The Sleaze, "Smokin' Fuckin' Cigs"

Bored teenagers strip down, light up, go Cockney. The perverse reversal — which is to say, unqualified acceptance — of the Fashionable Idiots credo lends a hyperreal sheen to every trope we've digested and then expelled from the system. Absurdly flawless: 111 seconds of suspended disbelief.

"Smokin' Fuckin' Cigs"

Cuddle Machines, "Bombast"

Plucky bass-driven punk rock nears end of days. Kings County know-it-alls mobilize impeccable influences — Big Boys, Skull Kontrol for starters — and hit purée. More than a touch of Minutemen dapples the batter, and the Spiv sass factor is never far, but it doesn't feel citational, just equipped. One more time with feeling?

"Bombast"

BRUNCH: Kuma

Surf-and-turf novella: must love bears. Bedtime travelogue, precious but never smug, confirms all roads lead to Portland. Bikes, kittens, freshwater fish all stop by, each track a tightly focused exposition of the ursine everyday. Bright-eyed honey pop, ages 2 and up.

"Hello, My Name Is Kuma"
"I Like Salmon"
"My Little Sister, Haruko"
"Broken Bike"
"Working Is Tough"

McCarthy, "Charles Windsor"

Soufflé-light regicide from the left of Raymond Williams. The least dialectical statement on I Am a Wallet, or the least subtle, insofar as it lunges for a public figure and the not the commodity form writ large. Still fiercer, indeed more material, than anything on ethereal Sarah, the other last best hope ca. perestroika. Just can't wait to be king.

"Charles Windsor"

The Embarrassment, "(I'm a) Don Juan"

Twitchy call to arms from behind horn rims. Prairie polyrhythms fall in line, clearing room for bleached, offhand yeh-yeh echoes and that restless bass. A plinky digital mix can distract, but the life-affirming video (1981) more than compensates if KBD-and-seek seems a chore. The heart of the matter with Kansas.

"(I'm a) Don Juan"

Devils Hole Gang, "Isn't It"

DIY shrapnel from the Desperate Bicycles milieu. Ferocious in the most oblique way: start–stop hook erosions keep it earthy, but the sentiment is thoroughly modern, a jaundiced electric eye sizing up received pieties of the early Thatcher days. A swift seminar, also, on the title's grammar-defying valences in British dialect — illogic the Homosexuals aired with "It's What's in It, Isn't It?" Timeless crackle pop from a distant island kingdom.

"Isn't It"

The Yolks, "I Do What I Do"

The newest in new from Criminal IQ. Urgency without untidiness, revival without regression, and, incidentally, the perfect melody. Over. Easy.

"I Do What I Do"

BRUNCH: Amy Linton + Stewart Anderson

Popstar dalliance, 1996–1999. Four tracks that sound, respectively, like the Aislers Set, Boyracer, the Aislers Set, and Boyracer. A tremendous primer at any rate, but synthesis this is not, and we're left, swooning, to wonder: What is that middle ground?

"The Lights Are Out"
"Romance, Baby I Don't Care"
"Hipsters, Scenesters, Teenstars and Fakers"
"I Cut My First Tooth on One Just Like You"

The Last, "Looking at You"

Minimally reflective freeway punk. Aside from coffee, fish, and fast food, the Descendents' lone influence — a fact evident on the "Ride the Wild" single but hidden by the time of Fat. Hyperreal harmonies, triplet fills, and beachy bravado. Surf Nazis, basically.

"Looking at You"

Cardiac Arrest, "Old New"

Thug lite from the shores of the Mississippi. Throaty barks, structure, and everything else recall Negative FX, but themes stay closer to the vest — "You used to push me in the halls / Now you push me in the pit" — and betray a boyishness that Brannon could never ratify. Forever 17.

"Old New"

BRUNCH: Sin Orden

Crudos disciples sloganeer, counter-hegemonize. Reductionist migra manifestos still hit hard, biggish breakdowns and an impossibly militaristic snare drum lighting the way. Recent splits and some airspace on the first Histeria also merit attention, but this EP is doctrine.

