One cool trick for finding out the best punk records of 2015 (we were floored by number 8)

When it comes to lists, I find that, beyond a 7- or 12-inch piece of vinyl, it’s difficult for me to look at recorded music categorically and rank it. Beyond a sense of consciously not trying to put a greater/lesser than value on a record, I just think they contain values that dimensionally can’t be reflected in a linear comparison — Maybe it’s the punk in me wanting a horizontal representation of my interests: SMASH YEAR END LIST HIERARCHY! That said, this is more of a list that ranks the influence and staying power in my own life and not so much an external narrative of better to best. 15. Crap Detectors: My Generation Compromised From Birth
The Crap Detectors were from Lincoln, Nebraska, — the brainchild of Jim Jacobi. Their first LP, Victim of the Media, came out in 1978. These recordings predate that ranging from 1973-1976. These guys remind me of Destroy All Monsters because they were doing punk music in the early ’70s before it was identified as punk. They were from the Midwest, and were bent on experimentation throughout their career. Some of these songs were recorded in more developed forms, even snared for “Killed by Death” and “Bloodstains Across the Midwest” comps. But it’s great to see the protoplasm, the mutant seeds that spawned those future punk classics.
14. Power: Electric Glitter Boogie
Those who know me know I am an Australophile, self-identifying as the “Southern ambassador to Australian music:” I couldn’t think of a better name for this band. They just exude power. They’re the same bogans from Melbourne who brought us other favorites of mine, including Gutter Gods and Dribble, as well as a bloke from Kromosom. I can’t express how much I appreciate trios in punk. Minimalism is my favorite uniform aesthetic throughout art. This isn’t flashy, except for the embossed faux snakeskin cover. It’s just a good rock record. I couldn’t give a fuck about leather and bikees. This is crocodile skin outback filtered through amplified electric guitar. It’s not songs about getting chicks and drinking champagne out of Axl Rose’s boots. It’s about doing a line, chugging a beer, and surfing into the void of urban prison. 13. L.O.T.I.O.N.: Digital Control and Man’s Obsolescence
It would be sick to see L.O.T.I.O.N. battle Power in the next Mad Max movie, but I’m sure it will just be Rob Zombie. L.O.T.I.O.N. is G.I.S.M. channeled through a desert storm cyborg, aesthetically referencing some of Sakevi’s genius in G.I.S.M. and some sort of hacker peace-punk. They kept getting “hardcore band meets Nitzer Ebb” comparisons. I dunno maybe I need to listen to more Nitzer Ebb, but I don’t see that as much. These lads released a dangly earring jump drive with a live show they shared with Sadist from Boston, if that gives you an idea of their aesthetic: true cyberpunk fighting a darknet war against some holographic denim smugglers. Take some mushrooms and microwave floppy discs to this whilst slam dancing into all your appliances, but dance harder because there are wi-fi connections in your light bulbs now and they are watching you.

12. Anasazi: Nasty Witch Rock
From the same scene as L.O.T.I.O.N., Anasazi finally drop an LP after a bunch of great tapes and two 7-inches. The death rock, modern goth train is boring, people. Throw away your chorus pedal. Learn how to write a song that’s not cloaked in echo. Nasty Witch Rock - this delivers on what it calls itself: A soundtrack for urban witches that paint Sigil-esque graffiti, sell drugs, scare little kids, and most definitely are not posting blown out selfies every five minutes on Tumblr and Instagram. This record is catchy and spooky. 11. Dobri Isak: Mi Placemo Iza Tamnih Naocara
My knowledge on punk from Eastern Europe is not the greatest, but I’ve been turned onto some really great stuff this year. In the ’80s (and in a lot of places still to this day), exposure to punk was super limited. The Clash and the Sex Pistols may have been the extent of your knowledge, so these bands were slower to adapt to first-world punk trends, which sometimes makes for an awkward sound. Sometimes that awkwardness yields some beautiful results, though. I imagine Dobri Isak heard Joy Division and were definitely influenced by them, but not in a clone sort of way. Dobri Isak were from Yugoslavia, and could maybe be sandwiched between Polish band Siekiera and the Czech Republic’s Plastic People of the Universe. This is dark music informed by poverty and war, but real war, not 10th generation punks singing about nuclear war in 2015. I should mention this record is a reissue of a tape from 1984. Super haunting. 10. Chain Rank: Up Against The Wall
