Righteous Jams
Business As Usual
Abacus
Boston band Righteous Jams’ latest album brought me back to the 80’s when it sometimes felt like there were X’d hands everywhere. The music here is straight edge hardcore. Old Boston-style straight edge hardcore to be more exact, with a heavy dose of late 80’s NYHC thrown in for good measure. [...]

Riverdales
Riverdales
Asian Man Records

When Screeching Weasel went belly up, Ben Weasel, Danny Panic and Danny Vapid formed the briefly lived Ramonesish Riverdales. This is a re-release of their first album, previously published by Lookout Records and taken back by Ben Weasel in his 2004 falling out with the label. Aside from the original tracks, there [...]

While listening to the demo from Long Island, New York’s John Wilkes Booth, I kept getting flashbacks to my AmRep obsessed years. Not that they’re 100% in the AmRep style, but they certainly remind me of a cross between a few of the later period bands from that label (Chokebore being a main one) and [...]

The Damned
Noise Noise Noise (Bootleg Box)
Castle
Featuring five shows over five years, this box set includes sets from 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982 and 1988. The quality is similar throughout, not amazing but listenable, making me wonder if there isn’t better sounding recording stashed somewhere that might have been used. The [...]

The Horrors
The Horrors EP
Stolen Transmission

Out of all the new(er) things I’ve listened to this week, the debut EP by UK band The Horrors has been in rotation the most. Garage music with decent production, they’ve made me listen to a lo-fi rock band again when I had [...]