Intro/"Pesadilla americana"
"Autonomía"
"Nuestra historia"
"Somos la mayoría"
"Cuándo va terminar"
"Puños en el aire"
"Leyes y reglas"
"No a la guerra"
"Imbasión"

The Softies, "Hey Hey Girl"

Central Valley popcest. Rose Melberg and the other one scrub Rocketship clean with nary an organ in sight, tasteful bells doing the evocative with plenty of room to breathe. Eclipses the Talulah Gosh cover on It's Love and, by furlongs, every Softies original. Ambience through absence.

"Hey Hey Girl"

Indigesti, "Nessuna ragione"

Germy thrash, Italia '82. Speedy shock therapy: brat-pack yowls, Piedmont populism, grainy messthetics. Tighter than the Wretched split — and tighter than Wretched — but resolutely anti-technical. Molto espressivo.

"Nessuna ragione"

(lo:muêso), "Rented Mistakes"

Catalan anglers hoard punctuation, dramatic structure. Give it time — specifically, 2:30, at which point the choppy dissonance wanes, funneling into an extended up-the-ladder second act that promises transcendence and almost delivers. Jehu freaks with a touch of the baby's-breath vocals that kept Party of Helicopters in flight — but also some questionable prog tendencies of late. Never forget.

"Rented Mistakes"

BRUNCH: The Dils

Carlsbad class consciousness. Sweetness and light from the upper registers of that left coast. The downbeat stomp of "You're Not Blank" remains the fittest rival, in the last analysis, to "I'm a Bug"'s troglodytic cadence, except the Kinmans pile on harmonies and some unforgettable unison kicks. Praxis makes perfect.

"I Hate the Rich"
"You're Not Blank"

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, "Helen"

Washed-out background pop from the hills. Old news by now, but this is what we call a sleeper. Among the less self-referential tracks on House Arrest (cf. "Hardcore Pops Are Fun," built on an identical chorus hook), and a welcome flash of candor from this lilting scion.

"Helen"

Descendents, "Like the Way I Know"

Lost-and-found angstage from the greatest. Cut with SPOT for MGTC but unmixed until 1998, this one trickled from The Last to the Descendents before escaping non-posthumous release. Chainsaw pop at its purest, the thick Navetta tones both prickly and warm, Milo's wounded cords spitting little dissertations on the outcast's episteme. In every sense, a national treasure.

"Like the Way I Know"

BRUNCH: Tiala

Combustible time-sig terrorism. Complex but never hyper-intellectual, grafting tightly wound thrash segments onto the bipolar conservation-of-energy rubric that bubbles under so many records birthed in the wake of emo. Dig the Shaft-hat intro, the walking bass, and finally the screams as the boys lay waste to facile notions of climax and denouement. Tiala pals around with the Malay crew — Fujicolor, Orbit Cinta Benjamin, Kias Fansuri — but is Japanese, and their side so dwarfs splitmates and alleged scene doyens Utarid as to compel some serious soul-searching around Kuala Lumpur.

"Futekisetsu Gendou"
"Public Enemy"
"Tuu Tuu"

Algernon Cadwallader, "Serial Killer Status"

Puberty comes to the Keystone State. The realest Cap'n Jazz clones modern science ever cooked up. The jilted aphorisms live on — "You can't just get off the bus now / So cut off your feet and like it because stubs are better feet" — but wordplay, when it indeed crops up, feels just perfunctory: another track, we regret to inform, on the Some Kind of Cadwallader LP is called "Yo Soy Milk." Boisterous, anyhow, and atavistic in the best way. ¡Qué suerte!

"Serial Killer Status"

Books Lie, "Letter to My Psychiatrist"

Possessed hardcore from pre-onslaught Williamsburg. Vocals by way of End of the Century Party, which spells spite and frustration, but a clear eschewal of the spastic tactics that defined that band, Palatka, or other Floridian comrades. Total refusal, lyrically, underwritten by a furious battery harvesting the fruits of the '90s and spoiling them anew.

"Letter to My Psychiatrist"