either, a basic compilation of clips for tracks mostly recorded well past their peak. Based on the content alone this is a solid instant Ramones collection for the kid who just bought the T-shirt yesterday, while the additional ephemera renders it an essential purchase for the biggest Ramones freak. And then there's the inbetween guys, like me, who just feel cool to have it.
THE SCARE
VACUUM IRONY EP (OK!RELAX/INERTIA)
The Scare look so fuckin' good it's perfectly understandable that they're one of the most hated bands around. Not that the six members could care less. I've seen people hassle their clothes to their faces and they just think it's funny. They play up to the whole thing. They really don't give a fuck. And why should they when there's five rows of hot little chicks at every show wanting to run their fingers through some of that well cared-for Scare hair? Live The Scare can be either hit or miss (admittedly though they've been hitting more than missing lately), unlike their recordings, which are all topshelf shit. But while their 2004 debut EP, Masochist Mimes, caught them in the throes of Blood Brothers and Icarus Line fever, Vacuum Irony is different. More rhythmically accessible, melodically ambitious, and generally better structured, The Scare lock into hyperactive danceable grooves as dualguitars slash over the top colliding into the sung/spoken/screamed vocals of frontman KISS Reid. Post-hardcore and post-punk blended with a trashiness that belies the thought behind it - a perfect example of that being the manic yet brilliantly constructed guitar interplay between Liam O'Brien and Brock Fitzgerald - The Scare could look like The Seekers for all I care, I'm backin' 'em.
SOME GIRLS
HEAVEN'S PREGNANT TEENS ( E P I TA P H / S H O C K )
Like Converge in a sickening head-on collision with The Locust, Some Girls storm into the Epitaph Records stable with all the elegance
Test Icicles
Some Girls of a crash of rhinos in your dining room. Featuring members of Unbroken, The Locust, Give Up The Ghost and Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower, this San Diego spastic hardcore “supergroup” return with the follow up their 2004 EP, The DNA Will Have Its Say, their barnstorming, skullcrushing, take-no-prisoners second fulllength, Heaven's Pregnant Teens. With songs of usually no more than a minute and a half in length, each its own dangerous package of complex brutality and untold imagination, Some Girls pay no regard to regular structure (or regular anything really). They could be playing music or beating your skull with hammers, either way they'll knock you senseless and not stop the barrage. You just better pray you can last the whole 25 minutes. This is brutal, twisted hardcore with flourishes of the power-violence and grindcore of The Locust and a generous helping of tough guy style thanks to the screaming and yelling of Give Up The Ghost vocalist Wes Eisold. Mostly flat-out, chaotic and unapologetically brutal, they slow down a bit to deliver a bloodthirsty cover of PiL's “Religion II”, and then again for the hypnotic nine-minute closer “Deathface”, catatonia personified.
THE STOOGES
S/T [RE-ISSUE] FUNHOUSE [RE-ISSUE] (ELEKTRA/RHINO/WARNER)
What can you say about the first two Stooges records that Lester Bangs ain't said already? Remastered more than 35 years after they were recorded, each of these masterpieces has been reissued with a whole extra disc full of alternate takes and mixes. Produced by the Velvet Underground's John Cale, The Stooges 1969 self-titled debut was an attempt at harnessing a savage beast that failed in the most wonderful way possible. Sounding as raw and powerful as the day it was released, the debut's bonus second disc is comprised of all unreleased material, including several mixes that Elektra rejected at the time for being too out there. Funhouse is, to put it mildly, one of the most quintessential rock 'n' roll records ever made. If you don't own it you oughta be ashamed. While the comprehensive seven-disc Complete Funhouse Sessions boxset released by Rhino Handmade a few years ago has cancelled out any chance of unreleased material, the bonus disc included here serves as a kind of Best Of the Complete Funhouse Sessions. The birth of punk rock, repackaged just in time for Christmas.
TEST ICICLES
FOR SCREENING P U R P O S E S O N LY (DOMINO/REMOTE CONTROL)
Suffering from hepatitis is nothing to be proud of, but that shit is contagious after all, so why should I feel guilty? Same deal with Test Icicles. Who doesn't want to hate the latest style band from England playing energetic post-punky kinda stuff and being lauded by the press? But fuck it, no matter how much I try I can't hate this.
I almost hate myself for how much I love it. It's a pastiche of a bunch of stuff with absolutely no poise or subtlety, so really it should be topping the charts. But it isn't. And now I've got it stuck in my head and meanwhile I'm taking flack from all sides for it. Mixing up so many styles, Test Icicles are asking to fall flat on their faces, but they don't because despite bursting at the seams with young man's energy and rage, they are utterly tasteful and rarely frivolous in their utilization, cross-pollination and flat out decimation of “genre”. Subtlety might not be in their repertoire, and they probably ain't gonna flip your world upside down with any true originality, but Test Icicles will rock your party non-stop till the break of dawn and beyond. I'm proud to say I love this album and I don't care if I go to hell for it.
TIGER BY THE TAIL S/T
( T I G E R B Y T H E TA I L @ A A N E T. C O M . A U )
Only 200 copies made of this Dave Thomas (exBored!) project which also features the talents of drummer Dan Dempster (aka Hector of The Sailors), bassist Michael Evans (Detonators), and guitarist James Saunders (ex-Red Shift), Tiger By The Tail is one for the true believers. Obviously made with very little regard for commercial viability, the sound is quite a long way removed from the ballsout grunge fury of Bored!, with a more controlled, moody indie rock vibe that recalls the wicked wah-soaked guitar noise of Dinosaur Jr. With distorted loudhailer vocals handled by Thomas, he is assisted by In Vivo bandmate Fiona Lee Maynard (ex-Have A Nice Day) on the track “Generator”. Recorded for the right reasons and played in the right spirit, I feel like a cunt admitting that this failed to grab me in any kind of meaningful sense. Maybe 200 is a good estimate of how many of these things they're likely to shift?
UNBELIEVABLY BAD
73