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Sausage Wallet is definitely like a group of middle class white kids from suburban California that are going thru a punk phase

The Buzzballz Biggies are a full-assed 1.75 L bottle. Jug? Decanter. So yeah, almost half a gallon. Dig in. Dennis: Chris Allen. Gotta Be Honest. If it doesn't happen until that li'l white boy is a li'l white man, he'll have enough insight to know that he DESERVES to die in the robot uprising. Chris knew to open strong, because this was a roller coaster of good and bad. He had too many weak jokes (Some were literally JUST premises--I was waiting for a punchline, and instead he picked up his water, put it back down without drinking, and changed the subject. He did that something like four times.) and not enough strong jokes (that weren't buried inside sermons phishing for applauses) to make me want to look up any more of his "standup". The two funniest bits of the show were the easiest to pull off--making a family in the front row feel uncomfortable about SEX and retelling an interesting but UNFUNNY story about customer service. Anyone can do that. 3/10 Pelican. What We All Come to Need. Hey, it's Pelican's pop album! At least that's what I remember they said it was when it was released. "Shorter songs that don't each have twelve parts," is how they put it, if I recall. This was also the last one that Laurent performed on before he left. (He's back now.) Pelican were always in my top ten instrumetal bands list, but in the lower five, mostly because they love repetition a little too much. By the end of an album, you're ready for something else, (Comparatively, I've never experienced that with Russian Circles--always ready for more of them.) This is still top tier material in the genre, though. Never any skips, even the sappy love song that closes the album. 8.5/10 Tommy: Groin. Groin. According to whatever I could find about this three-piece, there's only one vocalist, so lemme be the first to say that he should only screech, because that annoying as shit bellow that he does is pulling what would be a 10/10 into being barely listenable. The 2024 release is mixed a little better and he sounds like he's worked on it a little bit, tried to be less silly. I mean, this is grindviolence from beginning to end, so it's not like I regret the whole two minutes it took me to listen to both albums, but still. Be better. Caveman. Something's Got to Give. The core of this is very hard. The only review on bandcamp was disappointed, and I found that a little funny. What were they expecting? (Because it was a lazy reviewer, they didn't say.) This is perfectly fine. It even has a fun little false ending in the title track and a "FUCK!" with some groovy shit. Also, at the bottom of the page, they recommended Tenue's "Arcos, b​ó​vedas, p​ó​rticos" album, (which was one of the freebies that Zegema Beach Records gave me when I bought their 10" of the Crowning/Swallows Nest split) and I liked that album a whole heap of a deal... So points for that too. I won't listen again, but 6/10 Vaccine. Human Hatred. Goddamn. Instant favorite. Zero notes. Put it on repeat/shuffle and try not to rip the door right off your car, try not to get a speeding ticket on your way to the grocer, try not to push the cart straight through those sliding glass doors, try not to pummel delicious breads to pancake-flat gluten cakes, try not to force the cashier into moshing with you, try not to table-flip your car and circle pit slam dance your whole way back home, not even caring you forgot to actually get the bread you left for. This shit is dangerous. 11,017/84

In rare form, I started doing the homework AT home. I was GOING to play Skyrim while listening, but XBOX Live has violently screwed the pooch in the very bed it has quite epically shat. (A bunch of us 360 users can in no way sign in, so none of our games are accessible. I say it’s planned obsolescence. If we don’t get every next generation console ASAP, are we REALLY brand loyalists? “No,” says William Gates, “absolutely not.”) Sooooo, I was going to go back to the Switch, but it wasn't there. Instead, I just sat in the dark, weeping from a spectral wound. Krissy: Selofan. Partners in Hell. Dancing Ferret Discs in the haus. Christina P. is friends with all of this. I can smell the Djarum Blacks, hear the pleather. By track three (According the bandcamp write-up, "'There Must be Somebody' is a discordant composition, mimicking the startled song of birds after a disturbance in a wooded enclave on a mountainside, while a magic ritual unfolds." According to all of my experience with birds that sing when startled; wooded, mountainside enclave disturbances; and unfolding magic rituals... This is horseshit mimicry.) I was ready for a candlelit, bathtub slip and slide. Or more drugs. Or no more drugs. I dunno, but I wanted to no longer experience this. For what it is, it's great. They're doing just fine. It's just not for me. Mission accomplished, but I'm the foreign country that didn't want your democracy anyway. Well done, but do it over there, thanks. 4/10 (for all of that, but it's a personal 2/10.) This Cold Night. While I Disappear. Ditto. Such a ditto. At least there are some guitarings going on with this fella. Still, at this point, I'm jealous of the hammer-smashed raccoon. Laugh Farty: Spectral Wound. Songs of Blood and Mire. A Diabolic Thirst was one of my favorite black metal releases of the pandemic, so this was a welcome follow-up. These Canucks are musical enough to not just give us the traditional “trve cvlt” black metal fare but rather give us production value, groovy-assed riffs, some occasional melody, and oh-hell-yeah, SOLOS. By album’s end, though, I was ready for something else. 5.5/10 Human Garbage. Valleys Most Hated. Yyyyyyup. For the most part, anyway. The one vocalist is pretty grating. But this is Vin Deisel enough to not fully disappoint. 5/10 Tommy: Lavell Crawford, Can A Brother Get Some Love. He sounds exACTly like Patton Oswalt's impersonation of a fatty so fat you can hear fat in their voice. He's pouring sweat by minute three. I want to see him naked, strictly for anthropological reasons. Is he just a neck with nipples? Okay, fat observances over, now let's see if any of this is actually funny... "Apparently not--you ain't got a key." ROWWF... ROWWF...ROWWF The applause break for repeating a joke verbatim but in Tone Loc's voice is a microcosm of how all of Black comedy works. Actually, that all of his impersonations of his younger self sound like Tone Loc is probably my favorite bit. Pushing fifteen years old, I'm alllllmost curious enough to hear what he as to say about the world now and how it sounds coming out of a mouth that's almost half as fat. Almost. 5/10 Drop Nineteens. Delaware. Because of this podcast, I've listened to more early-90s music than I ever did while listening to music in the early-90s. I definitely had no idea that shoegaze was a thing. The Venn diagram of shoegaze and Nine Inch Nails and Metallica and Type O Negative (nice shirt, Tommy) is basically four circles not touching at all. Well, three of them were all on the local rock station, so I guess I'm flimsy on my grasp of Venn diagrams, but I digress... This definitely has that early-90s guitar tone, cranked to eleven and very much the fuzzwash star, aided and abetted by those serpentine drums. The vibe throughout Side A was pretty chill, especially with closer, "Kick the Tragedy"s nine-minutes. With "Happen", we're exposed to some Toadies/Pixies menace that gets amplified by the Swans-sized wall of noise of "Reberrymemberer". Side B continues showing us new aspects of what these guys could do. Delaware is a great example of a band showing us both sides of its coin. "Look at what we can do. See what we did? Now watch us do this." The next time the mood strikes, I'll see what the reunion album sounds like. 7.75/10 Dennis: Gavin Matts. Progression. Best opening line, ever, maybe. Especially for the next four years. "I try to stay positive; I do. But it's hard, because other people exist." Word. "Why do I have memorized what you wear to bed? I don't love you; I don't care about you; you're only here, 'cause I need half." It's all simple enough, as insights go, but his delivery is perfection. "All things considered..." I love how deftly he fosters silence. He lets everything and everyone breathe. He almost whispers. It's great. He's Seth Green, minus the action figures but plus Jeselnik's dead babies and Ryan Long's eye intensity. "...I don't think you considered all things." 10/10 (I think there was only ONE f-bomb, so by vocabularic standards, he's damn near quote-unquote "clean".) Year of No Light. Ausserwelt. As sophomore albums go, they're rarely stronger than this. Eschewing the formulaic, post-metal-by-numbers that the likes of Cult of Luna and Isis were doling out at the time, they opted out of vocals entirely to embrace atmosphere and mood with an instrumetal death-grip. And holy shit is it effective. YoNL have been very nearly my all-time favorite instrumental atmospheric sludge metal band ever since Omega Massif called it quits not long after this album was released. 84-ish/10

Also, Mother Nature’s Black Light Rainbow was my first show/mosh pit at the Harmony Grange Hall 1994

I can’t believe that the words “blow hole cream pie” weren’t uttered.

