NOISE ROCK… Where have all of the longform noise rock, post-punk and post-hardcore music reviews gone? My taste in this realm only becomes more niche, stuck in an aluminum-wrapped past in the back of an old freezer, and my takes begin to lean more grounded in feeling to the point that it’d barely amount to informative “content” or public interest. In this case I’ve bottled up a host of what I’d consider the most conversation and/or recommendation worthy releases in these general categories and created a list of it to sate folks who enjoy this side of anxiety rock music. These are not presented in any particular order, some of them will also be found on my Top 75 Albums of the Year list. // I’ve done my best to showcase the most interesting works that I come across while still presenting some decent variety here but choices boil down to what sticks, what inspires or what is worth writing about. These are more easygoing than longform reviews, so relax and think for yourself — If you find something you dig go tell the band on social media and support them with a purchase. If you’d like your music reviewed, read the FAQ and send promos to: grizzlybutts@hotmail.com

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Bad cops, stupid fucking cameras, corporatized art-death and more. — In the grand tradition of sharp-witted, dull stabbing post-punk having a great time letting you know how commandeered, comptrolled, and congested your existence is Chicago’s Stuck are back with another anxious and noisome howler. I’m still a fan, bought their last several releases after ‘Change is Bad‘ made me feel bad and ‘Content that Makes You Feel Good‘ made me feel worse. They’ve gotten noisier but not necessarily enough to harm their jaded bustle and uptempo grind, I must’ve had “Time Out” stuck (no pun, ever) in my head for a week before I checked out the full listen an I’ve been experiencing deeper, more nuanced existential dread ever since without necessarily wanting to die.

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The duo responsible for Wizard Rifle have up and moved to Detroit and delivered a somewhat different admixture of noise-punk, prog-sludge, and let heavy/stoner rock ease glue it all together. There is no real big angle or clarity to most of their work and this record isn’t all that different, though it focuses on ever-climbing riff progressions and generally more upbeat, driving numbers which wail and scream with feedback and a generally rabid intensity. In the past I’d have described their sound as a sort of modern sludge version of Lightning Bolt but I think that is what they’re trying to move away from over the course of this record. Though the result is very loosely noise rock related the sludge/noise rock arena market today is probably the only sort lining up to experience this type of gig. I think my response to this type of music is similar to that of Radiant Knife‘s, it could manage to be a bit more tuneful, or a bit more weird and until they find those extremes it won’t quite stick in mind per my own taste.

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Innsbruck, Austria-based quartet Bug have been around since the late 90’s and have about nine records under their belt at this point but don’t let that suggest they’re anything but a scuzzed and shouting angst-rock band who’ve proven experimental, honest, and trash over time. Over the years they’ve incorporated inspiration from metal and post-rock but the sludge-rock side has stuck best I’d say as they’re prone to ~3-4 minute shout and bump noise rock songs. Vocalist Markus Dolp can often be found on the gargled side of the animal-man noise spectrum, coherent but frustrated to the point of spitting most words from a glottal section of the throat and often falling into a delirious state to match the ever-shifting rhythms of the band which are lumbering and easy as often as they are stressed and speeding. The appeal of this record really is in the congested feeling of it, the bunged-up and chipping away state of being which sees no light through corporate control, cult of personae and delusion abounding. The best sort of noise rock albums make an “Eh, shut up dude…” sort of impression until they win you over with an experience and this is one of those per my own time spent.

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Birmingham, Alabama trio Day Job are the sort of pained and grinding noise rock group who do well to create a bleak and concrete filled atmosphere to match their coldly hammered yet occasionally melodic method. ‘The Auger‘ isn’t about the concrete jungle so much as “about digging a hole” within it, toiling away and ending up with a neat little grave for yourself. I mean, I assume the futility of participation in meaningless capitalism is the face value read here based on the name. If it is just about digging cool holes, pardon. If you’re into a big ugly bass guitar tone, something kinda Unsane-level mean, beside heavier guitar work which ebbs toward the frustrated spectrum of early 90’s post-hardcore and feedback-drenched metallic spikes this is a pretty well formed and surprisingly heavy shoutin’ hole. First have is fairly single-minded in its purpose and the level of embellishment begins to surge as the album presses on, took me a couple tries to finally land in the second half of the record and I’d recommend practicing similar patience and letting them cook.

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Baltimore, Maryland-based quartet Mast Year are technically on the semi-dissonant skronking side of noise rock/post-hardcore, veering between mathematical syncopated machine stress and anxiously floating nerves on this modest but uniquely atmospheric debut LP. ‘Knife‘ plays with extremes without losing a bass driven groove and ugly/pretty guitar clashes which create a modern but not glossy tension which is tuneful as much as it is mind-fogging. You’ll get some of the distraught early 90’s groove in the midst of their tangled and complexly lain movement and the Audiosiege amp this album gets helps the drums to give the mud and murking yell-pit of it all a strong sense of rhythm. For a ~26 minute debut LP I think they’ve done a fine job of making a case for these estranged pieces, noise/ambient experiments and a variety of approaches to sludged angst rock effacement though I didn’t find any one piece so memorable that I was reaching for this one again and again, though I appreciated the dark severity of it all.

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Chicago-based duo Mr. Phylzzz rear their compound eye-stuffed heads again for the third time and their stoney, staggered grooves meet up with a mix of weirding kicks and more tuneful, nearly melodic pieces as vocalist, guitarist, bassist Clinton Jacob flips a switch between freak rock goblin (“Damp”) and desert rock-level lap dance croon (“Maybe”) to great effect. It is a short-ass album at ~26 minutes but it’d kept me guessing, like “Where are they going with this high-speed cowbell intro“. Production values are geared up and the record sounds huge as it does tweaked, drum sound is perfect, but the whole thing could use a big honking bass guitar bossing the rhythms up a bit. I’d like to see them clear a room opening for The Melvins sometime.

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Prole noise rock, more than a snifter of acid-jazz and the gassy punk abandon afforded both conjoins the hydra that is Stockholm, Sweden-based quintet Slutavverkning as they attempt to clear-cut the myriad voices telling them to fill all the holes, fill the ever-jabbing need, and end the nagging void within on this debut LP. Once they’ve worked into the tale here, an anti-capitalist message per a parable featuring a pig farmer faced with a dementia-inducing problem, the angst and skronking baritone saxophone-twisted kinetic vaunt of their work turns to atmosphere for effect (nearby “Ättika”) and the weirding avant-garde groove of it all rounds out. It is a brilliant work overall and a surprising result compared to some of their earlier EPs, particularly per the improvisational, energetic gusts of saxophonist/clarinetist Isak Hedtjärn who helps keep things from devolving into a cranked to eleven shoutfest. Not exactly NoMeansNo/Victims as it sounds on paper but still a great record that I’d returned to quite a few times at the end of the summer.

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Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based trio Love Ethic are more of a high energy needled-out punk rock band (“The Problem at Hand”, “I Love You Taylor Duncan”) overall than they are a stiff-necked display of noise rock collapse or deconstruction, always buzzing and distraught as a late 80’s post-hardcore band (“Stephen Hawking: Astronaut”) but just as quickly fiddling their way through upbeat-feeling downer assed art-rock pieces (“Que Lastima”) which feel beyond the pay grade suggested by their art direction otherwise. Every piece is a different ride, some of them suck (“Loneliness”, eh) but most of the trip is well packed with potent enough ideas that make sense hanging out in the same glom. Tuneful stuff but the album cover sucks.

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Alpha Strategy is the product of one Rory Hinchey, a Canadian musician who’d put out three LPs with various folks throughout the 2010’s before everyone moved on… and he moved to Czechia where the line-up was refilled and this ~12 minute EP/7″ surfaced. Once again retaining their employ of maestro Albini and ser Weston and defaulting to a dissonant, caterwauling The Birthday Party-sized freakout mode you’re going to love the sound of this horrible noise as Hinchey howls and scrambles out these short carrot-danglers, pieces that Child Bite could probably make actual songs out of. Much as “Steel Hair” made me want to die in a quick and quiet way, the rest of the experience was unreal, bopping out its last nerve in a confrontational and varied register. I’d especially felt the guitar strangling chime of “Mosquito Generation Point” and the more precise sting amidst the fuzz-diving of “Mr. Wobbles”. Audio terrorism for most I’d suspect but a wild thing to sit with more than once, much less on repeat for a few hours at a time.

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‘Torn Times‘ is the third full-length album from Bologna, Italy-based noise rock duo Nadsat and though the big surprise here is that you’ll find this album is seething with venomous vocals (they’d previously been purely instrumental) and a big groove behind each piece you’ll still feel their math metallic instrumental “jazzcore” past lingering in the machine-taut delivery of it all. Feedback hits, chunking riffs, and catchier early 90’s aggro-rock feeling songs (“Body Fluids”) give us something entirely different otherwise, making for an unexpected but also somewhat over the top record which is probably going to be more ‘metal’/chaotic hardcore-edged than the average noise rock fan might be up for. The extreme energy and the groove are there but the songwriting is almost too simply lain to amount to much more than an average ‘Meantime‘-era crusher (see: “Not the One”). Not a bad thing, especially at their heaviest (“Brand New”) but it feels like their first stab at something great.

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One of the Top 20 Albums of September ’23. — “The second half of the ‘Null’/’Void’ pandemic diptych from Vancouver, Canada-based sludged-at avant-noise rock quartet Ken Mode makes its first half feel like a primer, an intro to the frustrated stinking depths of ‘Void‘. Whereas ‘Null’ had a few excitable singles this record is a pain machine of a different order and a great redeemer since I never quite connected with the fuming but distantly exaggerative side of the band as they toyed with industrial/noise in their own way on a few pieces. This record has some surprising post-hardcore turns to it as they crank out mathy, sludged garage burners one after another. Ruthless, incomparable stuff in terms of defeated and screamed-out noise rock adjacent records and a highlight for me this year.

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No more human dignity, only shite and the wheel that crushes its greying mass. — Leeds, England-based sextet The Shits fuse slow-burning noise punk and dark psychedelic grime on this miserable dirge of a record, managing a motorik but menacing spin (“Waiting”) that carries a huge groove as often as it strains the senses with its slo-mo hardcore punk and howling guitar feedback wrangled hooks (“You’re a Mess”). I was confronted with so much cringe-assed writing about this record when it first came out that I avoided it for a bit but over the last six months it has become one of my favorite albums of 2023. The sort of record that makes you stop and listen closer once in a while, insisting upon its steady-going ruin in such a way that it feels like a bulldozer is coming, you just I dunno… don’t want to get out of the way. So you let it make paste.

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Reno, Nevada-based quartet Elephant Rifle seem like normalized frustration rock up front on this latest LP as the first few pieces hit but they eventually stretch beyond their 90’s noise rock severity into funkier realms of funk, punk and 70’s prog-tinged weirdness in gradual reveal. The spoken vocals are pretty tame, almost too honestly recorded but this is part of the main vocalist’s repertoire as we’ll eventually find growls (“Dry Nurse”) and Wovenhand-esque weirding (“All Locomotive, No Tracks”) and more breaking through as the whole thing rambles on through its 11-pieces. Tons of layers, plenty of pianos, acoustic guitars, and a general sense of self help this prolific band’s output appear of the moment, politically charged and deep in their own feelings about the state of things and I guess this all works best when the energy is up as I’d favored songs like “Cig Stain White” and the ‘Wrong‘-bonking hits of “Medicinal Leeches” over the sorta precocious “Every Billionaire is a Crime”. A mixed bag which, again, I’d say amounts to a well formed personality at this point.

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This latest EP from Brussels, Belgium-based “noise-punk” band Cere pushes hard into their hardcore punk-paced attack at double the energy of their last release, pushing a variety of guitar tones and psychedelic post-punk mash into their gig so that it’ll catch far more ears than prior. They’ve gotten way better at packing action into ~3-4 minute songs with plenty of quick-changing and pedal-stomping motions which do well to add to the adrenaline available to the introduction. Their blackgaze/dissonant metal influences aren’t deleted here but you’re more likely to hit repeat on “Passengers” and opener “Wheel” because they’ve woven those harder elements into the form rather than be lead by ’em, though we do get a bit more of a patient reveal on closer “Croupier”. This was an immediate ball-clutcher that’d had me coming back for a shot in the arm many times beyond release, leaving me beyond hyped for whatever they do next.

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Nobody ever walked into an Oxbow gig asking them to give it to ’em gently but this one kinda eases up here and there, I mean blues-punk and all that jazz-core decayed under their radiation ages ago but their monster still rocks and Eugene S. Robinson‘s unique personae and these folks’ mesh a shade more natural than Bunuel, even. This latest LP gives us ten new shades of darkness and light, a work which feels miles down the road from ‘The Thin Black Duke‘ (2017) and finds their work embracing “now” artists like Lingua Ignota (“Lovely Murk”) and Aaron Turner (album art) alongside brilliant hi-fi production values, complete with a ghostly chorus which seems to thread itself through most of the pieces on the album. Though the last album made a pretty convincing argument for their legacy ‘Love’s Holiday‘ amps it up with a bit more feeling, or, feeling(s).

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Earlier this year I went on a rant about how much the album art just sucks so hard lately between AI-generated stuff and the Bandcamp wilderness set bar for post-hardcore/noise rock and I think this debut EP from Common Wounds (ex-Dead History) is a good example of an image which kept me from giving their first impression a chance. I believe they’ve made the move from Minnesota to Arizona and I’m not sure which members left or stayed but they’ve still got a highly tuneful grasp upon early 90’s TX/NY metallic noise rock grooves and the post-hardcore that followed wherein the harder-edge ramp of their sound (“Lament”) doesn’t excuse them from tuneful and crunchier late 98’s side of post-hardcore (“Hit or Miss”) and that imbalance is enough of a rush that this EP builds its momentum fast and keeps things engaging throughout. If you’re old enough there’ll be this double-nostalgic layered thing happening on this record which sort of outweighs its just alright songcraft, though they are much better at the faster more kinetic side of things than the slow and painful shouters.

