I always love reading and listening to opinions on every Jimmy Eat World release. You learn so much about what fans think of eras gone by, and honestly, it's pretty amazing soaking in why folks prefer Clarity over Chase This Light etc. To me, they're all great albums but I learn something new every time and when I dive back into the records, the experience always changes for the better. That's the power and magic of Jim Adkins and co. For me Bleed American and Futures

As I sit here listening to Sicko, I can’t help but reminisce about how great pop punk was in the early to mid ‘90s. So raw, so loose, so punk. Somewhere along the way, metronomes and autotune sucked the life out of the music. (See Blink-182, Simple Plan, New Found Glory etc..) Punk with a little bit of pop became pop with a little bit of punk. Fortunately, Sicko never got too polished. While they were less Ramones-core than most of the Lookout! type bands, they were no less fun. They a

Last year I stumbled across a promo for an EP called Feed the Birds by a band called Pissed Regardless on Creator-Destructor Records. I’m not sure why I decided to listen to it. I rarely have time to check out unsolicited promos. (The vast majority get deleted without even being opened.) Whatever the reason, I’m glad I did. It ended up being among my favorite releases of 2018. Now, after a demo and two 7”s, we finally get a proper full length. Imperial Cult absolutely rips, and

Donny Zuzula has been one of my favorite Michigan songwriters for the last decade. Scratch that. Donny Zuzula is one of my favorite songwriters. Period. For the last ten years he has fronted, or maybe more accurately co-fronted with his brother Zak, a trio called The Tosspints based out of Saginaw, MI. The Tosspints are usually lumped into the celt-punk category, but the truth is, they’re just a damn fine punk and roll band. I knew that Donny occasionally did solo acoustic shows, so when it c

Canada's Bedouin Soundclash have been one of my favourite bands since high school for the way they melded so many styles together, especially Caribbean influences. Reggae, dub, ska, alternative and indie-pop formed the spine of a band whose discography I can best sum up as fucking epic. It's a wild, versatile musical ride and thankfully, MASS has been well worth the wait. It's sonically very different but in terms of how Bedouin uses this new soundscape, I love how vocalist and guitarist

The two biggest stories in thrash, for the last couple of years, have been Slayer’s impending retirement and Metallica’s trek toward total world domination. Unfortunately, some great smaller thrash stories may have slipped through the cracks. Case in point, the triumphant studio return of Sacred Reich. The Arizona quartet originally formed in 1985, and split up in 2000. They reformed as a live act in 2006, but it took until 2019 to finally make an album.

Awakening is an appropri

Few genres of music have gone through as many ex-post-facto revaluations as ‘80s pop. During the earliest days of the genre, it actually existed somewhat in tandem with post-punk (or even punk)- it wasn’t uncommon to see a magazine cover P.I.L. and Siouxsie Sioux with equal enthusiasm as Human League and Frankie Goes Hollywood. But, by the end of the decade, battle lines were firmly drawn with the high hair tunes thrown into the “totally uncool” pile while underground punk, hardcore, and indie w

Toxic Holocaust is, without a doubt, among the most important bands of the post 2000 thrash revival. They’re an inspired mixture of Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All era speed metal and thrash, Venom’s raw evil and Nuclear Assault’s foreboding message. Six years after their last LP, Chemistry of Consciousness, Joel Grind is back with a vengeance. I say Grind, because he returned to his roots and played all the instruments on Primal Future:2019. He also wrote, recorded, mixed and m

I have developed a deeply unhealthy relationship with this album, and I have reached the point where I love it almost as much as I hate it. To begin with, I’m still not crazy about the idea of a Blink-182 without Tom DeLonge because, for better or worse, I truly believe that the name “Blink-182” is the name of the collaboration between Mark Hoppus and Tom DeLonge. It was one thing to replace Scott Raynor early in the ban