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.

This could have been “too” cute. It could have been srtupid. It could have been try-hard. But, astoundingly, it’s not. In fact, it’s hilarious and poignant.

Croy and the Boys are a Texan alt-country band and as Of Course They Do shows, they’ve got something of a punk background. They take six tracks, most of which are punk or punkish, and take them from three chord smashing to easy grooving honky tonk.It works. It works really, really well.

The main winner is the warp of Cr

Manchester Orchestra have always been one of those bands, to me, that you just sit back and wait on. It doesn't matter what tracks are released up front, what videos are out, what interviews say -- the records speak for themselves. It's something that I stick to for not too many bands (Thursday, Jimmy Eat World come to mind), because I usually want to temper my expectations. But led by vocalist/writer/guitarist Andy Hull, this is an act that you let take the wheels, knowing no matter what roads

One got the sense with Origami Angel’s debut LP Somewhere City--which darted flippantly between Top 40-worthy melodies and disquieting unorthodoxy--that something rare and special was afoot. With equal parts Cap’n Jazz, Day at the Fair, and Q And Not U, its dizzying command of both form and content was little short of a jawdropper.

But where would an accessible band already so dexterous in the avante garde ab initio progress? Would the gravitational pull beckon them furthe

Cherry Nishida, vocalist and mastermind behind Struggling Harsh Immortals, really hates existence. “The world being cursed / there is nothing good here” he howls on the opening lines of S.H.I.’s fourth release, and first stateside venture.

Death follows this theme on almost every track. “You think I’m crazy / but this is crazy word,” he announces on “Terminus,” Or there’s “Doesn’t mean that much” where he says, “Your life so painful / and lot of tears / They won;t do you

Until recently, the only audio documentation of Japan’s Zouo were their only release, The Final Agony 7-inch EP and two tracks on the Hardcore Unlawful Assembly compilation. Today, people talk about them as icons, common as say, Poison Idea, but until the age of the Internet, this band was barely known, if known at all. Good luck finding a limited press Japanese 7-inch from 1984 in the states mid ‘90s. In fact, the band really only sort of rose from the deepest murk into wider c

The name J. Wang might not ring a bell, but chances are good you’ve heard his work. He’s spent the last 15 plus years playing with Dan Padilla, Tiltwheel and other known punk commodities. While Come Closer is essentially a solo project, he also enlists a couple of his friends. Davey Quinn (Tiltwheel, Dan Padilla) and Chris Prescott (Pinback, No Knife, Rocket from the Crypt) contribute and nearly make Come Closer a low-key supergroup.

This new project is not rehash of what these guys ar

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