Various Artists

Hair: Chicago Punk Cuts

[4/5] What do you get when you put 14 of Chicago’s best punk bands inside a barber shop-turned-recording studio over 14 days and make ’em each crank out an exclusive recording? If your comprehension skills are a little lax, you get Hair: Chicago Punk Cuts. The sequel to 2003’s Oil: Chicago Punk Refined (where 19 bands recorded in 14 days at an oil blending factory), Hair contains a melodic-punk gem from Ryan’s Hope (who could easily become this generation’s Bad Religion if enough people pay attention), intricate indie rock from Colossal, head-spinning post-hardcore from the Felix Culpa and skull-cracking post-everything with Cougars’ “We Blog The Hardest.” Almost every band on this comp brings their A game-the only real duds are Horace Pinker’s and Break The Silence’s contributions; but they’re more than made up for with “(The Killing Tree Is) Dressed To Fuck,” the first new song in two years from Rise Against frontman Tim McIlrath’s sorta-metalcore side project the Killing Tree. And good God, does it rip. (THICK; thickrecords.com) Chris Black