about a tired-sounding punk/hardcore band

Industrial Puke’s second album, “Alive to No Avail,” opens with a serrated guitar riff, then comes the whole shebang.

The band plows ahead with its volume-equals-good ethos and centers a maxed-out vocal. The loudest part is always the vocal—chorused layers of it parading machismo.

The Swedish band’s second full-length tries to squeeze a few more miles out of the sound first heard on its 2022 red-blooded crust EP, “Where Life Crisis Starts.” The whole thing was seven minutes. Soon followed the band’s full-length debut, 2023’s “Born into the Twisting Rope.”

I wrote about the first one, “Where Life Crisis Starts,” here.

The band insists on one speed, one volume, and one trick. Its monotonous sound stumbled across the finish line of that brief four-song EP.

It was okay then, as far as it goes. But it doesn’t go very far.

 

a review of an album by a guy who doesn't prioritize music

Longtime Brooklyn musician Brian Russ finally lets the music surface

Brian Russ has a family, a job, he coaches baseball—stuff that often comes with mature adulthood. But he found time to put this album together. He calls the project Hand Gestures.

Some people—maybe especially once they reach their 40s—try to be in the moment but also frequently find themselves thinking about the past and trying to relate it to now. That’s what happens in these simple little songs.

For starters, “Once it Starts to Kick In” is a simple little jam about opening up oneself to whatever good there is in whatever reality has become. The song includes an overdriven guitar that intrudes in a way that is at odds with the easy-going sound of the drums, acoustic guitar, and vocal. And mid-song, a little keyboard offers a toy melody that plays well with that overdrive.

Most of the album is like this: simple songs—songs that feel like they were already written, and Russ just had to channel them for himself.

Russ has been playing music a while. Check out the video “I’m Not Lying” by a band he was in, Backwords, posted more than 10 years ago. Man, that is a good song. The pining, the purity of the voice? Lovely. The loose composition and modest hi-hat tapping away the time. That oldie has a kind and rooted sound.

 

The Hand Gestures self-titled album will be released October 31, 2025, on Russ’s own label, Campers’ Rule Records. But today he needs to stop at Home Depot to get a spare key made and pick up some weed killer.

Notes: A lot generous, this review. I don't think Russ is even the singer for Backwords. That song was the main reason I wrote this.

a review of some UK metalcore band

Metalcore band Wolves follows up almost 10 years after releasing a promising EP

The whole Wolves rhythm section is just slamming counts when “A Stolen Horse” opens. This blunt force is countered by a clean, flat vocal harmony. Twenty seconds later, the song turns to airy, echoey notes pinging from guitars against more heavy drums and clean vocals.

The metalcore band is fond of these abrupt changes. The tracks often sit just at the edge of traditional songs' reach; Wolves tests and favors a math-curious approach. Songs on “Self-Titled” level up and level down rather than flow, and the music engages you more than it moves you.

I still like groove, though, and Wolves flirts with it from time to time. “All Or Something,” for example—after a typically halting 45-second opening sequence, the band hits a confident little riff that takes the song into and out of a heavy groove.

The album’s promotional copy cites Every Time I Die, Dillinger, and Poison the Well. Those bands? Okay, maybe some. But from that great era, I’d suggest Wolves are a bit more like Candiria than ETID and Dillinger.

These musicians played in other bands before forming When the Wolf Comes Home in 2016 and releasing the EP Gone Are the White Flags on Damage Limitation Records soon after. They stalled out after that but finally are releasing a worthy full-length metalcore album, “Self-Titled,” on September 5, 2025, on Ripcord Records. The drums sound crisp and deep with a very light touch on the cymbals. The guitars are full and tight, the bass seamlessly filling in the bottom end. The band says four members share vocal duties.

The Poison the Well reference makes sense when you hear songs like “The Rich Man and the Sea.” This is metalcore—some clean singing complimented by hardcore scream-shout singing, and chugging riffs that bookend more melodic guitar sections. This song recalls those turn-of-the-century Poison the Well albums.

Slow, patient, and heavy, “A Guide to Accepting Ones Fate” opens with generous guitars. And here is another groove that deserves a call out—at 1:35, a curly riff takes hold, and the band really jams. A few moments later, it’s gone.

 

a poem, sort of, for a morning in winter

Sunshine in the rear-view mirror in your eyes breaks lines on the wave. Scolds coldly you on the rooftop for time though you are only a victim of sunrise and its move to reverse space. Down how many stairs and salt lakes on landings he steps into. Routine trap. Cutting you down and to wish south where one can be reborn.

Nobody talks to you, it's just how people describe you after you shuffle past. Outside with dormant sedans, see stars float like fall’s leaves in the creek.

No more people are knowing about you now. Who lost everything could always return and hug the trees like family.

The list is thousands long. It will follow you all the way. Tell me about breaking your will and what needs to happen, what you belong to.