Music

Top 5 Punk Releases: August Edition

by Sam Sutherland

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:
August Edition

 

The Copyrights – North Sentinel Island

The Copyrights have always been one of those bands. They’re great, unequivocally. But, in the past, they were never much for variation or experimentation. That’s fine. That’s the entire career of the Ramones up until End of the Century. But along with a handful of their peers, this particular punk niche was starting to get a little long in the tooth. North Sentinel Island is a total left turn that retains the basics of the band’s appeal and otherwise throws out all the rules previously associated with their sound. The songs are stronger, the melodies are tighter, and every song inhabits its own unique sonic world.

Retox – Ugly Animals

From the minds of the loud-ass weirdos who brought you bands like the Locust, Swing Kids, and Head Wound City comes Retox, a striped-down hardcore affair. Ugly Animals ditches the grindcore-with-synths-and-a-lot-of-guys-yelling vibe of the Locust and returns masterminds Justin Pearson and Gabe Serbian to the no-frills hardcore of their youth. From the haunting visuals of the video for “Bastard on Father’s Day” to the raw, all-analog sound of the record itself, Retox is full-body experience, and it’s terrifying.

Banquets – Top Button, Bottom Shelf

Fact: If you can start a record with a song that only hammers on a single chord, but still succeeds in building tension and relieving it with some kind of sonic explosion that still doesn’t change chords, I will buy eighteen copies of this amazing record. Banquets do a lot with a little (including that single-chord shit that rules so hard), creating seemingly simple songs and then fighting their way out of them with creative drumming, great vocals and outstanding harmonies, and the eventual freeing of the guitar and bass to kick out some impressive technical heroics.

Circle Takes the Square – Rites of Initiation

Circle Takes the Square released the genre-bending, actually totally brilliant As the Roots Undo in 2004. And since then, there hasn’t been much from the camp of the Savannah, Georgia, screamo outfit. Years and years and untold years in the making, Decomposition Vol. 1, their long-awaited follow-up, is finally scheduled for a November release, and this EP teases the band’s new material. If it is any indication of what’s to come, Circle Takes the Square are as adventurous as ever, crafting huge musical movements out of the rawest of sonic palettes.

Luther – Siblings & Sevens

Luther prove that there has got to be something being force-fed to kids in Philedelphia that’s making them produce such an unstoppable array of great punk bands. It’s like fluoride, but instead, everyone just rubs the Dan Yemin discography on their teeth every night, or something. Luther don’t play the same gutter-pop-punk that many of their municipal peers; they’ve substracted the Lawrence Arms and replaced it with a keen awareness of mid ’90s emo bands like Mineral, Samiam, and Armchair Martian, producing simple, memorable, and heartfelt songs in the process.

Surprises, disappointments and albums to watch for next month

Surprise of the month: You’d think that after over a decade under the rule of Axl Rose, Tommy Stinson might have lost some of his edge or the ability to finish a record inside two decades. But the former Replacements bassist has just released his second solo album, One Man Mutiny (the follow-up to 2004’s Village Gorilla Head), and it’s a fun, loose collection of vintage rock and roll. It’s might not be aesthetically punk, but Stinson was a Mat. The man could release a dub step record and it would be the punkest dub step record imaginable.

Disappointments: Dub step is still a thing that is cool, but is so, so weird to hear at Warped Tour.

Out in September: This is a Standoff’s Be Delighted, the Horrible Crowes’ Elsie, Samiam’s Trips, Wild Flag’s Wild Flag, and more.