IS THAT MY MOM AND STEP DAD I SEE?!?

Easiest way to remember where you buried your drugs is to drop a pin in whichever map app you use. I'm with ya, Krissy. The filling is the worst part of any Oreo. EVERYONE: Dogstar. Somewhere Between Palm Trees and Power Lines. Purposefully sounding like a neutered Queens of the Stone Age is silly. Purposefully sounding like Tom Petty and Neil Young having a swordfight is sillier. Accidentally ripping off The Eagles is the silliest. 2/10 Matt: Human Impact. Gone Dark. Ipecac Records? This could be anything... Noise punk is what it is. Highly enjoyable is what it is. (What a rhythm section.) (Hey, I echoed Dennis!) 6.5/10 Human Tetris. Memorabilia. A lot of Joy Division love in here, that's for sure. Stripped down, therefor louder and cleaner, this is ideal for head-bopping to electronic drums and serpentine guitars. If that's your sorta thing. 5/10 Dennis: Sense Field. Building. For having the "alternative" tag TWICE at the bottom of their bandcamp, this sounds more like playing early Green Day through any era Foo Fighter speakers. So, it's the Toadies? It's absolutely the mid-90s. There are no missteps here, though. It's all spot on and perfectly achieving what they're going for. Short, energetic songs. Everyone does exactly what they should for this sound. Even his (The Offspring) croon-whine (Hey, I echoed Krissy!) is perfect for this. Well done, just not for me. 4/10 Farside. Monroe Doctrine. Pop punk is dead, right? RIGHT? Please let it be dead. This shit bores the rotten shit out of yesterday's salad shit, even when they're all "hey, listen to us rock" on "I'm Not Shy",and "Liz Hurley". That said, much of the back half of the album sounds like a completely different band. What was that grindcore song doing in there? Also, leave the Ween weirdness to Ween. And leave the Nickelback balladry to Nickelback. Certainly don't fucking close with it. 3/10 Tommy: Good For Your Podcast. Ari Matti. I unsubbed from the second-most annoying mouth in comedy years ago now, so this is legit homework. That said, I'm less than five minutes in and pretty sure I'm going to love all of it. This guy is great on the mic. I've never heard of him. (I don't watch Kill Tony. Hinchcliffe is not for me, even though that one standup that was assigned was crowd-work gold.) "The song isn't done, and there's sun on my balcony--I'm gonna be late. I'm a vibe guy." "We haven't fucked a stool yet, but lemme tell you, the stool is sweating." I don't think I've ever seen Whitney let someone step all over her mic like she did Ari. Maybe motherhood has somehow taught her that sometimes she's being interrupted by a smarter, funnier voice, and she should STFU. I'll never watch it again (and I will let the algo know that I am not now a fan of Whitney the first time it recommends her after watching this) but I will keep an ear out for his name to pop up again in the industry. He was great. 6/10 Ride. Going Blank Again. Alt-rock shoegaze for the win. Oh, wait, no. This is pop-rock for the win. Post-grunge garage surf for the win? Smelling like pre-stressed jeans and fabric-softened flannel (buttoned all the way up) for the win. Smelling like the Warped Tour for the win. All jokes aside, I do dig how much time they spend just jamming. So much that I bet some of these are skips for Tommy. Opening with an eight-minute song, closing with a seven? A coupla sixers tossed in? The 2022 reissue has an eleven-minute jam on it? This is mostly 4.5, but those jammy bits (and "Grasshopper" alone) push it up to a 6.5/10

😢 poor raccoon 😢

News: Certainly sounds like Pet-A-Piece wasn’t too sad about getting a Whole Life Reset button mashing. Good for her. Dennis: Peggy O'Leary. Fat Cheerleader. (I truly love listening to comedy on bandcamp.) I'll see you your breakfast wine and raise you my breakfast bourbon. This room is so chock full of family and friends that it sounds like Jenny Slade did that Maria Bamford thing and performed in front of her parents. The Tom Hanks of pussies was pretty great and shows there's a real writer in there (almost as good as her mom), but this was mostly mid. 5/10 Mike Cannon. Traumatized Animal. Jason Lee really letting his hair go full silver, huh? “Out conspiracy the theorist.” Also… my brother-in-law is one of those who says he’s got manboobs because of the “female discharge” in the water supply, so I’m going to suggest the cum guzzle. Who’s Chloe Cannon? Jessica Cannon? What is Bluestone Quarry? Do the ladies of the family all be vocalists? I hope so. Also, Chrissy D is a treasure. 8/10 Lose None. Warrior Blood. This could live in my "frequently played" playlist if it wasn't for those vocals. Don't worry, buddy. Someday they'll drop, and you'll finally be man. But for now, you're dragging this 7 down to a 2/10. Tommy: Ted Alexandro. Cut Up. “Cancel. Cancel.” Boy just full-on described priapism. “I’m not old, I’m just retired from trying to be young.” At 43, I feel quite seen. Sidebar: the wall of any comedy club has to be atrocious, but I’ve yet to see a comic tape material at The Cellar and NOT be all over those bricks. That is a very rough and porous surface. It HAS to be just disgusting, even if it’s not actually brick. Moving on. The whole Bernie as Taylor bit was fun. Also, this guy lowkey seems like he could really sing. The Beauty and the Beast bit, the humming later, he’s got a nice falsetto in him. “Maybe we should wait until cops get the hang of firearms before we start passing them out to other professionals.” *mic drop* 9/10 [I liked him enough to watch (and preemptively review, for when Dennis forgets how much he hates the guy and assigns it for homework) his other 800 Pound special from a couple of years ago.] Jukai. Prologue. I dug the 2011 material more than the 2014. That said, it closed on its highest note. It's more than just typical hardcore, vocals aside. I appreciate that they don't always go balls-to-the-wall or chin-to-the-floor. They play around with some dynamics with the necked instruments. Like a slightly restrained early Cave In. I checked out their 2018 release, too, (Apparently, their swan song.) and it showed further promise. I asked discogs where they all went off to, and of the answers, Kyle's Crucify Me put a demo out a few years ago and that was fine for what it was, but it was no Jukai. 6/10

What if you called the suicide hotline and it just played “jumper” instead of having a person talk to you

