BRUNCH: Thank God

Guyana escapees, Bickel-less, keep fighting. Looser and less linear than the GPL oeuvre, and also weirder: the less amped stretches of "Good Thing Highwaters Are in Fashion" and "Mr. Bluebird Shitting on My Shoulder" could pass for Ruins. Trad-core drag races emerge from calculated confusion, then phase out. Third cousin to the Richmond and Gainesville schools, but generally more offensive: the EP is called Thank God for Pregnant Virgins.

"One Hand Over Yr Mouth"
"Good Thing Highwaters Are in Fashion"
"Alligators Don't Cry"
"2000 Bees Can't Be Wrong"
"Breathing Concrete"
"Mr. Bluebird Shitting on My Shoulder"

Spoonboy, "Fireball, or What I Learned from TV"

Plan-It-X goes to Washington. Downstrokes cut deep as Mr. Max Levine wails, squeezing in every last word against moving pictures. Dense organ harmonies show up to gild the vocal line; tension mounts. Old flames — "That's not reality" — fanned by the fierce urgency of 2004.

"Fireball, or What I Learned from TV"

The Would Be's, "My Radio Sounds Different in the Dark"

Pitch-bending Eire pop, as told to John Peel. Top brass keeps it baroque; counts to seven keep it awkward. Odd enough to estrange jangle partisans, but catchy like the plague.

"My Radio Sounds Different in the Dark"

BRUNCH: Loma Prieta

Cuisinart "skramz": guitar 3, bass 0. Wordy song titles collide with mathy melodrama, erupting into select moments of real transcendence. Paging Kirk Gibson.

"With a Moment of Silence All Was Lost"
"Welcome Spring Break 1989"
"It All Went Down Like on an Episode of 'Law and Order'"
"I Have a Fear of Young Asian Boys"
"Scream Triathlon"

The Brilliant Corners, "Why Do You Have to Go Out with Him When You Could Go Out with Me?"

Toward the ineluctable mope. Davey Woodward's laments are as grim as Morrissey's, but (see title) more plain-spoken; arrested by the "punchy" trumpet break at 1:05, they almost pass for optimism. Amelia Fletcher backs up the chorus, cherubic as ever (and an odd foil in the song's shameful, shameful video). She haunts the outro, too — "I know I should have told you" — while Woodward moans and ties a noose. Decadent jangle pop pushed to the very edge.

"Why Do You Have to Go Out with Him When You Could Go Out with Me?"

Fat Day, "Knute Rockne"

BCS violence, fresh-killed. So much with so, so little. On and emblematic of the first seven-inch, before things got complicated: more slobber, less squeal.

"Knute Rockne"

BRUNCH: Jawbreaker

Dear You discards, still topical as Thorns of Life take root. Skinned knees and shredded vocal cords give way, DGC and all, to a more subdued trio. "Shirt" moved Kurt; "Friendly Fire" triumphs at 2:00, then comes back for more; "Boxcar," juiced but not reduced, remains the definitive implosion of scene politics. Such Promise, such Vision, such Profit Margin: two out of three ain't bad.

"Shirt"
"Into You Like a Train"
"Sister"
"Friendly Fire"
"Boxcar"

Omega Cinco, "El vecino del quinto"

Lisping Spanish psychos ride the SD–BCN axis of anomie. Italiano and the boys package inchoate noise tropes into the tightest thinkable Gravity manqué. Before, E-150; after, (The) Cheese–Les Aus; briefly, Omega Cuatro. Something for everyone, and some of the best there has ever been.

"El vecino del quinto"

Snack Truck, "Peyote"

Warped collage rock from the James River rapids. Two Ultra Dolphins meld '70s-metal flourishes with jabbering, eccentric post-HC until the floor caves at 0:44, rolling out an unshakable, ineffable groove — what specialists would call a game-changer. They never recover, and that's just fine.

"Peyote"

BRUNCH: Fujicolor

Jackfruit violence. Chaotic in the best sense, octaves raining down on the populace, voices quickly growing hoarse. Odd-time hiccups spruce up but don't convolute the structure, punctuated by a few epic moments of conflict resolution. The third track, meanwhile — in name, at least — implicates Kellogg's in the global emo armageddon. From Battle Creek to Klang Valley: who knew?

"Disappointed People with Sentimental Error"
"Captain Oh Captain, My Life Exploded"
"Crackle Noise in Your Violent Breakfast"
"Your Own Blood Are Not Enough Paying"

The Reactionaries, "Cheap False Teeth"

Portside corndogs — before, not after. The Boon–Watt dialectic is at work, with Hurley around for moral support, but it's sublated by a fourth wheel, Martin Tamburovich of New Alliance, and held in thrall by the prevailing '77 blueprints. This surviving shed session holds more than artifactual interest, but it also lacks any of the outcast-funk provocations of which history lessons are made.

"Cheap False Teeth"

Artificial Peace, "Wasteland"

Flexible rent-a-core from the crabgrass frontier. Bethesda boys give the lie to harDCore's underclassy alias, in the process assembling a more credible immanent critique. The sentiment may be commonplace, but its expression above 200 b.p.m. wasn't yet.

"Wasteland"

BRUNCH: Ottawa

Husky crustwork from Current's id. Essential side from hardcore's roaring '90s describes one alternative to the enmetaling enshrined by Jihad on the flip. Ottawa broadcasts a fierce but freewheeling urgency, the careful articulation of speed with sludge, and an "emotional" discipline, especially in "Victim of Dedication," that many contemporaries altogether missed: anguish, but not arrhythmia.

Ottawa/Jihad

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"