Top 5 Punk Releases: July Edition

by Sam Sutherland

July 29, 2011

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Each month, tons of new music from many taste-spanning genres is released into a fast-consuming, unforgiving audience; it can be tough to get a handle on what’s new before it’s on to the next. In an attempt to highlight the standout releases, at the end of each month, AUX staff re-cap the month in Punk, Metal, Indie/Pop/Rock, Hip Hop, Pop, and Dance with the top five releases in each. Consider it your cheat sheet for year-end lists.

Top 5 Punk Releases:
July Edition

 

Heartsounds – Drifter

They used to be in a death metal band, but I guess a few years of toughing it out in the metal trenches drove Laura Nichol and Ben Murray to the kind-of-opposite end of the spectrum with Heartsounds. 2009’s Until We Surrender was a blast of speedy, catchy, Strung Out-worshiping punk, and Drifter is another slice of the same, upping the tempos and cramming even more hooks and technical wizardry into its twelve songs.

Bomb the Music Industry! – Vacation

I’m over being surprised that every Bomb the Music Industry! release blows me away. Never content to rest of their collective laurels and repeat themselves, Vacation is the logical progression for the band, as upstrokes and hardcore get pushed out the way by the Elvis Costello back catalogue and copies of Pinkerton. And it’s a free download, like all the band’s material. Punx.

Soul Control – Get Out Now

In the past, it was understandable if you wrote off Soul Control as a totally good, but totally paint-by-numbers hardcore outfit. The subtleties of the band’s sonic attack were buried, but they were always there, and with their latest EP, the experimentation that has always churned just below the surface is now front and centre. An utterly chaotic mix of ’80s hardcore, post-hardcore, and Zeke-like rock ‘n’ roll, this is the kind of impossible-to-pin-down shit that Soul Control have always seemed capable of.

City of Ships – Minor World

Trading their more aggressive tendencies for the thoughtful post-hardcore of bands like mid-career Cave In or good-albums Thrice, City of Ships have delivered the high water mark of their career with Minor World. Some songs here sound like Russian Circles with vocals, and that’s a great thing. This is thoughtful, heavy music that rides the line between metal, punk, and post-rock in a fascinating way.
 

Big Business – Quadruple Single

Big Business expand from a two-piece to a four-piece with this EP, and they are all the scarier for it. Admittedly, the band never had any trouble filling out their sound with just a pair of dudes hammering on drums and bass, but this new lineup really gives the band room to develop songs, explore new textures (like ones that a guitar makes), and crank shit up so, so, so loud. Backing the Melvins has helped turn Big Business into a full-on wrecking machine, and these four songs represent the latest in their evolution from minimal bangers to humongous terrors.

Surprises, disappointments and albums to watch for next month

Surprise of the month: It was easy to scoff at the idea of a new Alkaline Trio album consisting solely of “re-imagined” interpretations of “fan favourites” and “two originals.” That all those words were basically industry code for “acoustic album” did nothing to quell concerns that Damnesia, as the collection was cleverly dubbed, would totally suck. The shocker came when, as the “Surprise of the month” title of this paragraph indicates, the album did not suck. In fact, it was kind of fun, creative, and a worthwhile sideways addition to the band’s catalogue. The new songs are good, and the old songs are newly structured in a way that, as a fan, makes them fun to listen to.

Disappointments: Sublime with Rome is still a thing that, presumably, someone, somewhere, is giving money to.

Out in August: pg.99’s Singles, Hot Water Music’s The Fire, The Steel, The Tread, the Copyrights’ North Sentinel Island, Braid’s Closer to Closed, and more.

Tags: Music, Lists, News, Alkaline Trio, big business, bomb the music industry!, braid, cave in, city of ships, Elvis Costello, Hot Water Music, russian circles, Sublime With Rome, the copyrights, The Melvins, weezer

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