Shifting gears a bit ... Chain Rank don’t reinvent anything. If you listened to the first Boston Strangler a few years back, this fits next to it on the shelf. Classic Boston Hardcore from actual Bostonians. I don’t really have much to say beyond the fact that I put this on when I work in the kitchen at the EARL and creepy crawl back and forth across the oily kitchen floor, coming close to death by fryer or broiler nearly every shift. Cop this. 9. Part 1: Funeral Parade
Second in the reissue campaign on my list is Part 1’s Funeral Parade EP. If you’re hoping for Warped Tour punk or even esoteric Discharge worship on my list, sorry. Even within outsider culture, I identify with the outsiders. I appreciate the classics, but I always want to build and reinvent myself while tethered to an axis that I have designed for myself. Part 1 was from the same pack of lone wolves as Rudimentary Peni. Blinko even did the back cover art for Pictures of Pain. While Peni rhythmically stuck to punk structures but flirted with death rock, Part 1 are death rock beginning to end. Gag on melted candle wax as black mass evaporates any chance of redemption for your soul. With songs like “Incest,” “The Corpse,” “Possessed,” and “Funeral Parade,” Part 1 is not a band to play to make friends. 8. Rule of Thirds: Self-titled
Rule of Thirds make a modern death rock record that sounds fresh. Chorus is used tastefully. The record feels like fog. There is an ethereal, out of body-like experience I get while listening to this. It feels like you are just hovering above the sound stratified as atmosphere. This is one of those records that isn’t reinventing the wheel, but I don’t get sick of it. It just masters the style it’s going for. Hey guys, go further south than Richmond next time you come to America! That goes for everyone afraid of the South. 7. Spray Paint: Punters On A Barge and Dopers
Spray Paint put out two great LPs this year. They released five LPs since 2013 and I’ve bought every one. They continue to improve their sound with every record. A-Frames on meth possessed by William S. Burroughs, or the Urinals as filtered through a robotic assembly line. These guys also realllllly like baseball. I got to watch them play catch and have batting practice with Ben Wallers aka the Rebel from Country Teasers a couple years ago. This is unique, hypnotic, detached guitar music, and like machine versions of daddy longlegs coiled around your feeble body. 6. Perspex Flesh: Ordered Image
If you like our own city’s Nurse (and you should), listen to Perspex Flesh. It’s mean U.K. hardcore. Listen to the guy, the kind of bloke your parents tell you will stomp your head into pansy dust if you try to sneak into the pub for a pint. Though he probably is a nice guy. Weird, wiry Killing Joke/Rudimentary Peni discord with a throatiness that can only come from the U.K. It’s the soundtrack to demolishing a house. Beautiful arch of beer gut. Fever dream lyrics of dystopia. Purchase or perish. <a href="http://mmansionn.bandcamp.com/album/early-life">Early Life by MANSION</a> 5. Mansion: Early Life
I’ve been lucky to catch Adam Keith (one of two guitarists in this no-bass quartet) play in so many unique rock and noise ensembles over the years. This is real noise rock, not misogynistic, full stack playing, second tier AmRep wannabes. Mansion’s sound is harnessed by drummer Jeff Cook’s asymmetrical, metronomic qualities. Guitars orbit in fast forward around him. Their use of discord makes them sound massive and dynamic. An unintentional punk record? They could play with Glenn Branca, Die Kreuzen, Destruction Unit, or Unwound, and it would all make sense. Sonic brain-melt, detached and visceral. Folks throw around “no wave” — maybe in spirit, but that wave crashed decades ago. Hopefully this record will forge a path for more punks to take a hike off a cliff. 4. Institute: Catharsis
At first listen, I thought this was going to be the beginning of the end of my interest in Institute, but seeing the songs live helped to bring out the cloaked energy that’s embedded on the record. It’s like you can’t absorb vitamins by looking at them. Being immersed in the sound and seeing the band forge those sounds helped coax out the intricacies. Also, the band members selling Faust T-shirts on tour in another band they are in was a good sign. The slightly affected (phased?) vocals and acoustic guitar on “I am Living Death.” Fuck. The way the bass and guitar revolve around each other. Dual satellites. Passages read from some institutionalized patient, who is in there by choice. This one is a brooder that you can pogo to as well. 3. The Coneheads: L.P.1. aka 14 Year Old High School PC-Fascist Hype Lords Rip Off Devo for the Sake of Extorting money from Helpless Impressionable Midwestern Internet Peoplepunks L.P.