(I promise I won't tell you about my jazz records.) Dennis, I'll see you your 1980's The Elephant Show and raise you a Romper Room. I got out of jury duty because I worked with the guy who killed his wife. Not only did John give homework assignments that I already own, he did it twice. And not only do I already own them, I bought both of them at shows. Purrrrdy kewl, and the odds of this ever happening again have to be just about as good as John being back on the show. John: Full of Hell and Nothing. When No Birds Sang. I'm not that familiar with the music of Nothing (THIS band called Nothing, anyway. I've got a CD called Silence Came Back In, Filling Jagged Spaces, a concept album about Stephen King's Dark Tower books, by one Jason Walton, bassist of Agalloch, recording under the moniker Nothing.), but this is the prettiest FoH have ever been, and I love it almost as much as their collaboration with Merzbow. 8.5/10 Marriages. Salome. Dark, powerful, brooding walls of guitars, distorted and fuzzed, swollen by the huge percussion roiling inside and around them, aren't enough to drown out Emma Ruth Rundle's unmistakable croon. I almost enjoy what little Marriages material they've released more than her solo stuff. (Though, probably unsurprisingly but also for different moods, Red Sparrowes is my favorite of her projects.) 9/10 Dennis: Todd Glass. Thin Pig. My first impression of Todd was forever ago when I'd seen some brief thing on either HBO or IFC or wherever and he was ONLY loud and absurd. This is the most toned-down Todd I've ever heard. And the best. Surprising and for sure will listen again. 9/10 Suppression. Spiritual Sepsis. I'm hearing a lot of classic Brutal Truth grind, and I'm not mad about it. Also hearing some moments of just extreme punk hardcore. Not mad about that either. Twenty-three tracks in what? eight minutes? Felt like five. Wild. I think I listened four times. 9/10 Tommy: Simon Gibson. The Best I've Ever Done. Oh, okay. This guy's bonkers. Hell yeah, let's go. "Give it up. Give it up. Just give up." I love how off-the-rails he and the show gets. The whole "daddy" back and forth with that middle-aged black woman was pretty great. If that's all crowd-work was, I'd like it more. How far he drove his musical impression bit--that started weak and just got weaker--into the ground but also had "It was always gonna be Star Wars!". This was a lot of fun, I hope its wildly lackluster numbers don't discourage him, I'd love more, as long as it's not a fucking podcast. 7/10 Third Eye Blind. S/T. I don't know how long it's been since I last heard "Semi-Charmed Life" but it hasn't been long enough, apparently, because I had to really fight the urge to skip it. (Kudos for your first radio single being about meth addiction, but that novelty was worn to ignorable by how incessantly the radio punished us all with it.) That said, the guitar lick in follow-up radio favorite, "Jumper", is still undeniably catchy. So... I'm familiar with way more of this album than I thought I was. To the point that I think I might've owned it at some point. Or maybe a girlfriend did. Okay, I'm just about halfway through now and finally hearing something that doesn't have me perking up with WTF bells of familiarity going off in my head. And so far, the rest of this is just a retread of typical pop punk/alt rock radio balladry. Is he using a Talk Box on "I Want You"? Kewl dood. Buried deep at the end of the back half are possibly the best couple of songs on the whole album, "Motorcycle Drive By" and "God of Wine". I'll never listen to this again (nor will I listen to any of their other offerings), but if nothing else, I've inexplicably been reminded of how strongly I feel that Live's Throwing Copper is such a goddamn good album. 4/10

#crazycats

Mike: Doug Stanhope. Careful What You Wish For (This Is Not Happening). If ya know, ya know. 10/10 Drugdealer. Hiding In Plain Sight. Am I listening to the right thing? LOL This is wildly unexpected. It sounds fifty years old. Not two. Soulful and funked up beach rock? All right, all right, all right. I might even listen to it again. In the rarest of my many moods, this would be perfect. 6/10 Straight To Hell. Demo 2024. Hilarious album art for the win. Machine gun riffs broken up by moshcalls for the win. Hardcore big dog barkin for the win. Charging £141 on bandcamp for a four-song demo for the hilarious win. 4.5/10 Marc: Victory Style 4. Earth Crisis: Nope. Shelter: Noper. Hatebreed: Absolutely, but probably just for nostalgia's sake. Greyarea: All right, sure. Integrity 2000: A’ight. Buried Alive: Yup. Grade: LOL Whut? Snapcase: Nope. Electric Frankenstein: Noper. Shutdown: All right, sure. Cause For Alarm: Meh. Skarhead: Nope. Catch 22: OMFG ABSOLUTELY NOT. Blood For Blood: LOL I dunno... maybe? All Out War: Uh, sure. OS101: Nope. Strife: Fuck yeah. boysetsfire: Fuck nah. The Strike: Nope. Warzone: Nope. River City Rebels: Meh. Reach the Sky: Nah. No Innocent Victim: All right, sure. 3/10 Z.O.N.E. Zero Option Nuclear Ending. So that was just an intro track, right? Okay, wait... Track two is yet aNOTHer intro tra--oh, here we go. Decent. I'm not gonna pay $15 for the cassette, though. Let's get a full-length, this is good stuff. 6.5/10 Phil: Sully. S/T. (Four of these tracks are lifted straight from last year's demo, but that's kinda SOP.) HPGD is usually a solid bet, and this is a shining example of why. Perfect grind with a lot of extreme death metal in its DNA. Even some thrash here and there. Zero complaints, even the hardcore gorilla lyrics are fine. 9/10 Dennis: Andy Haynes. The Suggested Comedy Special. Haynes is usually safe to bet on because he's a great joke writer. What is not safe to bet on is his being a great crowd work/improv performer. This was rough. Since he never went back and asked the audience member if she thought of a joke... "What do the colors white, green, brown, and black all have in common besides being very common American last names and having only five letters? They're not the least bit funny... They're also all colors that can be found in some rather nasty wounds. Everyone here knows that though, because we're watching you take a pretty severe beating up there, Andrew." It's curious that the BTS footage shows him acknowledging that everyone is doing crowd work specials and that's why he didn't call it such. The thing to do would've been acknowledge that everyone is doing them and don't fucking do one. Stick to what you're better at, write killers, and give us a special next year. You don't have to conform to the norm. Disaster, indeed, m'guy. 3/10 Instruction. God Doesn't Care. He's actually quite a vocalist. Only rarely is he really sing-songy, but he obviously always could be. Instead, he's much more consistently scream-songy. Some interesting dynamics behind him too. I might get beat up for this, but... a couple of times (on "I'm Dead", for one example) I was reminded a lot of 30 Seconds to Mars... and I LIKED it. (Maybe it's just been long enough since the grunge-metal rock radio kings like Buckcherry, Chevelle, and 10 Years reigned the Noughties.) "Feed the Culture" felt like a different band (in a great way), and "death to the four-car garage band" is a bumper sticker if ever. Probably won't ever listen again, but still, 6.5/10. Tommy: JP McDade. In Brooklyn. His immaculate scruff, calling cruises "slip and fall settlement celebrations", "You ever fuck up so bad you create Hell?", "Ugh, I get it--you have money." "Books are dumb... I'm a very edgy comedian." "I was at the tailor the other day, getting some condoms taken in..." "'Herpes' autocorrects to 'heroes'." are all pretty perfect, but for no good reason, the lights randomly dimming was my favorite moment. 8/10 Kickback. No Surrender. With names like these, I was expecting it to be cookie-cutter hardcore (and maybe lyrically it is, as exemplified in "The Audience is the Target"), but even though I'm fairly certain I've heard all of these parts before, how they added them up sounds like a new sum. Familiar numbers in a new equation. That's pretty fuckin' cool. Maybe it's just because they're French, and there are some serious parallels in tone, but I will definitely listen to some Celeste after this. 9/10

