Oh my god, the scene is all over the place. On this week's SOUND CHECK, Shockoe Records is hosting an event to honor the 50th anniversary of the creation of hip-hop with RVA Rapper's Delight, some Richmond veterans are celebrating 20 years of playing in the city,...
Face Value - Rode Hard, Put Away Wet: Clevo HC 89-93 (Smog Veil) In an era during which hardcore bands have the ability to reach larger audiences than ever before, it can sometimes be difficult to recall that at one point this music was infused with a palpable sense of danger. Hardcore was a subculture whose adherents were drawn more from genuine...
Screaming Females, The Two Funerals, Body Cop and Little Master August 16 at Gallery 5 Monday evening at Gallery 5 felt like a celebration. All the bands on the bill were wonderful. It’s a great feeling to have a new favorite song embedded in your head and a new sense of rediscovered inspiration in your step. After the show was done, I couldn’t...
Prisoners - Back In The USSA (Smog Veil) My first listen to the debut album from Ohio’s Prisoners left me without an opinion. A second listen helped to highlight the strong influences of bands like the Replacements and the White Stripes in the band’s songwriting. With twangy, grungy guitars and gruff, crackling adolescent vocals, Prisoners do an...
OUTASIGHT – Never Say Never mixtape (LRG) ZERO STARS OUT OF FIVE Over the course of this bloated, wildly unnecessary piece of hip-hop-clothing-line-sponsored promotional ephemera, Outasight manages, against all odds, to shit out one magical golden egg of inadvertent retard-savant wisdom: there are some people in the world who are simply not worth...
Just Plain Ant - Rumble, Young Man, Rumble (justplainant.bandcamp.com) Just Plain Sounds’ prolific beat making impresario, Just Plain Ant, returns with a vengeance on his latest guest laden full length release. Ant’s signature style of jazz infused hip hop is strongly on display and more eclectic than ever as each track is taken in a new...
In less than 48 hours, the Ninth Annual Best Friends Day Weekend will begin, kicking off with a Thursday night show at the Bike Lot. Over the course of a long three-day weekend, the festival will encompass at least 6 more events, featuring live performances by Andrew W.K., Propagandhi, and reunited hardcore legends Negative Approach, among many...
Twenty-one years after its original release, Godflesh's first full-length album, Streetcleaner, has been reissued in a deluxe two-disc edition that features both a remastered version of the original album and plenty of extras for fans to sink their teeth into. Rehearsal demos, live tracks, and early mixes fill the second disc and showcase the...
Worried About Your Wiring, the second Amoeba Men LP, has been made available for free download by their label, CNP Records. It's an accurate representation of The Amoeba Men's live sound, a spastic off-kilter noise that is equal parts art-damaged punk, chaotic math-rock, and something else entirely, not metal but definitely dark and heavy. Jason...
Eleven Tigers - Clouds Are Mountains (Soul Motive) This album combines the best ideas from the past two decades of electronic music--hyperactive drum n' bass beats, Burial's underwater dubstep, plus dark ambience and the reverberations of post-apocalyptic cityscapes. Adding information-overload samples and surprisingly accessible melodies, Eleven...
