HANK IV - 'REFUGE IN GENRE'

Formats

• SB117 - LP

  655030111716

Details

A decidedly meaner, sharper, and more pummeling affair than their critically acclaimed debut, Hank IV's second album, Refuge in Genre, sports eleven songs in 30 scorched-earth minutes. No visit to the lo-fi or "shit-gaze" Quonset huts this, Refuge in Genre was recorded in shattering hi-fidelity by Tim Green (The Fucking Champs) and mastered by Bob Weston (Shellac). The rollicking San Francisco quintet has been in the crosshairs of the Siltbreeze hunting rifle since just after the release of their debut LP, Third Person Shooter, was (Hook or Crook, 2006). Attempts to release their Dirty Poncho 7-inch were squashed (the honor went to Plastic Idol) so Siltbreeze did what any jilted paramour would: decided to get even. The sound of Hank IV is a bit too wily and scrambled to pigeonhole as any one type of honk. Forward thinkers might tag 'em as panic-skiffle, combining the cunning and menace of compadres such as Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments or Country Teasers, with a dual guitar attack that nods toward the Bailey / Kuepper-era Saints as much as those dudes looked at Smith / Kramer for their nascent moves. Through all this stutter and pummel, vocalist Bob McDonald (formerly of Denver hardcore icons Bum Kon) doesn't throw caution to the wind so much as atomize it. If a shattered leg can't keep this herc from heralding the apocalypse, do you think your tender widdle ears have a chance? Not likely, bub. San Francisco quintet Hank IV has no relation whatsoever to the Hank Williams clan. Their hard-charging and visceral dual-guitar rock punk has been likened to "Crime meets Viletones meets Styrenes punk" (ZGun Magazine) and by WFMU's DJ Terre T as "a sick combination of Volcano Suns and Blue Cheer and Chain Gang!" Third Person Shooter was called "one of 2006's top punk albums" by Maximum Rockandroll, "Best of 2006" by Terminal Boredom, #2 album of 2006 by WFMU DJ Evan Funk Davies, and the #8 album of 2006 by Terre T. The band has played twice at SXSW, including 2008 for the WFMU 50th anniversary showcase, and performed at Gonerfest IV in Memphis in 2007. Hank IV torches the shit-fi ghetto! Refuge in Genre recorded in shattering hi-fidelity by Tim Green (The Fucking Champs) and mastered by Bob Weston (Volcano Suns, Shellac). Includes dropcard for free digital download.

Tracks

1. I?m Quitting 2. Feeding Me Back
3. Get It Straight 4. Celebrity Virgin
5. Drive the Whip 6. My Anger
7. Symptomatic
8. Beaten, Reviled, Threatened, & Hated
9. Dirty Poncho
10. Sorry ?Bout the Boat Race
11. Diamond Cutter

Press

Who cares, once the NME gets a whiff of this, they wont be caring much about Matador's latest big money signing....this turns the whole "shit-gaze" "snooozegaze" scene on its ass....believe it.

Audio & Video

LOVE IS SO FAST - 'S/T'

Formats

• SB118 - LP

  N/A

Details

Exact details on the origins of The Love Is So Fast are vague; essentially, it was a project created by Danyhell and Estrella (currently in Los Llamarada) intended to flesh out bedroom improvisations and act as an inner search for a sense of skeletal (pop) structure amid the morass of postmodern rock effluvium. Performed live and recorded in one take, the five hazy, languorous tracks certainly charge the ions with positive, crystalline zip, creating an electron hole that sounds like alien transmissions from a long-ago Mars. Not the band, friend, the planet! Fans of the debut LP by Los Llamarada (S-S Records) will be downright giddy with the Precambrian narcomenace that comes carbonating off The Love Is So Fast's archival recordings. Or, as the band says themselves: "This is the music we dreamed of but couldn't play." Grab the peyote, I think I'm Frida Kahlo.

Tracks

1. Everything Goes
2. Soy Rebele
3. Do You Want
4. Time
5. Beautiful Stranger

Press

N/A

Audio & Video

DER TPK - 'GAMES FOR SLAVES'

Formats

• SB108 - LP

  N/A

Details

The Philly label Siltbreeze has become a real honey pot for der classe scheisse rocke, or whatever NME can call it this week; more SB releases in the past 18 months than in the past 12 years....good times indeed! Anywaay, Der TPK liken the sound of their second aural onslaught to "[The battle of] Kursk, second day." Who among us cannot relate to the largest tank battle in history? While the comparison may not be an easy nut to crack, the reference, specifically to the second day, is telling: the wonton destruction that unfolded on that field of battle in an attempt to break the Soviet bulge cannot be overstated. For the Germans, it was unmitigated tragedy. So by comparing Games for Slaves to this particular point in the offensive, Der TPK makes clear that album number two is more brooding and melancholy than Harmful Emotions. Bunker Wolf's menacing lupine-schrei is as formidable as ever, but the band has moved from the blitzkreig, almost hardcore-like pace of their Siltbreeze debut to a more Mancunian post-punk sound (angular guitars, rhythmic dirges), crossed with the luftschutszbunker psychedelia of German Oak (especially on the organ-laden tracks). Edmund Xavier's spidery guitar fills recall similar stylings of a young Bernard Sumner, while the bass/drum propulsion of Boy True and Catholic Pat call to mind the underrated talents of Slight Seconds' Mike Shaw and Peter Hibbert. Getting back to Bunker Wolf, there is no one like him. Maybe if Peter Hind (Mittagspause-era) could still squeak while goose-stepping across the squat in a pair of leather trousers, then we might have some trouble. But that ain't likely. No one does it in 2008 like Teenage Panzerkorps. Games for Slaves is more beauteous gas on an already raging and spectacular fire. Edition of 500 with insert and single-sided, silk-screened, black-and-white cover.

Tracks

1. Unfavorable Meanings
2. Human Winter
3. Occult Logic
4. Vorantwortungsfreude
5. Problems With God
6. Nervous Sacrament
7. Reverse Salvation
8. Fear of Shapes
9. Phantom Column
10. The Messenger
11. Death, This?
12. Cryptic Eye
13. Shopping Blitz

Press

N/A

Audio & Video