JUSTICE 4 SKEETER #GBNF

My two cents: First cent... I don't have a problem with white folk talking about rap if they're talking about rap that said white folk can rap along to. That's the only caveat for me. It's a language allowance. If you only listen to Eminem and Macklemore and MF Doom, good for you, boat shoes, have at it. I don't mind some rap, myself. but I know that if I listen to too many n-bombs, they become part of my inner monologue. I don't need Busta Rhymes on loop in my head while I'm doing the dishes, because that internally normalizes words that I am not allowed to say. Recipe for disaster, that. Second cent... I don't have a problem with people who are not at all athletic dissecting the game or the fight. Knowing the ins and outs of a thing does not require participating in the thing. The fattest of the fats can study and review and analyze just as well as someone with a 32" waist. I might not be able to play at all, but I can study music theory. This same argument comes up in regard to parenting. People who are are never keen on being critiqued by childless adults. But we ALL had parents, we can ALL analyze and review and study the best way to handle a thing. Not all marriage counselors are married, it doesn't mean they don't know anything about conflict resolution or unrealistic expectations or etc. Anthony: Harry Settel. Why the Suburbs Freak Me Out. The Noughties look of a longsleeve under a tee and a prepubescent haircut combined with autistic hard blinks and belly touches make this guy a weird feckin watch, man. He was all right. No one I'll look up again. 4/10 Demonstrate. Demonstration 2024. Designated moshers, only. Be careful out there, kiddos, you'll hurt y'selves. I can't really detail why, but I liked the last few minutes the most. 5.5/10 Husker Du. Zen Arcade. Purple spiked mohawks, denim, and wallet chains and then petershams, sweater vests, and suspenders and then skinny ties, houndstooth, and combat boots and then Trent Reznor is antiquing Lustmord and then Motorhead is hollerin at the Sex Pistols and then everyone drops acid and thrashes and trashes the place and then they flirt with Sabbath doom before saying "psyche" and leaning back into a solo and then mustaches, peacocking, and flower print button-downs and then grunge stands by the sea and jams a little and then harpsichords, pianos, and silence and then reversed playback, subliminal messages, and séances and then distortion, distortion, and distortion and then a 14-minute instrumental freakout. A better-than-expected 7.5/10 (Curiously, just because y’all brought concept albums up in the homework discussion, this IS a concept album… I wrote this sentence .7 seconds before Sleepy Phil mentioned this very fact.) Meat Puppets. II. Album opener, "Split Myself in Two", does this album a real disservice. I was quite worried about the rest of its forty-eight minutes being a serious challenge. (It wasn't until I noticed repeats that I was listening to the expanded version.) They're a lot more palatable when they're doing the alt-rock/blues via Zeppelin, Americana/folk via Nick Cave, Sid-era Pink Floyd jelly jams. Then a track like "New Gods" sounds like if Neil Young listened to a lot of Ween. Or Slint. Pitchfork called it "acid-addled cowpunk", and I think that's pretty spot on. Kurt and co. didn't do too bad with those covers that I played to death either. "Lake of Fire" is still one of my favorites. I might even someday listen to this again. 6.5/10 Larry: Omegas. Blasts of Lunacy. Yeah, I'm a'ight. 3.5/10 Dennis: Dave Attell vs Zac Amico vs Sean Patton | Story Warz | Episode 006: High School Stories. (I hate Vos, so there was no chance I was watching that episode. Almost watched the Ian, Foley, and Joe episode, but it's just sex stories and I couldn't care less about watching standups talk even more about sex...) This was way more fun than I thought it was going to be. I'd never heard of or seen Zac before, but he was a heavy-hitter with the wit. Not sure if I'll ever watch another one. Maybe the Ari ep. I think I'd really enjoy seeing Sam Tallent on it. 6.5/10 Call For Unity Compilation #2. Die My Will's "Golden Calf" was the standout, but All Out War weren't bad either. There were definitely a few stinkers. My Body, My Blood's "Better Things" and Drowning Room's "Most Dangerous Game" were pretty fucking hard to get through, but Relentless' "React" was the only one I absolutely HAD to skip. It still lasted until 0:43. (Vocals kicked in at 0:42...) Are Atlas Shrugged allowed to even BE hardcore with their five-minute-long "The Haze Control"? 3/10 Tommy: Elisabeth Shue. Butthole Money. With how well she’s kept herself together since she left Vegas, I 100% believe that her earholes are for sure not at all loosey goosey. "Too much suffering out loud" is the banner theme of all the years since Myspace stopped being just a music platform. How did Lisbeth and Emily Catalano not know that they’ve been telling the exACT same Starbucks in a Target joke? Both released about two weeks apart, too. Like… wildly similar. Whatever, it’s funny, but damn. “Full volume, 'cause there’s no captions.” “Is this where the line starts?” Also, being about to drop, I thought the abortion clinic joke was going to have a different-or at least an additional-tag on i-oh, THERE it is. The weird director choice to pan up from her hand on the stool while talking about jizz is… well, weird. She definitely could’ve mined more out of the RealDoll bit before burning it here. This falls off in a really big way from there to just looking at her notes for "what else" to the abrupt walk-off. Should’ve just cut the last few bits and either strengthened them or killed them. Nothing wrong with a forty-minute special, Elisabeth. What’s good is great, but the rest pulls it down to a 6/10 Kacey Musgraves, Deeper Well. (My special lady friend likes the idea of a cardinal being a sign of a lost loved one's presence.) Pop-folk alt-country that's never too loud or energetic for hungover Sunday mornings. Put it on, turn it down, and let it wash over you. 7/10

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John: Lie. LRHC. If Ill Nino got mushed together with Deftones and spent a lot of time hanging out with Sepultura and DJ Starscream, they'd still know better than to do this. My cat's dead. 2/10 Abject Misery. Hell Reality. I'm surprised we don't hear more samples of Heath's Joker. This drags knuckles and breaks necks in the best/dumbest way, which I like. Like if Emmure were more hardcore. My cat's dead. 7/10 (Also, he might've been referencing one of the many hard-to-watch scenes in Gaspar Noe's film Irreversible. Extinguisher meets face a LOT of times, until face no longer faces.) Sharm: Mike Recine. Union Delegate. Comedy Dynamics actually has their own bandcamp, so that's where I listened to this. I no longer believe that Mike Recine is a clean comic and I'm going to dispute it every time I hear it going forward. He obviously wasn't here, and there've been something like seventeen other homework assignments with him wherein he's obviously not a clean comic. He doesn't drop "fuck"s every other sentence, that does not make him clean, that makes him articulate... It's content that makes a comic clean or dirty, and Mike's always been at least a little bit dirty. Bargatze is clean, Recine is not clean. 2015 was a better time because my cat wasn't dead. 9/10 Heavenward. Pyrophonics. Oh, good. We needed more 10 Years, Breaking Benjamin, and Seether bullroar in the world. Fuck all the way off, my cat's fucking dead, you terrible, terrible, dastardly nincompoops. 0/10 Somerset Thrower. Paint My Memory. This ISN'T just a love letter to early Foo Fighters and current Green Day? My Chemical Romance? Tell me this ISN'T Silverchair's first two albums, and I'll tell you my cat's dead. 3.5/10 Resurrection. Embalmed Existence. Ah, the early 90s. Not quite death metal, not quite thrash or blackened punk, not quite speed or prog... but also just enough of all of those to be endearing, solos and hilarious spoken word spoopy song intros and my dead cat. 5.5/10 Dennis: Out For Smokes. Ep# 239. I ended up switching over to Mike’s “I’m Normal” special and then his appearance on Adam Friedland from earlier this month. Eventually made my way back to this, so I can say that Mike is better as a standup or a guest on a pod than he is as a pod, which is why I ended up back over to Friedland but mostly for Nick until Friedland himself annoyed me so much that I switched over to The Media Insider’s “The 30 Greatest Film Challenge” because that’s how algorithms work, dude, but I still eventually ended up back over to “Strike That”. “I’m not autistic, I just ate my brother’s tee shirts as a kid.” How fucking awkward and cringy everyone got when Sean mentioned Mike’s wife’s 18-inch pussy, complete with some serious silences fraught with mental gymnastics, is an orgy of evidence damningly questioning “How the hell did these three dorks get to over 240 episodes?” “Oh, I DID go HIKING this weekend?” Jesus Christ, this is painful. I switched over to Monster House, the animated film that Sean mentions, and there’s a guitar solo by a band that the babysitter listens to and I’d rather listen to that solo on loop before going back to the podcast to finish my goll dern homework but I do it anyway. I gotta be almost done with tha-ohmygod there’s still half an hour of Three T-Shirts Doing Prayer Hands. Now that I’m so high I just listened to the ice cubes in my drink screaming as they melted, I guess I can finish it. Upon doing so, I’ve come to the hard-won conclusion that how awkward and mismatched and flatlined and dumb this podcast is is the WHOLE point and it’s fucking spot on. Still, 0.5/10, only because I actually DID finish it. Still, it was so bad that I had to train my brain for smarter things by leveling up to a TRAVOLTA film before advancing back up to The Simpsons but not before hearing a saxophone in that TRAVOLTA film that made me pause everything and put on Clapton’s score for the narc cop film, Rush, because guitar solos are just 80s reed instrument solos plugged in and no I wasn’t so high that at one point I was strumming an unplugged electric guitar at my cat whilST listening to Clapton and watching Travolta and Freeman be silly. Then I watched more of Monster House. This review was written before my cat was dead. He's dead now. Jello Biafra + The Melvins. Never Breathe In What You Can't See. Once I got past that the album cover looks like a Grails album and the title is telling me not to breathe air, the weirdness of The Melvins stopped seeming so extreme. I don't know who or what this Sweet Jiggle Biafra folk is but it sounds like they had a lot of fun in the studio. There are a ton of dead Kennedys but I've only got one dead cat. 5.75/10 Tommy: Greg Fitzsimmons. You Know Me. “Mommy looks silly sometimes.” When I’ve really got nothing else going on, and I mean NOthing, I’ll watch the most recent Sunday Papers, but for the most part, I’ve completely tapped out of my YT subs. The last time I saw Greg or Zach Galifianakis was on Greg’s pod. Whenever he was a guest. All of the reasons why this is a spectacular special from a spectacular veteran point to all of the reasons why we get a horrible special from another veteran, Rogan. Joe does NONE of the things that Greg does. He has completely given up on the work needed for the craft, so in 2024 we get Greg telling us we know Greg and Joe telling us we also know Joe, both for wildly different reasons. Anyway, Greg is one of the greats for good reason, and it’s not for being the third comic I’ve heard talk about taking his pants off during a street fight. (The first was forever ago, by Rodney Carrington.) It’s for everything else because my cat's DEAD, man. 9/10 Death Side. Bet on the Possibility. Ah, the early 90s. This is what Metallica was trying to do when they mushed the metal with the punk almost a decade earlier, like... decades before my cat died. 6.5/10

