Zulus Will Break Your Face - That Is Their Way

The playing field for discordant, disaffected post-punk raconteurs has certainly got crowded of late. We have been advocates of Copenhagen teens Iceage in the past, and others such as Total Control and Rank/Xerox have brought out stellar albums recently. Now add Londoners Zulu to the mix, whose fifteen minute annihilation of a cassette Way Of The Zulu raced out the Stroll On Records doors. That's what you get for tapping the vein of a zeitgeist and only making 100 tapes, I guess. It isn't as immediate or revolutionary as its contemporaries' offerings, yet hopefully there is enough going round to get some re-release thing up and running, because there are some killer tunes amongst these 9 songs. The Clash references thrown in their direction are not just because of the quintet's looks either, especially on 'We're Watching You'. it has been lambasted by some as losing some impetus due to its lack of variety - but this is fucking punk, people! Plus at under twenty minutes, its a heady non-stop session of eating glass. When your opening track is called 'Annoying Song' and begins with a lament that the band members themselves are "a bunch of pricks", and it sounds like he actually means it, you know that this is true DIY punk. Circa 79 too - this is more nostalgic than the other cream of the crop, and it works in Zulu's favour.

You can stream Way Of The Zulu below - we'll wait with bated breath to see if Stroll On push more of these onto the salivating public, or someone else picks up the slack. Either way, this is an exciting introduction.



Zulu - Sistine Chapel
Zulu - Annoying Song
Zulu - Bloody & Rare

Declaring War On The Ice Age

It's no secret that I'm a rabid fan of Denmark's punk nihilist teens Iceage - their New Brigade record is easily one of the best of its kind for the past decade, at the very least. Whilst we all wait anxiously to see if they can ride the wave of expectation to create another killer album, their frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt combined with Sexdrome's Loke Rahbek to form weird electro-disco-no wave-punk outfit War. I say weird, because I shouldn't like this - but I do. Very much. They put a 7" out through Sacred Bones last month, backed up by a split with Lust For Youth (through the great Avant! Records), and the resultant feverish aural masturbation that has hit the taste-makers of this insipid world is OTT - but somewhat warranted.

War - Brodermordet

Posting Rank/Xerox's Punk

San Francisco has to be one of the best places in the world music-wise right now, especially if you love your guitar rock dirty, dingy and fun. But not all is fine and dandy. One of the best albums of 2011 came not from a garage group but some disgruntled guys that, alongside The Men, Iceage and Total Control, proved that some of the best music comes from the darkest spaces - and that post-punk is far from dead, despite many fuckwits' attempts to make it so. Rank/Xerox's self-titled debut is acid-tinged angularity, acid saliva and discord. What's not to love? Nothing, for this album, just like those mentioned above, have distilled what the genre's progenitors (read: Wire, Gang Of Four, Mission Of Burma) gave birth to, and adding so much verve and venom that it refuses to be ignored. I'm a douche for not putting this out there sooner. Rank/Xerox is vital. (Plus the lead dude is an Aussie, and what with Liars still pushing hard and Total Control killing, says something, dontcha think?)

Rank/Xerox is out now through Ros Records.

Rank/Xerox - Cave Dweller
Rank/Xerox - Nausea

Lose Total Control On The Henge Beat

To complete today's triptych of incredible Aussie rock releases, we have Total Control with their Henge Beat. I mentioned seeing Dick Diver last week - well, seeing as Al is from Total Control, it's important for you to see on the strength of the Dick Diver album why Total Control is still his day job. The Henge Beat LP is dark, dank and oh so seductive, a driving synth-punk behemoth that wallows in the flooded basements of Berlin, hiding the remains of the Birthday Party, Ultravox and Wire. You can see a correlation with another white-hot album of this year, Iceage's New Brigade, yet this is a little less brutal. The musical nous of founding member Mikey Young (Eddy Current Suppression Ring, UV Race) may surprise some, but it is clear he not only understands what makes garage rock tick (rather than poseurs), he can also pat Ian Curtis on the nape of the neck before giving him a donkey punch. Henge Beat is rabid, a little perverted, but also another release that seems unaffected by affectedness. This is a sound that pervades the participating members because they believe in this. And that is what makes Total Control a dangerously beautiful (albeit combustible) commodity.

I implore you (like I have with Royal Headache and Witch Hats) - get this now!

Total Control - One More Tonight
Total Control - Carpet Rash

Your Sex Grows Over In This Church...

There was a time late last year when everyone seemed to be losing their shit over Sex Church, the Vancouver outfit whose music dealt in masochistic mayhem of the rustiest variety. Their Six Songs release was raw, brutal, and inherently enervating. Since then though, we have seen a surge of acts drink at the same fetid pond - namely TV Ghost and Brisbane's own Slug Guts. But where TV Ghost embrace a more indie-centric viewpoint to the industrial malaise (and I mean no disrespect - I think it is this pop aesthetic that elevates these guys to a much higher realm than most others plying their trade) and Slug Guts are more style over substance, Sex Church really seem to inhabit the rabid viscera contained within their performances. That's not to say these guys are worse than trash humpers - I'm sure they are lovely tea-sipping fellows? Or maybe THAT will be offensive to them? Maybe humping trash is their ultimate pastime? Whatever, the point is that this is REAL.


And on Growing Over, their latest on Load, Sex Church feel a little more cosy amongst the shards of jagged glass and broken syringes. Its insidious. It sometimes feels like Disappears headed by Rowland S Howard, at others like a freebasing Iceage. But comparisons are useless, like they always invariably are. All's can be said is that Growing Over is exactly that - Sex Church have just let the ether take them over to spew forth whatever it sees fit. Such abandon means that tracks either start with intent before tangentially chugging into the shadows, morph from garage staple to oozing wretch, or thrash you with a thousand hammers before kissing you deeply. Its skewed, somewhat brutal and a more than a little unhinged - and very, very real.

Sex Church - Waking Up
Sex Church - Beneath The Bottom