Static Shock News

"Web of Lies / Death Won’t Even Satisfy is the vinyl debut from this hardcore band from New Jersey, and it is a full-bore scorcher. Ammo plays ferocious US-style hardcore with a lunging, unhinged style that reminds me of groups like early Agnostic Front, Void, and Eye for an Eye-era Corrosion of Conformity… not so much in style, but in the way Ammo sounds like they’re maniacs who might materialize out of your home speakers in order to slash your throat. It’s a rare enough feat to capture this sort of wild energy on tape, but Ammo fuses this crazy energy with memorable songwriting, with tracks like “Black Site,” “Slam Slam Slam,” and “Ethnostate” hitting even harder because they’re so damn catchy. Sounding fast and crazy is Ammo’s forte, but their secret weapon is their ability to play at mid tempo, like on the crushing NYHC-style mosh part in “Known Unknown” and the singalong during the breakdown to the epic “All You Do (Is Want Me to Die).” I love music that expands hardcore’s boundaries, but Ammo isn’t that… they distill hardcore its essence, their sound ground down to the sharpness of a knife’s edge. This is not a record to sleep on."

Compiling all E.P.'s by Bootlicker, "Lick The Boot, Lose Your Teeth" presents 24 tracks originally released over four 7"s dating back to 2017. From the earliest incarnation of the band and the start of their signature production and sound to where they are now. With the overblown martial drumming, completely pinned clean guitar attack, Bootlicker has been a fresh take on D-Beat tradition with a handful of Oi/UK82 and American Hardcore influence on the side. Each 7" is compiled here and represents a different phase of the band. The completely broken speaker aggression of "Who Do You Serve", the slight Rock 'n' Roll influenced "Nuclear Family" and bare bones approach of the "Six Track E.P." all paved the way to a more realized sound in "How To Live Life". Instead of tracking down each out of print, individual E.P. Here they are for the taking.

. It's 2021 and Vancouver’s Bootlicker are back with their first full length. Experimenting with various lineups and sounds since 2017, these 14 original tracks flesh out their most realized expression. Following four EP’s and two demos, their self-titled debut stays true to the noise cultivated in the previous offerings. That raw, blown-out production countered with clean guitar sound and Internationally-informed take on a UK82 delivery remains. Everything that made the band what they were on their previous output is polished into a ball of fire that will not be contained. Their mid-tempo, menacing posture of tracks like "Herd The Sheep" and "State Of Fever" give way to the D-beat totality of "Master" or "Two Faced" proving there are still ideas in the tank. There won’t be much left but scorched earth by the time it comes to rest. FFO: Mau Maus, Discharge, SSD. Every copy of this LP comes with 16 page zine-style lyric insert full of illustrations by band member and visual artist Athena.

Now grown out of the bedroom and operating as a fully functional band, London via Ukraine's POWERPLANT follow up last year's 'People In The Sun' LP with this new 5 track banger. The Devo / Tubeway Army / Screamers / Lost Sounds comparisons are still there but also the weirder tracks are weirder, the faster tracks are faster and is Theo fucking crooning on the opener? One way to find out. To better days!

REPRESS ON PURPLE VINYL. New edition of the third Warthog EP. Raging hardcore punk from the hyped NYC group.

Birthed from the creative and genre-bending New York DIY scene, L.O.T.I.O.N. Multinational Corporation has become one of the most exciting bands of the underground - gaining notoriety for their unique brand of industrial cyberpunk and intense live shows. Masterminded by visual artist Alexander Heir, the group has gained recognition internationally for their fiercely political lyricism and striking visual aesthetic. Blending noisy electronics with live instrumentation, the band draws inspiration from the harsh minimal electronic music of Detroit and the thrashing riffs of hardcore punk. Following their last LP World Wide W.E.B from 2019, W.A.R. In The Digital Realm delves even further into their techno-dystopian universe fusing elements of D-Beat with EBM and 90s Rave. Do You Want To Die In World War III???

"A gang of stylish demons discover a wild animal pacing around a Berlin cellar, wearing only a hawaiian shirt and someone else’s blood. He doesn’t know what day it is, just that he went to a party several months ago and hasn’t been to sleep since. They lovingly rescue and rehouse the wretched creature in a glaas box where he’s content to howl his paranoid chants all day for their entertainment and now ours. This debut lays out a mangled inventory of fractured memories, haunted visions of broken people and places making a sacred ritual out of ruining themselves. These are hymns to so many nights gone so far wrong, from the graveyard sex to the extra bump you might have resisted had the urge to feel something not overtaken you… Employing an elevated and reinvigorated version of the ‘modern post punk with anarcho flourishes’ mode, with whirring synthesisers and creepy keys signpost into even more disorienting territory, GLAAS create a creepy and compelling soundtrack to the romantic nihilism of urban decay: disturbing lifestyle choices but make it sexy." - Bryony Beynon Featuring members of Clock Of Time, Exit Group, Cage Kicker, Idiota Civlizzatto, Lacquer and more. This is the debut LP from GLAAS. The LP comes housed in a sleeve with linocut artwork as well as an additional A2 poster from Raquel Torre and an additional lyric sheet.

