BRUNCH: Apeshit

Best-in-class Gravity atavism. Brief, quasi-technical spasms strip away the algebraic conceits of an Ampere but lose almost none of the bite. The last five entries on this demo appear, cleaned up, on a split 12" with Tigershark; here, the rhythms blur somewhat, but the blunt vocal mix adds sass. "Scabs & Scars" is probably the best distillation of Apeshit's project, the breather section reduced to seconds and mangled into strange shapes. Serious sounds — almost enough to vitiate the fool exclamation marks that bookend the band's name on official documents.

"Demo 2"

Gorilla Angreb, "Bedre Tider"

Springy Danish punks recall better times. The "punchy" production here sanitizes inchoate rockabilly leanings, and the clarion chorus, which each glorious time still feels clipped, rings true, unmuddied. Bizarre harmonic schemes shroud the thing in a slasher-film aesthetic, but these accoutrements can't allay the X worship that lies at the core. They're desperate: get used to it.

"Bedre Tider"

William Martyr 17, "Blame It Red"

Razorbacks wrench hearts, calculating catharsis with more than boys' poise. Wrecking-ball first-chair bass, alluring unison figures, and that voice all make this slow-churner strangely immediate. Unlike many contemporaries, WM17 songs reach no obvious stopping point: the steady cadence of glides and yowls could extend into the night, unfazed. When four minutes feels stingy, something's right.

"Blame It Red"

BRUNCH: The Bananas

Left-field "Peel Sessions" from Sacramento's finest. All-heart Frogger vocals, sizzling six-stringzz, and some of the best melodies this side of 1959 allow conventional building blocks to recombine into some really unforgettable punk rock. "I Gotta Be Me" most acutely channels the sock hop, but the one-size-fits-all spite propelling the ensuing trio shan't be counted out: "Big Blue Marble" charges that much harder. All this and more on the essential First 10 Years collection — for low, low Plan-It-X prices, to boot. And yes, it's a pun.

"I Gotta Be Me"
"Amy's Birthday"
"My Charmed Life"
"Big Blue Marble"

Assfactor 4, "Attempted Control"

Miscellaneous sedition from Palmetto pranksters. Making the northwest passage to '82 San Francisco, the unclassifiables dig up a Code of Honor tune, ignore the code itself, and carve some flabby seconds off the whole beast. Aerodynamic if nothing else, and better than the thick-headed original. On my honor.

"Attempted Control"

Jerome's Dream, "My Most Recent Left–Right Brain Argument"

Turn-o'-the-century heroes introspect, burn bright, pass out. Making blast beats a threat again, JD's violent polyrhythms evoke titular schizophrenia better than the wailed lyrics, and in the space of forty seconds sufficient ground has been bulldozed for the life-affirming coda to blossom. Splitmates Orchid cower in awe, bested. Maybe Spirit of Versailles, debatably Trillion Barnacle Lapse approached this piercing vocal stratosphere, but they cheated — which is to say, they sang into microphones. File under "unplugged."

"My Most Recent Left–Right Brain Argument"

BRUNCH: All Scars

D.C. dream team genre-hops, reinflecting the local canon in stages and tactically letting it decompose. This "Early Set," from Early/Ambient, catches the shape-shifters at their least loose, scrapes and chunks aplenty. Bettis delivers his Meta-matic twitcheroo over a damaged battery that pushes the '90s-Dischord playbook a few yards outside its comfort zone. Occasionally the band of brothers — here a Canty, there a Canty — congeals for a righteous Fugazian holler-chorus, but then they back off and start bending strings again. They need their space.

Early Set

Gauze, "大きなサツマイモ"

Veteran Easterners emerge from their growlery 26 years later, mean and gutteral and bloody as ever. A cornucopia of harsh tones, well fermented and then unleashed at light speed with only an intuitive nod to the strictures of time. Vicious and nearly unsuitable for headphone listening: the threatening snare stings like a drill bit to the left temple. Day jobs and midlife crises mean we might not see another LP until about 2016, but keep hope alive.

"大きなサツマイモ"

Eat Skull, "Punk Trips"

Gristly PDX treble hounds milk it and don't look back. Sick to Death is every bit as compelling as they say, but it's a grab bag, a maxed-out postmillennial potpourri. "Punk Trips" is the most immediately anthemic. Drowned beneath waves of organ and those insistent bullhorn vocals, the existence of a rhythm section is merely implied. Somehow, though, the track charges like none other, interpellating and then firmly berating all comers: "This is what matters. This is relevant."

"Punk Trips"

BRUNCH: I Like Japanese Hardcore

Confessional Clinton-era cuddle pop straight from Neverland, i.e. Bloomington. Cloying and citational to no end: note the multiple, discrete references to mutton chops, sweaters, Calvin Johnson, and surely other creddish period tics. Everything's out front — every barre chord, every furry, gaping long vowel — for coarse-toothed inspection. No secrets — we're here to listen.

Live on WFHB

June Paik, "Echoes"

Ominous extremo pads Deutschland's fertile scene, channels Quebec's. Never terribly terse, the band plumbs convention to build, section by epic section, an insistent parade of doom. But the real prize with this LP is sort of the lyric sheet, which, especially in translation, showcases one band member's sideways stabs at an English literary voice. For "The Inquest," read, "Reality dastardly takes advantage of conscious moments / Run the gauntlet in slo-mo / Interrupted only by profane stagnation." The penultimate track, "Coarse Sphere," unfolds, "Peakedly threatening monoliths / Point at small amounts of lunacy turned to gas / Like at the surrounded enemy / Loamy soil washed by the rain / Shines resplendent like glass beneath my feet." Saetia got your tongue?

"Echoes"