash of D-Beat. The band repeat this caustic formula again one final time before a furiously metallicized breakdown completes their catharsis.
Post a three-stage Sick Of It All-esque intro seeing a lone guitar enlist a further bass groove before moving to a coalesced barrage, the band construct another bedrock for the duration of ‘Hold Yourself Guilty’, designed to enthral and yet wear you down with attrition until you’re theirs.
Get this split and listen to these bands or expect a nutritional deficit. Other Half also have a new album set to release on 02/12/22 via Big Scary Monsters.
Other Half: Facebook / Instagram / bandcamp / Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Deezer
Negative Measures: Facebook / Instagram / bandcamp / Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Deezer
Necrotic Society – Part 1 (April 2022) (Hardcore Punk/D-Beat)
Now, with more Hardcore that you may have missed, volume 19 heads to New York City for Necrotic Society and their riff-heavy, straight-to-the-point D-Beat-majority, soundtracking social commentary articulated exactly as it is observed.
Reverberating, distorted and groove-laden, ‘Necrotic Society’ lumbers from point to deconstructing point, lambasting the capitalist attention economy and apathetic political systems via staggered spoken word. As you’ll likely expect and as fans of the band will know, this isn’t fated to last. After a quick flex, post 1:45 and beset with discordant, jagged refrains, the band’s underpinning ‘core catapults towards its fiery cataclysm, much akin to what it describes.
‘Paralysed’ doesn’t understand the meaning of pulling punches musically as it rages against unwanted stagnation in a clear-as-day case for why this style of unhindered, stripped-back Hardcore is so prevalent in the contemporary scene. An unbridled, adrenalised pace is only interrupted for quick-fire refrains as the unwanted gets closer to hitting home, breaking the dynamic up just enough for the next bout of high-octane Punk.
‘Wake Up’ delivers much of the same with yet another ripping solo in a track marking itself as the most straight-running and “traditional” slice of fast, gritty yet streamlined Hardcore on the EP, expressing itself and its observations as fast as is humanly possible in hope of others receiving the message.
‘Leftist Plague’ is armed with a sardonic jaunt on the one hand, with the other conditioning it with the truth. It’s a sad state of affairs when those wanting a better and more representative society are media and politically spun into being the problem, disguising the real plague.
Part 1 is a Hardcore Punk presentation via Necrotic Society of New York City and is as far away from bullshit as possible.
There is little more I can say here. Go and listen to it.
Necrotic Society: Facebook / Instagram / bandcamp / Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Deezer
There it goes, “May Have Missed Volume 19”! I hope you have as much fun reading about and listening to these releases as I did while putting all of this in some semblance of order.
Thanks as always to those who care. You can find all the previous volumes linked at the top.
Nice. But again.
- Laurence Crow Illustration:
