Matthew A. Wilkinson – Hand Over Hand
Matthew A. Wilkinson – Like This
Matthew A. Wilkinson – Yes, My Knees Say

Bayonets!!! – Pope of Eagleface

Bayonets!!! – Taking Faith Mountain by Force

Velvet Chrome – Devil’s Gold
Velvet Chrome – Miles Away

Aunty Panty – Mal Au Coeur
Aunty Panty – Cunt

Induced Labour – Whore Eyes
Induced Labour – Condo Party

From the cream weaver of Aaron Levin:
Apocalyptica within Halifax’s midnight Tiki bar. Your math professor is wailing on a saxophone while the pulsing flares of cosmic debris pierce the midnight sky. Sweaty palms grip the last vestige of a shattered harbour. Shells. You sip fruit loops from a half-back crab bowl; sour flashes of crustaceous laced sugar cubes course through your glands, sifting through your intestine. The droning, violent saxophone and battered drums usher the completion of digestion; unwilling to push forward within the rolling, thunderous bass. Languish. Until the waves of post-millennia nu-lounge tether you to oblivion. OBEY.
Catbag – SOLARTRASH
Catbag – JESUS GOD, A FATLIP

From the stressed-graduate-student existence of Joni Sadler:
Eschewing the cheeky sloppiness that often accompanies the ‘weird punk‘ aesthetic, Vancouver’s Nü Sensae lets loose with a visceral attack of noisy jams that are over much too quick for their own good. The eight songs crammed onto this one-sided 12″ are short bursts of frantic drumming, dirty fuzzed-out bass riffs, and Andrea Luki?’s snarled vocals, all packaged together into a wholly ear-blistering listen. When they turn up the rage and Luki? unleashes that scream of hers, she sounds like the single most badass frontwoman of any band, ever. This is punk rock that isn’t afraid to be abrasive; the duo takes pride in the rough edges and lo-fi grit of their songs, and rightfully so. If only more bands had as much guts as these kids do and the sense of recklessness that actually lets them pull it all off without sounding forced. This record leaves little doubt that Nü Sensae means business.
[Levin's Note: Every time I listen to this 12" I feel like I'm getting punched in the face. Very limited pressing. GRIP OR REGRET.]
Nü Sensae – Raven Tussle
Nü Sensae – Peter Tripp

Rivaling Fixture Records as best-designed multi-format boutique label in Canada, Hobo Cult really delivered with a small package of incredibly wyld and strange music; Wasted Widow being the first of many reviews to come. Caught in the imaginative triangulation of punk, noise-psych, and experimentalism, Les Douches Romaines captures a unique moment in uncategorized music. No-gaze? Adjective-wave? Who cares? Classification will certainly fail when filing away Wasted Widow’s wailing distorted guitar, granular noise, vocals delayed beyond calculation, and incongruent notions of song structure. It’s droney and psychedelic and noisey and weird and awesome! I had to have a time-out in my apartment and re-calibrate my association with commonly held notions of “genre” and “taste.” Incredible (no hyperbole). And, yes, those drums are looped in Skyscrape My Shapes. Wasted, indeed!
Wasted Widow – Skyscrape My Shapes
Wasted Widow – Heroin Quest (w/ Clef Guitarson)
Wasted Widow – Love Child (w/ Clef Guitarson)
Wasted Widow – Hospital Memorium (exit)

Eleven thirty-second art-punk anthems straddling a thin-line between no-pop and art-wave (it would have been a lot less interesting for me to say “no-wave and art-pop,” so deal with it). Take ex-Mark Birtles Project and Wolfnote members and put them through the Homosexuals‘ school of everything-under-a-minute rock-anthemy as taught by Devo. You might be close. There’s nothing frivolous and only the good art is spared. It’s music; to the point. They obviously have a sense of humour, but the not the kind that gives you the “no” feeling. Bayonets!!! give me a “yes” feeling.
Bayonets!!! – What Is It
Bayonets!!! – Spank Lloyd Wright