Rank/Xerox (San Francisco Post-Punk)

Official Site:
http://rnkxrx.tumblr.com

Free Downloads and Streaming Audio:

http://soundcloud.com/ros-records

Here's a review of their recently-released self-titled LP (on Make a Mess) from Maximum Rock’N’Roll

An urgent, desolate sound that evokes collapsing modernist architecture, awkward photographs and polyester trousers. Post-punk nausea for those that would rather reach for Soma Holiday than anything out of Leeds in 1982. This is my favorite local band. Their music is constantly moving, a million parts in action creating a picture that’s stark and powerful, and there’re only three people in this band - one Australian accent and two American ones. Former members of HC acts BURNING SENSATION and JUMP OFF A BUILDING now making out of place music for desperate times. They are excellent live, propulsive energy and power to flatten all dispassionate audiences. I’ve heard people compare them to ZOUNDS, I think they are more in like with the PROLETARIAT with some MIDDLE CLASS aggro snot injections. At any rate, this LP is a totality of nervous energy and dark movement, it sort of makes me think of the KEBAB song "We Live In A System", that paranoid force. It’s hard to write about a band you love sometimes, it’s easier to dismiss things than to explain what the secret ingredient is that makes something rule…Listening to this on headphones in a dark review corridor it feels like a transportation device. Lyrics are incisive surgical cuts, evocative and nightmarish constructions. It’s stark, dark music with underlying currents, PETER HOOK-ish basslines and scratched out guitars and the drums are like a more organized PALMOLIVE! For real, if you like skating around town with WARSAW on your headphones, this is your sound. (LG)

Brody's Militia/Black Market Fetus 7" EP and The Lions Rampant CD Reviewed in Maximum Rock'n Roll

Maximum Rock'n Roll #325 June 2010

BLACK MARKET FETUS / BRODY'S MILITIA - "Unhindered by Scum" split EP

Right away I noticed the cover as a parody of NAPALM DEATH's Scum art. Oddly enough the artwork seems to depict a concert for the dead masses and the band names of of some crappy heavy and classic rock bands all over. Odd...even a HAWKWIND t-shirt on some sort of dead dude. Right, the music-well, looking at the track listing, there is another hint of a semi-tribute to early grindcore. Each band plays a couple originals but in addition, BLACK MARKET FETUS does a cover of NAPALM DEATH'S "Human Garbage" and BRODY'S MILITIA does covers of SORE THROAT's "The Crossover is Over" and "The Return of the Son of the Crossover is Over." Both bands rip through some great new grindcore tracks. Good stuff. (MH)
(Give Praise)


THE LIONS RAMPANT - "It's Fun to Do Bad Things" CD

You probably only need one image to picture what the music sounds like on this CD. Fortunately, it is on the back cover. Three shirtless guys standing on the roof of one of those '70's-style custom vans while fireworks go off in the background. If that doesn't do it for you, I'll spell it out. The music is Southern-tinged hard rock. One song has "cocaine" in the title and another has "gin" in its title. Yawn. (CK)
(Deep Elm)

White Walls Demo Reviewed in Latest Maximum Rock'n Roll (#319 - December 2009)

DEMOS


WHITE WALLS - Five songs of harsh, dissonant hardcore along the lines of whatever you call the sound that's being cultivated by bands such as CULT RITUAL and TOTAL ABUSE, and though the layout does reek a bit of this band trying to be "cryptic" (based on the ambiguous artwork and stark layout), I otherwise don't get the impression WHITE WALLS is trying to pull some sort of "weird punk" hack job.  These songs don't follow a formula, have tempo changes that are unexpected without being awkward, and parts rarely repeat themselves twice. The vocals actually remind me of DOWN IN FLAMES of all things, though they're mildly muddled, as is the recording to a certain extent. The second side's single song has the singer babbling incoherently over a single note/chord dirge, with occasional B-side-of-My War informed changeups and feedback squalling over everything.

- Dan Goetz (5-song cassette, no lyrics included, 518 Garrard St., Covington, KY 41011)

http://whitewallswhitewalls.blogspot.com

Their side of a split 7" with Landlord:



A band called Ashtaroth who did a split 7" with Landlord was reviewed in the June Maximum Rock'n Roll. They're from Arizona and bill themselves as "Native American Indian Black Metal" (it's more black/death than anything...). The review was extrememly positive. Unfortunately, there were no traditional influences, which disappointed me greatly. But maybe I'm just spoiled by Al-Namrood...

The best songs on their myspace are "Darkness and Beyond" (which is freaking EPIC), "Distant Land" (which starts with a Conan movie sample), and "Breath of the Gone" (the kickdrums are up pretty high, though). "Angel of Light Angel of Lust" is another good one, but aside from that, i'm not entirely impressed. They're not bad by any means, though. It's just that you're essentially listening to some Indians from Arizona play above-average Scandinavian black metal with lyrics about their culture and religion. Oh well. Anyhow, they also have a full length CD out and an ep that came from this year.

http://www.myspace.com/ashtaroth1