Shitlickers - Cracked Cop Skulls EP

This is the epitome of early Swedish hardcore. Amongst all of the crusty d-beat bands from the early 80s in Sweden, Shitlickers probably take the cake for being the most over the top in their punx-ness and attitude. Everything about this 7" reflects this. The band's name reflects this, as does the EP title, and take one look at the cover art and you'll understand. Regardless, this EP is beautiful. Amongst the four songs, there isn't a single one over a minute. The songs are exactly what you'd expect from this type of band, noisy and pissed-off d-beat hardcore. Awesome shit.

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Urban Blight - More Reality 12"

This record is the definitive bedroom mosh. Recorded by Jonah Falco, who seems to be have been responsible for every good Toronto release in the past year or so, Urban Blight tears it up with some great early Boston/New York sounding hardcore (think Negative FX meets Agnostic Front). The record also has a really rough mix, which in my opinion adds to the effect. Also, the cover art is an homage to early 12" hip-hop singles which is kinda neat. All the songs on the record have big catchy choruses which beg for gang vocals at live performances, and make these guys one of the best bands to watch right now in the Toronto scene.

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VA - Pop Punk's Not Dead

This is without a doubt, my favorite compilation ever. Pop Punk's Not Dead is a 30 song comp filled to capacity (it's over 70 minutes long) with some of the dorkiest, cheesiest, and catchiest pop punk bands in the world. This album gets better everytime I listen to it, and I've been listening to it for about two years now. As stated before, all the songs are super catchy, uplifting, and shamelessly dorky. Track names include, "I've Cried 4 U", "Jumpstart My Heart", "Stuck In Springtime", "Last Summer", "Just Right Thing In Summer", "When I'm Here With You", and best of all, "I Wanna Kiss You (On The Lips)". This album is perfect sappy teenage spring/summertime music and thus has been the soundtrack to my past 2 summers and hopefully more to come. I don't even know what else to say about this album, aside from stressing that it's the best comp I've ever listened to. Check it out.

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Download part 2. 

The Gerogerigegege - Tokyo Anal Dynamite

This is probably the best album ever made. The Gerogerigegege (Japanese for barf, diarrhea, ha-ha-ha, as illustrated by the cover art) was my favorite "Japanoise" band. This release is a live set from 1987 divided up into 75 tracks. Despite the number of songs, the album is less than 35 minutes long and each "song" is between 15 and 58 seconds long. The songs are essentially something being spoken in Japanese and sometimes English ("Sexy Night-o") followed by a 1-2-3-4 and about a half minute of harsh noise and screaming. The Gerogerigegege also recognize the importance of covers and do several covers, my favorite of which is their beautiful (25 seconds-long) rendition of The Ramones' "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker". The Gerogerigegege also made beautiful names for each of their songs which include "Ass Morning", "Brown Out", "Anal Boxing" and "Kill Baby Kill". This album is hysterical.

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Paintbox - Trip, Trance & Travelling LP

As if bands like GISM, Hanatarash, and The Gerogerigegege didn't already prove to the world that Japan is responsible for some of the world's most fucked up music, Paintbox went all out and recorded this. Trip, Trance & Travelling may be the single most bizarre album I've ever listened to. It's a double LP, 74 minute-long exploration of psychedelic rock, J-pop, hardcore punk, and a lot more. Listening to the album can be exhausting just because of how much stuff is going on all at once, but its extremely rewarding. Tracks like "Praying" and "Thaw" definitely stand out. Check it out, more than trance or travel, this album is a definite trip, but certainly a worthy one.

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Volkurah - The Pagan Ritual demo

I first heard Volkurah on the "Vinland vs Finland" comp which featured 2 bands from Finland: Hammer and Vordr, as well as 2 bands from North America: Bone Awl from California, and Volkurah from Ontario. Volkurah's tracks on the comp sounded like early Burzum, slow, ultra lo-fi depressive black metal and were my favorites off the comp. After checking out the comp, I decided to read up a bit on the band which turned out to be a one man band from Guelph. This demo seriously rules. As stated before, the demo sounds like any early Burzum release. The riffs, vocals and production are total Grishnackh worship, but in the best way possible. They even do a Burzum cover, "Depressive Visions Of The Cursed Warrior". Probably my favorite thing about this demo are the riffs, especially on "Druids Of Pagan Ritual" and "Innocence, Crucified And Set Aflame", possibly one of the blackest and most depressive black metal songs I've heard in a while.

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Avskum - Uppror Underifrån LP

This one gets me really stoked. Swedish d-beat legends Avskum recorded this LP 26 years after they first formed in 1982. Avskum evidently haven't toned down any of their anger towards capitalism and after 26 years of getting crucified by the system, they're pissed as ever. What makes this album better than a lot of their earlier releases is that the sound is a lot more refined. Rather than just playing sloppy, pissed off d-beat, it seems like Avskum got a bit more experimental and put some serious effort into the song writing. As a result, the album has the fury of the band's previous releases but also sounds a lot darker, and a lot more intense with the songs sounding less samey. You can hear this in the first 45 seconds of the first track, "Kapitalismens Yitersta Dagar" and it sounds fucking rad. The dudes from Avskum said in an interview, "I don' t think we know how to give it up so I think this is a life project. I think we are going to do this crust punk thing sitting in wheelchairs on stage with piss and shit dripping from our bondage trousers." Let's hope so.

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Purity Control - Demo CS

Purity Control is a straight edge powerviolence band from my hometown of Toronto, Ontario. This is the first tape they released, and they've released a second one which is great but this one is still my fav and I'm kind of obsessed with it. Essentially, the demo features everything I like hearing in pv bands: growled/shrieked alternating vocals, noisy elements, sludgy parts, ultra-fast parts, cool samples and short songs. This band doesn't play shows too often, but they destroy when they do so definitely check them out if you're in the area.

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Totalitär - Multinationella Mordare EP

Totalitär fucking rules. Not only were they one of the coolest early hardcore/d-beat bands from Sweden, but they had some of the coolest album art I've seen. This is their second release and was released in 1987. This 7" is basically 5 tracks of the rawest, dirtiest, and most intense Swedish crust. What makes me dig Totalitär and this record in particular, is the way the band puts their own subtle twist in the d-beat formula to keep everything sounding fresh and interesting yet totally brutal. You can totally hear this in the intro to the title track, "Multinationella Mordare" which opens with the coolest riff ever. Also, the intro to the first track, "Allas Vir Livvakt" has this totally New York hardcore sounding breakdown-y thing which is kind of unusual for Swedish hardcore from this early on. Also, the production on this record is raw as fuck: most of the songs are bass driven as the guitar sounds like total fuzz and the vocals just rule. All of that adds to the totally crusty feel of the record along with of my favorite record covers ever and just destroys everything. Especially those murderous multinational corporations.

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