Brian Shultz

Deep Sleep Turn Me Off   Deep Sleep's first official studio album, Turn Me Off, comes after releasing a near-annual trio of promising 7-inch EPs for niche hardcore label Grave Mistake. Their full-length debut doesn't change their m.o.: This is fast, no-nonsense melodic hardcore with brief, wanky riff wails modeled after Dag Nasty and earlyDescendents, […]

Shad & Dallas Two Songs EP Rapper Shad has been celebrated for his combination of personal and socially aware lyricism harkening back to the ’90s conscious hip-hop movement. Dallas Green's time in post-hardcore ragers Alexisonfire and quieter musings in folky side project City And Colour has practically made him a flannel-clad demigod. They've got a […]

Joyce Manor Joyce Manor Joyce Manor's first full-length is a curt 10 tracks that hardly even eclipses the 20-minute mark, but it's only part of their atypical approach to everything. Merely labeling the band “pop-punk” also does a great disservice to the scrappy and slightly “off” quality to this bustling, scrappy self-titled debut. However you […]

Glassjaw Our Color Green (The Singles) EP   Glassjaw may have been fucking with everyone over the course of the last few years, but in the second half of 2010, the band actually properly released new music. More specifically, they issued a series of pricey, one-sided singles in ways viral marketers can only dream of […]

Nightmares For A Week Don’t Die   While the Get Up Kids have reunited to offer up a new full-length early next year, it’s highly unlikely a follow-up to Jawbreaker’s Dear You will ever materialize. Kingston, New York’s Nightmares For A Week try to soften that everlasting blow of uncertainty with their well-crafted debut LP, […]

Circa Survive Appendage EP Circa Survive weathered the transition from underground post- hardcore heroes to emotional alternative rockers flawlessly with their major-label debut, Blue Sky Noise, issued earlier this year. (Post-post-hardcore, really, if you want to get pedantic considering the styles Saosin, This Day Forward and Taken were getting involved with during Circa‘s formation.) And […]

Such Gold Pedestals EP   Such Gold's debut EP, 2009’s Stand Tall, was a pitch-perfect, gimmick-free example of how solid the melodic hardcore-influenced pop-punk sound could really be when imbued with an indelible enthusiasm and adolescent passion. With the band's six-song follow-up, Pedestals, the quintet tap into greater shades of aggression and more intricate guitar […]

Aficionado When It Comes To Creation EP   It's written pretty clearly in the record books that punk rock started as a simplified movement in response to the bravado and over-the-top shenanigans rock had begun to dabble in at the time. Aficionado must be some fantastic mediators in that sense, because they've forced both styles […]

Rufio Anybody Out There   On what was thought to be Rufio's final bow, 2005's The Comfort Of Home, frontman Scott Sellers' voice had improved tremendously, losing its nasal overbite. The only problems were the album's muddled production, underwhelming melodies and guitar work that was scaled back in comparison to their prior output. It was […]