WARTHOG always takes their time with releasing new music, but you know it will always be worth the wait. Marking their ten year anniversary as a band, Larry and Co finally bring you their long awaited fifth EP. Written in Brooklyn last winter, the new ep delivered three tracks of their trademark sound. Everything is fine-tuned and sounding stronger than ever. Digital Tumor might even be their best track yet. You didn’t think that they would let you down, did you? The EP comes in a pocket sleeve with brand new artwork from longtime collaborator Alex Heir and lyric sheet. Recorded by Sasha Stroud, mixed by Will Killingsworth and mastered by Arthur Rizk.

Erupt offer up five fiery tracks on Left To Rot. Treading the blurry lines between extreme punk and extreme metal, Left To Rot is a cacophony in all the right ways. Fast as, heavy as, nasty as. Featuring members of Sheer Mag, Geld and Gutter Gods - Erupt brings its own molten explosions to the surface. These burnt offerings are recommended for fans of Sodom, Celtic Frost, Iron Age, Warthog, Mindsnare and the other hordes of apocalypse old and new.

REPRESS! “All Of Them Naturals” is a fully realized, inclusive world of faux-corporation sponsored surrealist new wave punk music rife with satire and discordance. Robotically tight. Delightfully warped. Ideas as vast as Nebraska’s GMO cornfields and as lethal as the pesticides they spray on them. Did the Sunbelt Chemicals Corporation invent DDT? Maybe. Did they invent man? They think so. Did they invent the wheel? No, that was URANIUM CLUB. Truly, our generation’s DEVO. An important group." - Jensen Ward

Less than a year after their debut, Brazil’s Lasso returns with their second EP. While Lasso’s razor-sharp riffing and songwriting remain intact, this time around the sound is thicker and meaner, as if what was presaged in the first EP’s foreboding, ominous sound has finally come to pass. Indeed, as the world has slid into previously unthinkable depths of darkness and brutality, Lasso’s sound has evolved to match, a hard-won sense of steadiness now augmenting the anguish so palpable on their first record. Lasso also introduces a few new musical wrinkles here. A surf-y, Dead Kennedys-esque lead guitar elevates tracks like “Fechado Em Copas” and “Atarantado” to even higher levels of catchiness than their already-infectious debut, while “Mendaz” closes the record with an apocalyptic, mid-paced stomp. Desperate times call for desperate music, which makes Lasso the perfect soundtrack for 2022. Limited to 400 copies.

Neutrals return with a stunning new 4 track EP on Static Shock, after an album on Emotional Response in 2019 and two 7”s on Slumberland and Domestic Departure in 2020. Each song on this EP is a golden nugget of DIY Indie pop with clean and jagged guitar work, tunes at every corner and a joyous naivety. Go straight to Gary Borthwick Says - a song about a full time bullshitter with lyrics akin to I, Ludicrous’ Preposterous Tales with music which has the charm of prime The Television Personalties and The Times. New Town Dream is another gem and if it had come out in 1979 as an obscure DIY / Post Punk 7", the kids would be paying £200 for it. Honestly, it’s love at first listen and pure infatuation after repeated plays. This EP will not leave you turntable. The 7" is limited to 550 copies on blue vinyl and housed in wraparound sleeve.

BOSS BY NAME, BOSS BY NATURE. The five heroes finally follow up the Steel Box 45 (Goner) with Cash 'Em In. A disgustingly catchy yet charming ode to the lost art of picking up one lucky person and, well, chucking them over a bar. Might as well, right? Sonically, this is still hitting that sweet spot between early UK punk and glam rock n roll, and once you've flipped both sides you'll be getting ready to cash someone in yourself (and don't worry, Cal from The Chisel pops up to provide full instructions). Featuring members of Fucked Up, Rixe, Chubby and The Gang and The Chisel. The 7" is limited to 450 copies on white vinyl and comes in a fold out poster sleeve with artwork from Tin Savage.

Thirteen turbocharged tracks indebted to the pleasures and pitfalls of their lives in the modern city of Sydney and to the the first and second waves of international extreme music freaks and loonies: pure fucking aggression. The Oily Boys have graced us with a beast of an album that swells between direct, gripping, tangible hardcore punk and near nauseating psychedelia and throb which at moments feels like either ritual trance or a nervous breakdown. Cro Memory Grin contains near equal measures of tension and release; an exercise in high catharsis. It’s rare that a punk record can give the listener anywhere near the same intoxicating feel of an “everything louder than everything else” live show, but that’s what Oily Boys have done. That lightning in a bottle feeling of excitement, chaotic energy, delirium, presence in a moment and frenzied flight into a mind state both frightening and ecstatic. The stone has been carved, the fire has been lit, and this is it... Cro. Memory. Grin. *** Best played LOUDEST ***