Dennis: Kurt Metzger. Talks To Young People About Sex. "Is that if I'm good or I'm bad? Why would I want that? I want to go home." Her vagina as his first bike is brilliant. I could go on and on, explaining why this is a 9/10. Kurt is just wonderful. Black Army Jacket. 222. LOL Did they just start this with a Super Troopers "meow"? This girl is screaming a lot. Very upset. JAPAN. Sometimes groove-core, sometimes pop-slam, sometimes straight up grind, these folks really love playing with polyrhythms, time signatures, and quarter-notes... Ambidextrous John Hancocks with fancy watches and little scribbles, let's say. What a fun, wild ride. 6.5/10 (Also, the vinyl is a mere $10. It's prices like those that prove just how grossly some labels price gouge. Talking to you, Triple Crown, Fluttery, Closed Casket, Debemur Morti, Pelagic, too many others...) Tommy: Bastard Radio. Ep.2. Nick Mullen and his Osama beard era? All right. My dad flew with the Blue Angels. By flew, I mean they put on a show and my dad won a raffle to ride in one of the jets. He didn't FLY with them... the Blue Angels took my father. Did squirrelly dings and loopty bops, y'know the whole thing. Ups and downs and such, but fast and stuff. I dunno, I wasn't there, I was probably asleep. As per yooj, Luis isn't funny, Tim is quiet until he's got a gem, and Nick is brilliantly twisted. Anyway, almost halfway through, and this is WAY too dated for me to care about. I mean... COVID Times, amiright? It was years ago at this point, and like Trumpolitics, I'm done. Even as much as I love Tim and Nick, I'm still too exhausted to want to listen to stuff that doesn't matter. Maybe someday this sort of content will be fun to revisit at "remember when" parties. I played the whole thing but Zoom sucks. 3/10--I immediately relistened to Metzger's Fucktalk for Kids special. Innumerable Forms. Philosophical Collapse. Profound Lore? This is gonna be legit. That first track is under three minutes and it's a whole journey. They know how keep shit dynamic, proven by the bigger feat of managing to pull off four-minute doom songs. Excellent stuff, solos and all. 9/10 Angel Olsen. My Woman. Voice is a little much when she really belts out those upper registers, I'd much prefer her she just whimpers, whines, or whispers. W-H word me, Ang. I appreciate the minimalism to the instrumentation, the distortion and tone, the marching band timbre of the drums. Halfway through the first longer song, "Not Gonna Kill You", some stride and some mood are both reached, harkening to Emma Ruth Rundle when she was still in Marriages. The twangy percussion and breathy vocals of follow-ups, "Heart Shaped Face" and "Sister", follow that wonderfully and are a spectacular ten-minute halfway point. "Woman" was a mournful yet playful dirge that I immediately put on repeat. This whole album is playfully mournful. 9.5/10

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Something told me (besides the double scoop of oatmeal) that I should look up Organ Dealer. Holy fuck. New favorite. Coffin Dust are also killer. 100% agree on the well-timed beep. I was across the lab, doing lab shit, and laughing heartily. Kevin's one of those special folks who ALREADY eats a sausage roll every single shift. It was an anniversary gift that he basically demanded. Raises? Kevin don't want no stinking raises, Kevin want rooolllllls. Alex: Defense Wound. Hymns of War. Old school death metal so true, I thought it was from 1993, not 2023. Well done, Alabama. Who knew. 5/10 The Verve. A Storm In Heaven. How much I'm digging this is surprising. No real reason beyond I'd never listened to anything beyond "Bittersweet Symphony" and while that is a swell jam and spreads nicely over my pumpernickel, I didn't know that the rest of what they do is so chill and ambling and loose and sometimes loud as shit. After all that, though, that sax in "The Sun, The Sea" was just as surprising. That said, though, I was not at all surprised by the flute showing up in the very next track. I'm onto you now! I'm for sure going to dig into the rest of their stuff, especially these albums pre-"Bittersweet". 9/10 Wren: Wormed. Omegon. (Already in my bandcamp wishlist...) Colin Marston is a solid bet, whether he's in the booth or out. TECH DEATH SCI-FI BRUTALITY. 8/10 Whores. War. Big... The sound here is big. I dig the minimalist album cover motif they've adopted over the last few releases. I always nod with approval when a band finds their distinct sonic voice AND their specific aesthetic signature. Logo, brand artist, stage setup, etc. Rarely does a band nail it right out of the gate. (Knoll is an exception that proves the rule, for example.) Anyway, by the end of track two, "Quitter's Fight Song", I was a fan. I'd never heard of these guys before and now I'm thinking I need to look at the rest of what's here on bandcamp. I mean, it's still mood music, and I'm not often in the mood for this. But I wasn't at the start of this album either, and here I am seven minutes in and glad for it. Well done, folks. "Back When I Was A Savage" was a standout. All suckers served. 7/10 Dennis: Stand Up on the Spot. Ep.49. Clounting Clows. Nothing like having Joe and Jeremiah onstage at the same time to get a perfect example of how much better Joe is at it than Jeremiah is. I just can't unsee how terrible "Daddy" was. He's definitely the hardest part of this to get through after Corinne, who I ALWAYS mute. I can't fucking stand her, standing up OR on a podcast. Never funny and such a cunty vibe from top to bottom. Soder should've stayed up longer before giving us Jeremiah being a Christian camp counselor. Morrill was his usual self, so I could've skipped him. Then it was both of the worst up there together to close the whole thing out. 3.5/10 Moisturizer. Dumb and Burnt Out Already? Okay, this is awesome. Chaos with a capital K. Putting the core in grindcore for what felt like about four minutes. This was recorded in a practice space? And they mixed it themselves? Fucking wild. Also, the best samples I've ever heard. I loved it enough to immediately listen to their previous album, Interstellar Migraine. Here I was, thinking Rhode Island was just Necronomicon and Family Guy. 10/10 Tommy: Chip Chantry. Move Closer. About halfway through and it’s all right. Some of these are better than others, but none of them are great. He’s got premise potential that just doesn’t go as far as it should. The economy joke was pretty great, though. Still, just a 5/10 Ill Breed. Sorrow Soothes. Hardcore hollerin' and stomping grooves. No notes, it just doesn't do it for me. I kept waiting for something to happen that I couldn't deny, but when it reached the end, I couldn't deny that I had just been waiting for exactly that. 4/10