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You want to talk about it or… just fight? — Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based quartet Mirakler deliver what I’d consider a proper dirt-level, strung out and hopeless vision of noise rock in 2023. Blowing out every mic, hitting every riff like they hate it and pouring on their messy dramatism by way of a heavy ‘In Utero‘ B-side sense of drugged disgust and a sense of atmosphere which goes beyond the early Today is the Day and Unsane sweatiness of it up front. With fifteen songs to choose from you’re in for a bad trip, a long stretch of mania and depressive grooves which are salvaged by a proper production overall where the amp noise and heave of it all creates an unexpectedly effective experience which isn’t all pain and howling… I mean it mostly is but the full listen goes more places than one’d expect from a ~40 minute noise rock record. The album art sucks, though.

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Kircher is a solo noise rock project from Nathaniel Dominy (Prayer Group, Gifts From Enola) which presents an atmospheric, nigh psychedelic treatment of sludged-at and syncopated pieces prone to let the mind wander while still holding the listener at an arms length with often absurd, beat-poetic rambling (“How I learned to start worrying…”). The main body of this EP concerns itself with modern noise rock damage (“Picking a Scab”, “Swimmin”, “Sicko”) but the atmospheric dread of “Gone” is probably the most interesting juxtaposition to those pieces where guitar noise and martial beats give the ear a place to get lost beyond the trauma happening elsewhere on the record. It is a good starting point beyond the just alright cover art, but I’d like to hear what it’d amount to with about half of the DIY level murk of the recording cleaned up.

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Fosanno, Italy-based “shit-faced noise rock” trio Cani Sciorri have been at it since 2001 managing to eventually breach the rest of Europe and the states with their sound over the course of twenty plus years and ~nine albums. You can feel the persistence in ’em despite all of the fun being had on this latest album, a weirding but accomplished fusion of hardcore punk and weird rocking displays which are juiced with oddly declarative vocals (think, Psychic Graveyard but Italo-punk) and their own intoxicated spiritus. Where they don’t really fuck around is the tightness of the drumming, not only does the mix/master (per Dave Curran) highlight the space occupied by the kit but a solid rhythm section overall drives this record into both fun and frightening places they’re experting these days. They’ve had more fun and been less heavy in the past, I like this ratio best wherein we get all the mean groove from them and a clear feature of the vocalist’s unique snarl. Wasn’t sure what to expect per the album art (which, also sucks) but I had a great time with this record.

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Greying human purpose, ashen forests, a far-gone connection. — Oakland, California-based post-hardcore quartet Ex Everything marry the confrontational, twitching clangor of math rock with the existential absurdism of noise rock to craft an emotionally driven form here which both chases the storm and weathers it in bouts of miserable angst and tentative intimacy. What I mean to suggest is that the ride here is tumultuous in its expression but so entirely pro (performance + render) that it cannot help but embody fight-and-flight, mental escapism and empathy which isn’t so cold as it might seem once they’ve dragged the ear through their razor-cut mud-whipping movement. Featuring current/former members of Kowloon Walled City and Early Graves among others these folks haven’t simply bashed on pots and pans here but found a point of view beyond their original notes of chaotic and pissed off stuff. The thrill of the record hits on the opener but the real crooked soul of it all doesn’t grind its way in until “A Sermon in Praise of Corruption”, or, at least that is when it’d felt dark beyond anything I’d expected. However you’re sort out the sub-genres this was one of the more intense records felt in this realm this year.

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Connecticut-area offenders Intercourse are back with another full-length which marries sludgier noise rock freakouts and rants with violent post-hardcore, or, just straight up metallic hardcore bumps. I mean their whole gig is all about pushing it to the edge, blurring the line, crossing the line, being -real- in a funny way and out loud… getting the laugh, then not knowing when to stop, like that one ADHD pal in sixth grade who refused to take his Ritalin. They’re pretty damned entertaining as a result if you can put up with the max-level shouting, this record eases on the extreme tempo a bit and slaps into blasts less often for the sake of some post-punk ass shaking (“Hollywood, Florida”) and chunkier noise rock/-core pieces (“The Iceman’s Tears”) which all flow together into one fucked up train of thought, puddling into the skronking ugly mess of closer “Kabristan”. Plenty of bands share their anxieties and existential dread in a normal kinda way but I feel like these folks induce it, really letting the listener have it within this disturbed flushing of despairing LOLs.

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