Rat Cage
Screams from the Cage
La Vida Es Un Mus Discos Punk (2020)
A quick tip for you: don’t listen to this album in bed when you’re trying to sleep. Your heart will race and you will most likely be thinking about stage diving and mosh pits. Save it for your daily allowance of exercise instead during the lockdown we all find ourselves in. This one is a banger. Twelve songs in 20 … Read more
Regarde
The Blue And You
Epidemic Records/Through Love Records (2020)
The mind is a wonderful thing. Memories can be triggered by different stimuli. If you have ever watched The Chef's Table (a series about the chefs and their motivations to do what they do best) you will have seen many chefs confess they make food that reminds them of the food they ate in their youth. And that eating that … Read more
Revenge
Strike.Smother.Dehumanize
Season of Mist (2020)
At this point Canadian extreme metal malcontent J. Read has had two entirely different but noteworthy careers. The man (something I assume he identifies as, and not a woodlen spirit, demon, or other apparition) helped to invent one of the more punishing confluences of metal subgenres as the vocalist and drummer for pioneering war metal generals Conqueror, and since 2000 … Read more
Rïcïnn
Nereïd
Blood Music (2020)
Where do you even start with an album like this? It’s been a while since it’s been released, so I definitely had time to immerse myself into it properly as well as getting the leverage of seeing how it aged, even if over a short period of time in terms of timespan when talking about albums. Rïcïnn’s latest record, Nereïd … Read more
Ronen Givony
Not for You: Pearl Jam and the Present Tense
Bloomsbury Publishing (2020)
Almost three decades after Pearl Jam’s career-changing album Ten catapulted them from an independent act with a knack for channelling their alchemy in fusing their angst and alienation with a love for hard rock of the seventies, British independent music and punk rock to a veritable mainstream act. While some of their contemporaries have famously imploded or their careers taking … Read more
Rotting Out
Ronin
Pure Noise (2020)
Back in March, I attended a stop on the American Nightmare "reunion" tour, celebrating twenty years since they self-booked their first show at a church in Maine. While I still remain loyal to my wheelhouse of early- to mid-2000s hardcore, I hadn’t been to a show in nearly a decade. What I found there was somewhat expected yet still disheartening … Read more
Run The Jewels
RTJ4
Jewel Runners / BMG (2020)
It was a surprise to see Run The Jewels’ RTJ4 as Scene Point Blank’s top-billed record for all of 2020, but it demonstrates the widespread scope of its impact on many of our writers, myself included. The hip-hop duo of Killer Mike and El-P operates in their own stratum within mainstream rap, excelling far beyond their original underground roots. It’s … Read more
Sakevi Yokoyama
Oppressive liberation spirit Volume 1
Beast Arts (2020)
An essay I penned a couple of years ago will help to set the scene to describe the influence Sakevi Yokoyama and G.I.S.M. had on me as a juvenile delinquent.In essence, Sakevi Yokoyama’s artistic creations have always been absolutely brilliant, cryptic, majestic, ahead of its time and transcending the status quo by experimenting with new media and forms of expression. … Read more
Sam Russo
Back To The Party
Red Scare Industries (2020)
Anytime it’s just one person on the stage, the music being created is going to be intimate and personal. Sometimes it’s so personal that it doesn’t bridge the gap from the stage to the floor. Fortunately, Sam Russo isn’t one of those artists. When he sings, you know it’s about his own life experiences, but it sounds like it’s coming … Read more
Sanctifying Ritual
Sanctifying Ritual
Iron Bonehead (2020)
Most death metal bands exhibit a morbid quality to their sound but few would be believed if they said that their music was actually recorded in a catacomb. However, if the German death-thrash thrallers Sanctifying Ritual confessed as much to me, that their raw and cavernous debut was recorded in such an odious environment, it would be a sheer act … Read more
Shellshag
FUTQ
Independent (2020)
Shellshag, a duo from Brooklyn, play a unique style of fuzzy stoner punk. Live, Shell and Shag play drums and guitar, standing face-to-face and sharing a Y-shaped microphone stand (pictured on the album cover). It’s personal -- just look at the name – and feels alternately intimate, yet communal -- it has that impossible-to-define punk spirit that involves the audience … Read more
Silent Era
Rotate the Mirror
Nervous Intent Records (2020)
What did I know about Silent Era coming into this review?Nothing.So I’m speaking based on first impressions and a lot of repeated listens instead of preconceived ideas from a previous release or live show. My general description of Rotate the Mirror is that the band plays driving DIY punk. It has influences from the genre’s origins in the ‘70s-early ‘80s … Read more
Silent Island
The Curse of Coleodeia
Independent (2020)
Hungarian musician Csarnogurszky István is quite prolific, helming Black Hill, musicformessier, Realm of Wolves, Stvannyr, and of course Silent Island. His most recent release is The Curse of Coleodeia under Silent Island. As it can be often witnessed with prolific bands and/or musicians, the output may tend to suffer in quality due to the quantity in which it comes about. … Read more
Skeleton
Skeleton
20 Buck Spin (2020)
There are a lot of skeletons out there. Stuffed in closets. Hanging on metal hooks in medical school classrooms. There is a skeleton in me writing this. And there is a skeleton in you reading it. If you think about all of those sharp, calcified rods and lobes, shifting below tender, malleable flesh, it might unsettle you somewhat. There has … Read more
Smut
First Kiss
Iron Lung (2020)
Punk rock, man. Sometimes a band just does it right. Iron Lung released First Kiss on February 28 and it’s a doozy. There are only 8 songs here, and they fly by in probably 10 minutes. It’s fast and furious, with a whole lotta swagger and vitriol. The record sounds like aggression, pure and simple. I’m generally not an angry … Read more
Spanish Love Songs
Brave Faces Everyone
Pure Noise (2020)
I’ve known of Spanish Love Songs for a few years and I’ve liked what I heard in passing without diving in. When I saw them at Fest 18 last year and saw the crowd response, it confirmed it was time to pay closer attention. The band is familiar in style, something like The Gaslight Anthem or The Menzingers, with touches … Read more
Spells
Stimulants & Sedatives
Snappy Little Numbers Quality Audio Recordings/Rad Girlfriend Records (2020)
Spells are party punk, pure and simple. And I’m not talking songs about beer and friendship, a la early Pkew Pkew Pkew or Andrew WK. Spells are the life of the party, not just songs about what goes down when the lights dim low.Stimulants & Sedatives is sort of a concept record – it has two sides on the vinyl … Read more
SpiritWorld
Pagan Rhythms
Independent (2020)
Remind me to kick myself for sleeping on this album, but in my defense, its description as a combination of hardcore and country presents two genres that don’t exactly have a Venn diagram of overlap. SpiritWorld is the solo project and brainchild of Stu Folsom, whose namesake Las Vegas hardcore band Folsom built the foundation of the LVHC scene in … Read more