I only ever played Bonks Adventure on Turbo Graffix 16

The upcoming Sandler special is his second since returning to standup, after 2018's "100% Fresh", which really wasn't half bad. "Phone, Wallet, Keys" is gold, and I reference it every time I think to. 12cm x 15cm is actually pretty big. Almost 4-in. x 6-in. So for them to misplace this "flap" is wild. (Why the hell is it called a flap? Plate, piece, fucking anything besides a flap makes more sense to me... It's bone, not fabric or skin or a trout.) Did my ears pick up the soothing sounds of actual crickets at a couple moments throughout the pod? That was nice and I enjoyed it. Brent: Dan Soder & Big Jay Oakerson. The Tale of Two Coreys. All I could find were supercut playlists of The Bonfire show wherein the two discuss the doc, etc. The one video that is actually entitled "The Tale of Two Coreys" by Dan and Jay is over four hours. I love homework, and I'm sure this is all quite entertaining, but c'mon. Maybe if I find myself with a free afternoon and literally nothing, and I mean nothing, else to read, watch, listen to, or y'know... do. Visceral Disgorge. Ingesting Putridity. I've been binging Ray Donovan, playing a lot of Breath of the Wild, and spinning film scores almost exclusively, so THIS... was a Mortal Kombat finishing move to the face that I was completely unaware my face actually really needed. Almost fifteen years old? That was a different time, brother. Death metal with a dash of death metal. Slathered in death metal. Usually, I don't want my drums so forward in the mix, but for my mood? now? this is juuuuuust fine. 6/10 Matt: Torn Apart. The 59th Session. For a solid minute, I thought I knew what this was. Then it got a little fun, a little weird, a little Hydra Head/Tortuga/Ipecac... Could've done without those clean vox. That's what makes it Ferret circa 1999, I guess. Better, early Atreyu? Early Emmure? I know I should hate it for making me think of those, but I don't. It's just dynamic enough. Eighteen minutes is perfect. 6.5/10 Triac. Pure Joy - Numb Grief​-​stricken Animals. They're proficient at grind. They're proficient at sludge. They're proficient at samples. If that last track isn't just 116 proficient seconds of a salty slug's doom, I'm going to be very disappointed. And while it wasn't that, it damn near was. 8/10 Dennis: Sean Rouse. Spilled Milk. Always heard his name but never tapped in. That "Way Too Young" bit was ROUGH and I loved it. Too bad we couldn't've had a life's worth of his dark brilliance. 9/10 Milhouse. Obscenity in the Milk. Scream-talking over some pretty frantic hardcore that's just the other side of sonic mayhem does not a good album make. But in the 90s, it did. Samples are fun. By the halfway point, I was fully on board and enjoying the ride. But still, it took that long. The third act started getting a little avante, taking some cues from the likes of Converge or even Brutal Truth, which I didn't hate. 4.5/10 Tommy: Geoffrey Asmus. Boomers are Embarrassing. What's embarrassing is how much material Geoffrey burns through. Is he ever NOT writing? 9/10 Fatal Realm. Demo 2024. Calling the intro "Fatal Intro" is kinda silly brilliant. I think these vocals were recorded in an empty tin shed. A school bus? Something with really cool acoustics, anyway. The riff in "The Gift" is the gift that keeps on giving. Must be, considering how often it keeps getting regifted to listeners. Oh, hey! A solo! Never tire of those either. I think every single album in the "If you like Fatal Realm, you may also like:" section on the page has been assigned as homework. Well, except for that Sanguisugabogg. Anyway, solid demo. Let's see what's next from them. 6.5/10 Unit 731. Plague Upon Humanity. The Hive Mind is already in my bandcamp wishlist, so either it got mentioned on pod at some point, or this is just a coincidence. Either way, if that's any indication, I'll likely enjoy this. That grunted vocal style--sounding like he's gotten punched before every word--gets old, but the beatdowns are undeniably stimulating. In the right mood, this would be good to just put on. Y'know, doing dishes? folding laundry? burying your enemies? Tuesday shit. 7/10

No lactating over spilled tears

Glad you liked it. We are proud to put it out and bring the boys back oit into the s ene after 30 years. Well deserved.

A note-for-note cover isn't a cover--it's a tribute and should only be played by tribute bands. I've been burned out on pods for a very long time, only watching this one and Dudesy on the regular. Unsubbing from YMH really cleaned up my subscriptions, too. I'm as done with comic-hosted pods as I am with crowd-work specials. Yawn. (A Donald Trump crowdwork special would just be a filmed rally... And what the fuck is going on with the new Matt Rife special on Netflix? What an absolutely delusional turd of a comic.) I've actually rediscovered my love for the written word, spending my time with screens not just not on podcasts, but not on, period. Put on a bandcamp playlist and read a book. Both Rogan's and Rock's Netflix specials have disclaimers at the start saying what we're watching are edits from the live streams. Sounds: Open-mouth chewers are the worst. Also, when silverware screeches on ceramic flatware, like while cutting a steak and the fork skids across my entire brain. Mike: FFFFF: Yecch Tapes. That opener is my jam, all the way. Way to set a mood, Areknuteknyterne. Coupla misses after that, though... Johnny Hazard was a brief high point before Asod Dvi's warbling alien body noise came in to make everything weird again. It came back around after, with El's minimalism, Adrian's syncopated church organ, Jeg's joyful Neil Young playfulness, which was so abruptly steamrolled by NXP's industrial horror that I thought RUclips had autoplayed some Locrian or House of Low Culture. It stayed mediocre (That Kaos track was awful.) until the 19-minute closer by Wahn was spectacular enough for me to look up their own proper releases. As comps go, this is wild for being from the 80s, as obscure as it is, and how gloriously hit and miss. 5/10 Steven: K Trevor Wilson. Bigger In Person/Sexcop Firepenis. Bigger In Person is the visual component to about two-thirds of Sexcop Firepenis' material. It's not from the same show, but it's everything you want from Dan, particularly a spot-on Cosby, "Animals don't know when you're trying to save them," and a slightly extended Penis Game. 7/10 Forced Order. One Last Prayer. Hardcore pedigree, with a capital D-I-G. Oh, a solo? Okay, sure… Vanished Crusade. More of the same. It’s very competent and on brand, so I’m surprised they’ve apparently been RIP’d. No notes, it’s just not for me. I need my hardcore to be fucken NASTY. Gang vocals are always lost on me. Distortion free guitar over a windy drone to close? Interesting, but barely. 4/10 My shit: That’s kinda what I anticipated you guys to say about Local H. I mostly included it because it was the first cassette I ever bought for myself. At a Walmart, so censored. Remember when that was a thing? So glad to hear you both enjoyed VYGR. They had one more release after that before calling it quits, but while they were active I saw them every chance I got. I made numerous day trips to Boston or Philly to watch them play three songs at a bar show for me and maybe two other guys in flannel and battle vests. Tommy. Keith Robinson. Different Strokes. The audience obligatorily applauding anything MILDLY inspirational got old and furiously eyerolled the first time it happened, within the first six minutes, to his quoting the most pedantic of sunset meme platitudes, “live in the moment”. Everyone in the room can fuck all the way off. If that’s what this is going to be, I’m gonna be pissssed. The best part was Amy Schumer picking up his cane. Telling his son they literally can’t afford for him to be trans is awesome. “I was in London for two weeks, I only seen one side of London.” Two puppies, $31.25, twenty-six marbles. I think. 7.5/10 Kevlar Upper. Demo 2024. Five minutes, five blistering hardcore anthems. TOTAL COWARD IN EVERY FUCKING WAY. A skull to fucking cave, indeed. I want more. 8.5/10 Dennis: Several Cocks. Underground Reality. I found a couple of Cyrillic websites that had it for my listening pleasure, but all behind paywalls. Feckin SoulSeek users, anyway. Listened to the one available on bandcamp. Muerte Lenta. Quite an intro. The pig squeal is alive and well, too, I see. D-beat slamming grind with lyrics I’m sure I’m glad I can’t understand, judging by these titles. Glad to see one of the most overused Manson soundbites is also going strong. 7/10 Andy Huggins. King of One-Liners. Not one-liners, but an absolute king. I'm showing this guy to fucking everybody. DTC is the best. Here it is! My first: 10/10