What to say? Most talked about band of 2015 in the Internet aether. Deserving of the hype? Yeah. No, it doesn’t sound like Devo. It’s great to see bands that prefer anonymity to publishing every synapse firing in their body into the virtual world. The first two tapes collected here will be classics of the 20teens. The artwork is great, with sarcasm perfectly on point, balancing cynicism and humor perfectly. As I have become older, I feel like people’s perception of punk at large has waned. Obviously the promise of overthrowing world government and skateboard utopia was never realized, but what punk gave us is that it’s still a relevant place. A place beyond boundary, without border. A vehicle for idea and communication. In 2015, the phenomena of the Coneheads is helping non-punks and punks that had lost their way realize that punk is still relevant. 2. Diat:Positive Energy
I enjoyed both of Diat’s 7-inches as well as their demo tape. Their second 7-inch, I believe was supposed to be an LP, but they scrapped half the recordings. Then this kept getting pushed back. When this LP finally came out, I was floored. It was all I listened to for the next week. It gives me the same feeling Low Life’s Dogging LP did last year. I put my headphones on and walk around, imagining myself walking through whatever the sonics are trying to express. Diat is an interesting juxtaposition of Australians living in Berlin. Isolation meets the cold massiveness that could only be Berlin. The one-two of “Young and Succesful” into “Toonie” would honestly be enough for me to put it on this list. It’s doom and gloom to the extent where you should be wearing a parka in the pool in July if this is playing. This album (and the above mentioned Institute record) are anchored by the bass playing, so as a part-time bass player, that’s what I really appreciate. What a lot of these records on this list do is take me to another place, a way out of my own life for 20 minutes. 1. Dawn of Humans: Slurping at the Cosmos Spine
Dawn of Humans have constantly blown my mind. First seeing them three-four years ago in a basement on Moreland Ave., their singer Emil was completely naked except for tree branches taped to his arms and a cardboard box with an overhead projector screen for a face. It’s not just an absurd costume. Last time I saw them he held up a mirror in front of himself so that he was, in effect, a reflection of the crowd watching him. Turning the tables on voyeurism, audience inclusion, or breaking down audience/performer boundary? At the climax of the performance, the mirror was smashed and he jumped into a crowd of 500 people. He also told me the first time I met him that his dream for the band was to have all their genitalia tied together while they played, though no one else in the band seemed keen on the idea. As well as the theatrical aspects of the band evolving greatly, so has their sound, as they’ve moved from a noisy hardcore sound to one of the most unique punk bands of our time. Where English words do not do him justice, Emil creates his xeroxed words, which are contorted to fit the vibe of what the band is trying to convey. Every instrument on the record is equally important to its totality, each one vaguely mimicking another beast in the band. “Mangled Puzzle” — go ahead and try to put this one together. An assembled puzzle where all the pieces are put together incorrectly.

Punk is at its most interesting point in Atlanta since … well, maybe ever. I mean no disrespect towards any of our predecessors, but this is now. Atlanta’s punk scene is a keen amalgamation of folks from all over the country that have moved here. I feel like one of the few natives, but I’m OK with that, nodding back to a place without boundaries. We’ve toured extensively over the last few years, especially the Midwest, and it’s paid off: people are coming here to play. They see that there are, beyond great bands, great people here, and I want to thank everyone that has helped pave the way. I hope you all take what you do seriously and continue to build things up for ourselves. Real quickly, a few of my local favorites from this year: Predator’s "Drag/First To Know" 7-inch on Total Punk, Nurse’s demo tape and lathe cut of forthcoming 7-inch on Scavenger of Death, Slugga "Parasite" 7-inch on Total Punk, Mutual Jerk demo tape, Ritual Knife’s Demonstration tapes, GHB’s LP that will come out one day (been listening to this for almost a year now, it’s killer), and lastly, Polish Nails’ 10-song digital LP. Whether or not those guys care about punk, it’s a great album and very punk to me in many ways.