ISSUE #1

Welcome to New Noise Now.
This site is devoted to developments in underground rock and punk.
I'll be updating this blog every Saturday or Sunday for starters.
This should not be taken as some comprehensive site, rather a carefully curated list of things that I've come across during the week.
Maybe I'll do interviews down the road as well.
Let's see how this goes.

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VIDEOS
Watch: Parquet Courts play "Stoned And Starving" on Fallon

Brooklyn indie-punks Parquet Courts brought a remarkably uptempo rendition of "Stoned And Starving" to NBC's Late Night With Jimmy Fallon on Thursday night. Just imagine Andrew Savage's dazzling hair and that full-on feedback assault at around the 3-minute mark reaching roughly one million households. In a word, glorious.


 

Watch: New Total Slacker video for "Keep The Ships At Bay"

Earlier this week, MTV (of all places!) debuted a brand new Total Slacker video leading up to the release of their new record Slip Away, due out in February on Black Bell Records. The video features the Olive Garden-endorsed band rocking out in some dark warehouse, intercut with a dramatization of lead duo Tucker Rountree and Emily Oppenheimer going on a short-lived crime spree through Brooklyn. Apparently Paris Hilton was a key influence here? Alright!

Total Slacker - Keep the Ships at Bay

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SONGS
PICK OF THE WEEK: "Lawman" by Girl Band

Where: Dublin, Ireland
From: Lawman 7" on Any Other City Records
Album available: Now

"At long last," you exclaim upon hearing "Lawman" for the first time, "a noise-rock track that I can bump at my next rave!" Much like the Dublin quartet's ear-searing cover of Blawan's "Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage," this new track finds Girl Band experimenting with the intersection of sinister dance beats and dissonant guitars -- a sludgy buzzsaw bassline locks in with a relentless uhn-tiss backbone, while Dara Kiley's anxious vocals twitch and shout from the back of the room. Come for the groove, stay for the freakout.

The 7" is up for order and free digital download at Girl Band's bandcamp.



Listen: "The Way Things Are" by Household

Where: Brooklyn
From: Elaines EP on Dull Knife Records
Album available: Now

If you like your post-punk as barebones as possible and riddled with hooks, Household is well worth a minute and a half of your time. Similar in approach to their fantastic 2011 LP Items, "The Way Things Are" finds the band moving swiftly and mechanically through its motions, constantly toeing the line between energy and restraint. Pattering drums and needly guitars wind around Talya Cooper's quietly raging voice that mutters into the void, "I have a hobby of expecting the worst." I feel that feeling that you feel.



Listen: "Manipulation" by Jackals
Where: Norwich, UK
From: No Solution LP on Hardware Records
Album available: 2/1/2014

Normally, I'm not that into political messages mixing in with the music that I listen to because it detracts from the escapism, but hearing Jackals for the first time might have just changed my mind a little bit. According to an extensive description from this hardcore sextet, "Manipulation" is a manifesto against discourse that blames societal ills almost exclusively on the lower-class, a culture that effectively "punishes the vulnerable." It's admittedly tough to hear this anti-classist message amid the song's distorted furor and quasi-psychedelic delay, but all the same, Jackals get serious points in my book for not writing about shitting in a sink like most punk bands these days.

Also, the song rips.

The whole album is streamable at the Hardware Records bandcamp right now in advance of its vinyl release.



Listen: "Rabbit's Foot" by Oily Boys
Where: Sydney, Australia
From: Majesty EP
Album available: Sometime in 2014

Yeah, OK, keep moaning that punk died in the mid-80s or whatever. While you're working on that, I'll be listening to this killer new track from Oily Boys over and over again until I deliberately puke all over your Converse. A half-speed, snarling intro that brings to mind His Electro Blue Voice at their most tense opens up into a dizzying hardcore beatdown. Refreshingly innovative and heavy as fuck - the way punk should be in 2014.



Listen: "Exterminate Me" by Warthog
Where: Brooklyn
From: Exterminate Me 7" on Katorga Works
Album available: 1/14/2014

All of the universe's anxiety rolled into a single lyric: "GET ME OUT OF HERE," shouts a presumably red-faced Chris Hansell, formerly of PE duo Foreplay and, uh, The Men. While the latter group has evolved into pure dad in almost no time at all since Hansell was apparently kicked out, "Exterminate Me" finds Warthog rolling in the noise-addled pigfuck and hardcore textures that made The Men's finest moments on their early records so exciting and hearing-loss-friendly. Just wait for the song's warzone of a second movement as proof that this band is really only here to break necks.

In addition to their new 7" coming out on the 14th, they'll be playing New York's Alright in the spring. Keep your eyes peeled.



Listen: "Medicine Bottle" by Housewives
Where: London, UK
From: Housewives LP on Faux Discx
Album available: Now

Faux Discx has to be one of my favorite label finds of 2013 - for one, they released one of the most tragically overlooked records of the year, Vision Fortune's Mas Fiestas Con El Grupo Vision Fortune. For another, they closed out the year with a pair of incredible releases - the haunting Nightstalker by Androgynous Mind featuring Patrick Flegel of Women, and this, the debut LP of now-wave Londoners Housewives. "Medicine Bottle" is a surefire standout from that debut, featuring squiggling, atonal bursts of guitar and an endlessly repetitive, acrobatic bassline that nervously holds the song in place. Sociopathic monotone, tumbling drums, and intermittent saxophone skronk completes the scene. The results are disorienting. Absolutely recommended for folks who like Spray Paint, Sediment Club, and/or DNA.


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