Joe the bassist here. Thank you for the review guys. Glad you liked it. Wait till the new one comes out this year.

Tater tots are chemical-breaded cubes of smaller chemical cubes. I’ve never eaten one that tasted even remotely like a potato. McDonald’s fries taste more like potatoes than tater tots. Like shrimp and mayonnaise, they are culinary abominations. I second Larold on Adventure Time and Regular Show, too. Before I switched to mostly just streaming shit, they were two shows of which I would buy the DVD seasons. I read in Revolver where Jay from Love Letter mentioned Russian Circles’ first album as an influence, so that alone is reason enough for me to tap into Love Letter. (Also, there’s an instrumental guitar-centric ambient release out of Minneapolis that’s excellent.) Jim: Mamaleek. Mamaleek. Black metal ingredients, but the recipe is something else entirely--industrial doom, power electronics, dungeon synth screamo, and avant-garde ambience all ground up and squeezed out as trippy, unsettling, noise. 7.5/10 Circus. One Big Joke. I listened to it twice. No notes. This checks all the boxes. 7.5/10 Mexican Coke. Mexican Coke. Just as good as Circus. These are the kinds of punk I can really get behind. Excellent shit. 7/10 Cowardice. Atavist. Cowardice are already taking up a few spots on my shelves, so this was a no-brained 9/10. It’s Thou with no restraint. It’s Body Void with more tempo changes. It’s Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean with extra members. It’s doomy sludge at its finest. I listened to it three times before moving onto Tube Alloys. Mike: Tube Alloys. Magnetic Point. “Blooding” is a big reason why the back half of this is the fuzzy slowcore moody brooder that I needed. 6.75/10 Dennis: Black Gaff. Heads. Sick slide, bruh. That first track could’ve lasted the entire runtime and I’d’ve been thrilled. I’m still thrilled with this, but I’m jussayin. The fact that they play this shit and do so for oh, so short amount of time is wild. This is sludgy doom IDEAS, and I love it. Cowardice would turn each of these songs into a twenty-minute epic. 9/10 (1:47:18-Every single one of my shift start walk-throughs include removing an old k-cup from the office Keurig. Feckin printer guys.) Jesus Lizard. Down. “The Associate” was a lot of fun. Very jam of them. This one was backloaded for me too. Angular, warbling fun. 6/10 Faith No More. Album of the Year. I tried FNM a long time ago because they were so ballyhooed. It missed then, but it’s been something like twenty-five years. Soooo… it’s typical Patton weirdness. The hodgepodgery is so strong with that fella. I guess not picking a lane is kinda his whole thing, but musically, it makes for a disjointed and uncomfortable experience. 3.75/10 Tommy: Derrick Stroup. Lawless 90's Kids. Besides how flawless his delivery, how seen I felt as a fellow Lawless 90s Kid, and the fact that he murdered eleven minutes on one and a half premises, his anasocoria was the eye of the storm. “This ain’t the goose you want, buddy.” Silly geese, only. 8/10 Know the Score. No Guts, Still No Glory. Blitzkrieg comes to mind. Not the professional wrestler, the Marvel superhero, the video game, or the many bands, but the “overwhelming force and rapid speed”. What the hell is clicking so loudly in the percussion? That’s all I heard in “N.V.” and it was silly. “MY FUCKIN ASS.” 3/10 Toughguy. Everything Is Very Good. ("Eaten Back to Wife" is apparently a bonus track on their bandcamp, as the Spotify lists only six tracks by Toughguy. I didn’t listen to the other three bands.) GRINDGRINDGRINDSLAMSLAMSLAM 8/10 (1:50:40-Yes, Lar, he indeed said “gays”. Feckin Delaware guys.) I love that I assigned Local H on a Saturday without knowing they’d been brought up on-pod the Wednesday previous. Sometimes the universe shines.

Matt: Photograph Your Aura. Snoopy Cap. I got a lot of Tricky vibes with their weird musical choices, but they're still just snaking them around skeletons of barber beats. Which I really dig.5.5/10 Alice Coltrane. Journey in Satchidananda. Jazz started getting really weird in the 70's. This is still pretty accessible but certainly not for any casual listener. If you're already a fan of jazz, this will likely be a chill and rewarding listen. As marriages between the hemispheres go, this is late-Beatles experimentation with Indian instruments meets Coltrane's "sheets of sound" sensibilities. Put it on and veg. 7.5/10 Jeff: Prison Affair. Demo I, II and III. Dicknose electro-psych-noise rock. Like what Lightning Bolt does when they're just fuggen around. Which means this should never've been released. Honkers, all eleven tracks. 1/10 Larry: Courtney Barnett. Tell Me How You Really Feel. Hey, hey, when she said it was getting louder, it actually WAS. Kewl. If this is not a misdirect, I won't hate this. Her voice might be nails on a chalkboard by the end though. Let's see... There's some weird stuff here, too, like "I'm Not Your Mother..." That's a song from a different outfit. Moor Mother and the Jesus and Mary Chain and PJ Harvey and so on. It's more punk than anything else here and it somehow saved this whole thing for me. Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate the ride, I've had worse. But while it wasn't bad, it wasn't great either. 4/10 Dennis: Geoffrey Asmus. Live in Sacramento. "Jesus wasn't crucified, he just forgot the safe word." This was a rewatch. I appreciate that Geoff has different deliveries depending on what he's really doing. Here, just working shit out, he's so loose and even snarkier than normal. It's interesting. It's also how interesting he approaches content. He knows how to keep himself fresh with the constant uploads of crowd work and workshop sets. He never wastes a bit, letting the lesser ones do their due diligence as throwaways on his YT. It's all serving his brand and it's a treat for fans. Win, win, win. 7/10 Ovenhead. Altar of Flesh. Opening track is a whole vibe that could've never ended and I'd've not been disappointed. Instead, it shifted into the muddiest basketball court death slam ever. Those drums are mic'd and mixed in a way I've not heard before. I'm not sure what to make of it, but maybe listening through a mono speaker is a mistake? Who knew. Either way, I'm positive there're more instruments back there behind the snare, doing the damn thing. Wonder what they sound like. 4/10 Tommy: Ryan Goodcase. Introducing. "I'm the only comedian who's going to end up on Netflix one way or another." That closer is a master class in writing while directing an audience member. 9/10 Sebadoh. Bake Sale. Indie rock that the likes of Elbow and Mogwai took notes from. Nothing offensive, besides its need to be fifteen songs. Sure, forty minutes is a typical album length, and it takes a bunch of two-minute songs to get ya there, but... did we NEED all of these? (Never we mind that the 2011 re-release included a 25-track bonus disc of outtakes, demos, alternate versions, etc...) I saw Dinosaur Jr. open for Primus once, and I stayed on the lawn and just played on my phone for their entire performance. 5.5/10

