Suburban Delinquents’ story started out like so many other bands. They were four kids who got together to make some punk noise in the mid ‘90s. They played a bunch of shows, made a couple albums, and developed a pretty good local following. Then they started to grow up and went their separate ways. Years later they all found themselves back in metro Detroit, and started playing again. If that’s where things had ended, it would have already been a pretty good story.

It turns out that wa

Despite my love of the first Adrenalin O.D. full length, The Wacky Hi-Jinks of Adrenalin O.D. (1984), I somehow never got around to digging into its follow up Humungousfungusamongus (1986). In this case, it was definitely better late than never. As they did with Wacky Hi-Jinks, Beer City Skateboards and Records have reissued Humungous in a definitive, Millennium Edition. It shares its two main traits with Wacky Hi-Jinks: it’s fast as hell and funny as hell.

Last year I confessed my ignorance of all things French punk, even while praising the excellent new (at the time) Lion’s Law record The Pain, The Blood and The Sword. Now newcomers Fléau have unleashed their self titled debut EP, and it’s giving me a sense of déjà vu. Apparently streetpunk and oi are alive and well in France. Fléau are a quartet with a sound similar to Lion’s Law. That is to say that they mix their oi with a bit of hardcore, and the vocals are nice and raw.

The

Dollhouse play super fast, super grimy hardcore. In fact, their first proper EP, The First Day of Spring is so ragged that it sounds like there may be a synth hidden behind the guitars- which alternate between space soaring and d-beat smash- but it might just be some sort of feedback or something else caught up in the mix.

A distinctly negative view permeates the release. On “This is Heaven,” the band spits out, “life passes by in bed, so why should we move… let’s starve tog

Dark Web’s second album, Decoy, juggles the playful and the horrifying. As before, the band is rooted in charged up, storming three-chord punk that recalls Ramone, Spits, and The Ventures equally. The whole thing is washed in an inky blackness that makes something even as innocuous as a snare sound somewhat sinister. Ever guitar strike, every bass snap, every meathead-howl is an intense punch, so the band sounds really, really angry, even when they are being silly.

“No Fun II”, w

Punknews alum, Alex, was the one that kept mentioning Kali Masi to me a few years ago at a Riot Fest and honestly, after soaking them in, along with Microwave, I felt they were some of the most underrated acts around. What really impressed me about Kali Masi's Wind Instrument was how clever they intertwined indie and punk, clearly indicating they could mix it up and evolve even further. Well, come [laughs] that's exactly what the Chicago-based band does and it produces a heck of a

Mandemic might be the most… metaphysical... Dick Lucas has ever been. While fronting anarcho legends The Subhumans, Lucas has spent decades blasting religion - usually organized, but sometimes at the concept of supernatural essence itself. But here, on Culture Shock’s surprise new album, he suggests that there is a sort of cosmic war occuring right under our feet.

On the title track, he calls out, “On the one hand we have nature on the attack / we been messing with the foo

“Why not?” seems to be the ethos that drives Melvins 1983. Melvins 1983 is the incarnation of the long running punk-metalers that includes founding member Buzz Osborne on guitar and vocals, founding member Mike Dillard (who left the band in 1984 to become an electrician) on drums, and not-quite founding member Dale Crover on bass, instead of drums, which has been his usual spot since Dillard left. The lineup is basically a trio of old high school pals and the album very much plays out that wa

All three of The Mimes - Maura Weaver, Megan Schroer, John Hoffman - established themselves as jangly, pop-punkers that often veered into folk or something adjacent. All three are talented at the, shall we say, earnest and vulnerable form, and they’ve built themselves a fanbase in those genres by being able to pluck an acoustic guitar and sing heartfelt lyrics better than almost anyone else. How… surprising… that the Mimes project, wherein the trio make freaky-deaky music and often wonder off