Brian Shultz

Joie De Vivre We’re All Better Than This Joie De Vivre broke up for approximately nine months in 2011. While they haven't necessarily grown stronger in that short period with their “reunion” full-length, We're All Better Than This, they're certainly no worse for the wear. Their sophomore LP dishes out more of the same totally […]

Bullet Treatment Designated Vol. 2 EP The origins of Los Angeles's Bullet Treatment lay in the early-to-mid-2000s, with the West Coast act tearing off ripping hardcore punk in the vein of classic forebears Angry Samoans and T.S.O.L., with the Bronx frontman Matt Caughthran at the helm. For whatever reason, the band seemed to become more […]

DNF Hurt EP Members of Trash Talk and Touché Amoré come together in DNF to bust out mean, dark and occasionally evil-sounding hardcore. While sure, their tone leans in the direction of the former band, it's no side-project copy: DNF produce nasty bits of power-violence and sludgy stomping that resembles early Ceremony (“Most Few,” “Homesick”) […]

Tigers Jaw/Tiny Empires Split EP There are a handful of special tidbits concerning Tigers Jaw's latest split EP. For one, it showcases the recorded debut of Tiny Empires (formerly Black Clouds), the newest project from ex-O Pioneers!!! mastermind Eric Solomon. For another, despite the tracklisting only listing three actual tracks, there are technically six individual […]

Whirr Pipe Dreams Guitarist Nick Bassett has this predilection for opening his bands' records with guitar strums that sound impossibly human. He doesn’t paint textures so much as he smears them, gripping the listener immediately while surprising them with what comes after. He did it with “Preface,” from Whirr's promising 2010 EP, Distressor (the band […]

Primitive Weapons The Shadow Gallery Primitive Weapons are a collective of Long Island hardcore veterans pounding out a relatively esoteric take on the weathered ground between metal and hardcore. The few record collectors likely to be familiar with the band's heritage (cult favorites like On The Might Of Princes and Milhouse) probably won't be surprised […]

Indian School The Cruelest Kind EP Hopefully, you were tuning in when Audio Karate released 2004's Lady Melody, an awesomely roaring rager of Cursive-meets-Jawbreaker punk rock. (If not, go get it. Now.) It’s an appropriate preamble to The Cruelest Kind, the debut EP by Indian School. This particular band is more or less Audio Karate under […]

No Motiv Winterlong EP No Motiv have been criminally overlooked ever since emerging from the Nardcore punk scene in Oxnard, California, in the mid-’90s. While their early releases were a bit of a second-rate, emo NOFX, they released a trio of impressively consistent albums on Vagrant Records around the turn of the century (which, nonetheless, […]

The Heat Tape The Heat Tape EP The Heat Tape's members come from a variety of bands, but the two you'll most likely recognize are the Copyrights and Dear Landlord. (Those would be frontman Brett Hunter's other bands.) The roughshod pop-punk those bands employ have little to do with the Heat Tape, however—this is super-lo-fi […]