Hell yeah brother

Black people from Newark pronounce it Nork 😂. I’m from Detroit so hearing my Wife speak definitely took some getting used to 😂

Bob: (I predict that Tommy hates ALLLL of Bob's assignments... Even the ones he didn't do. Like...) Amarok. Resilience. I've been a long-time fan of Amarok with a number of releases on vinyl in the collection, so this was in my bandcamp wishlist until I decided to catch the Pittsburgh show on July 25th and buy it there. What sets Amarok apart from almost all other doom metal acts is that they're doom in sound only. The album is called Resilience for a reason. Listen and be inspired. 9/10 Tomarum. Ash in Realms of Stone Icons. Of COURSE this was mastered by Colin Marston, the most prolific man in black metal this side of Markov Soroka. Also, Mariusz Lewandowski (RIP) is the artist that Bob was talking about whose art graces the cover, and he's not wrong. Mariusz had a very distinct style, instantly recognizable, and it's as much a fingerprint on an album as a producer's name can be. This is progressive, blackened perfection. (That fretless bass alone is awesome enough.) 8/10 Dödsrit. Nocturnal Will. With more focus on riffage than tonnage, this is more akin to extreme power metal than standard black metal. Like what Deafheaven would sound like after coming off of a tour with Demons & Wizards. There's nothing to hate here, and I love how much time they spend JUST playing music, but I have to be in the mood for such... uplifting, soaring guitars. I can SEE their big grins while they play, and I can't not roll my eyes at that, even if I'm also grinning when I do. 6.5/10 Konvent. Call Down the Sun. I listened to the whole thing twice and never once believed that was a female vocalist. Fucking brutal. Stellar on all aspects. This is so good that I forgive Sweden for what they allowed In Flames to do. 7.5/10 Ron: Driltusk. Headwork / Promo 2023. Headwork: I needed to listen to it twice because I needed to. It was too short, and it was PERFECT for what I needed after all of Bob's homework and four episodes of Simpsons, Season Two. Fifty-nine dimes and two nickels is six bucks worth of a miserable specimen. The preponderance of dissonance... and this is dissonant as all shit. I love it. Why isn't this a flex-disc? Promo 2023: What a gnarled and uncomfortable opening. Talk about a litmus test for the unprepared. That was a stellar live recording. I need to watch for them to show up on flyers. 9/10 Mountain Shadow. Mountain Shadow. Already a huge fan of all that Bariann has been doing on a weekly basis with Fiadh Productions, this release had already come across my radar with its acoustic/black/folk Appalachian metal. Like if Agalloch had been from Virginia instead of the PNW. One third of this group is the dude who releases stuff under the moniker Robes of Snow, which is another stellar Pennsylvanian black/folk metal project to look at if you dig Mountain Snow. 8/10 Seriously, no notes. Dennis: Raanan Hershberg. Brave. Doctors' scales do be silly. I don't think I've ever laughed out loud at anything he's ever said, but I love watching him, and he's an undeniably gifted joke writer. 7/10 Insect Inside. Into Impending Apotheosis. Well, that was quite an intro. So there's actually only about 9 minutes of slam instead of 10.5. Ten-four, good buddy. I wanted it to last longer. 6.5/10 Tommy: Sam Tallent. Wide World Season 1. "Navigate the labyrinthine alleyways of culture, savoring every morsel from humble street vendors to the finest culinary temples. Join Tallent as he dances on the knife's edge of jest and feast, unearthing the profound in the ordinary, one comedic riff and gastronomic delight at a time." Sam is probably on my Rushmore, honestly. His worldview is so deliciously cynical that he takes nothing seriously besides enjoying the moment. He writes to make himself laugh. These videos are vignettes so bizarrely edited together and sprinkled with gags that they're impossible not to laugh at and want to watch again. I'll likely watch these again sometime when I'm 200 mg of indica deep. "Baskethead! Baskethead! Fill my head up with consumer goods!" The ass slaps, the old man just randomly edited into shots, Jake's ridiculously shaved dome, "Can you imagine?!" As if it wasn't already gonna happen, pretending a fake sword is a phone is why Dennis will give this a score of big numbers out of ten and it will not be exaggerated or incorrect. "I've had a beer and a half, I'm gonna let you know how I feel." 9/10 Triac. Always Meant to Hurt You. Hilarious album cover? Check. Scathing, throat-shredding vocals? Check. Big, fat, chainsaw guitar tone? Fucking check. Neck-destroying rhythm section? Perfect production? Zero fat? No notes? Check, checkitty, check-check. 9/10

I’m pretty sure Last Week Tonight did an episode about how much fuggen those fuggen athletes do in the fuggen OV. It’s a whole fuggen thing. Wish you guys were following the Amarok/Mizmor tour to Pittsburgh the next night, that's where I'll be in the crowd. Izzit Yuros?!... There's a Rifles at Recess (stylized as RxAxRx) out of Landsdale that released one demo in 2016. It's grindcore with fake drums but real song titles. "Sandy Hook Hoedown", "Virginia Tec-9", so on... It's a retching, squealing, fun nearly five minutes. Beard Without a Mustache. Miraculous Fatality. These fellas DO have real drums. So real the guitars are barely existent. Only one real proper release, they're less grind and more extreme noise. Like Chat Pile. I loved its wildly imbalanced mix, honestly. Teddy Bear Autopsy's sole release from 2016, called Bearevenge, has one of the best album covers and lyrics. Twenty minutes is long enough to wear thin, but the gimmick is fun. Big Baby Satan calling themselves doom with not a single song reaching the three-minute mark is baffling. Their sole release is on Spotify for some reason, and it's pretty terrible. Evan: Boyd Rice & Fiends. Wolf Pact. I'd forgotten he said it was spoken word, until track two continued the whole vibe of what easily could've been track one's "it's just an intro" misdirect. Now I need to also bring up the lyrics somewhere, because I need to really follow this story... ...That was awesome. This would've been awesome just as an instrumental album, too. Transcendent a couple of hours into the right dosage. That this is from over twenty years ago is proof positive that it's timeless. It could've come out in the 60s. Or last month. 9/10 Surprisingly, I could only find Funeral Parade's sole output on the internet archive. The demo, terribly ripped. Fine for what it was, angular and in love with Britain. I didn't hate it, and some musical elements had me nodding my head a little, even, like the beginning of "Eyes of Madmen", but it was mostly a "meh", and I'll never listen to it again. 4/10 Mike: Barrage. S/T. Never would've guessed they were a bunch of hardcore frogs if Mike hadn't said as much, and I didn't look at song titles. It wasn't until the halfway point, "Meute", that I found the sound for me. Album's gotta huge ass, I'm sayin'. They really loaded up the trunk, as it were. Not much up front, but that tail really slammed, left some marks, per se. If I liked punk, this would be a new favorite, because this is really GOOD punk. 5.5/10 Fissure. Soledad. I bought the flexi-disc. And the cassette of Stagnant. I should always end the homework with powerful violence. 8.5/10