White Lung- Sorry (2012)

Well, after a highly productive (for us) month of June, we're on our way to our least productive month since we started this thing. We're officially bad at this again! It's gonna be alright though, because White Lung are about to rock your goddamn socks off, regardless of whether you're wearing shoes or not.

Hailing from the home of the one and only Narduwar (that would be Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) White Lung play a noisy, rollicking brand of punk rock quite unlike anything I've heard in a long time, or possibly ever. They're far from your average 4-chord punk rock band. Guitarist Kenneth McCorkell's hand scurries around the fretboard like a chipmunk seeking refuge from a hawk circling overhead. Sorry is executed at the breakneck pace of Morris era Black Flag. Guitar-wise, think Greg Ginn and his signature dissonant guitar squelches...on speed, with flourishes of melodious jangly indie rock played far too fast for wimpy indie kids to enjoy. White Lung's rhythm section could easily fill in for Hot Snakes should the masters of chugging garage punk find themselves in a bind and while I certainly wouldn't call White Lung d-beat, the drumming rarely breaks from the Discharge mold. Sounds pretty boss, right? It is.

White Lung should appeal to fans of Bikini Kill and the Riot Grrrl scene, frantic surf-punk a la Night Birds and perhaps to more adventurous fans of the Screaming Females. Sorry will undoubtedly make an appearance on my end of 2012 list.

Try it.

Buy it:

Vinyl

Digital

Textbook Traitors- You Pull The Strings That Make Us Dance (2002)

Listening to Guidelines (see post below) got me all hot and bothered for some more chaotic screamo. I mentioned Textbook Traitors when I posted the Guidelines EP and immediately realized Textbook Traitors is one of the reasons I started this blog. Not them in particular, but bands of their ilk. Bands who in their time were completely overlooked. Granted, when this EP came out the screamo wave was just about to crest and when that wave broke it spilled out a slew of shitty bands, so Textbook Traitors were mostly lost in the wash, drown out by the pounding of the shitty surf. OK, I think that's enough water and poo allusions for one post.

Textbook Traitors were a screamo band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin who released a grand total of 33 minutes of music in their all too brief career. The drummer went on to join Get Rad (had I known this when I saw Get Rad at Gilead Media Fest I would have gotten all fanboy on that guy). Other than that, I can't seem to find any info on the band's previous or more current endeavors. However, all you really need to know is that if you have even a passing interest in the genre, this EP contains 15 of the finest minutes of screamo you will ever hear. Unlike many of their peers, Textbook Traitors eschewed the quiet/loud dynamic for the most part in favor of an all out aural assault unlike anything I'd heard before or I've heard since. Eardrum shredding shrieks, grindcore pacing, blast beats and frenetic, dissonant, shrill guitar caterwauling make this one of the most grating listens ever and nearly a decade after my initial listen, I still can't get enough of it. This is a masterpiece of the genre, up there with Chaos Is Me by Orchid and Document # 5 and Document #7 by Pg. 99. Absolutely essential.

Punk rock will never die.

Buy it:

Digital
Physical (CD)
Unfortunately, this hot mess was never released on vinyl. Start talking about it incessantly and maybe we can get Magic Bullet to give this thing the vinyl treatment it deserves.