Shitbastard - S/T 7" (1994)

Of all the random cheap hardcore records I bought over the years cause of cool bandnames/covers, this is one of the most brain-damaged. Basement-level sloppy hardcore with weird grunt-sing vocals that veer into Eric Cartman territory. They play it fast and loose like early Meat Puppets, with the clear guitar tone showing every missed note and twisted change in all its glory. Definite shit-fi potential.

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Smokin' Willie - Smokin' Willie

Reverb-choked 'lude-rockers sing the barbiturate blues. The fuzz solos on the heavy tracks scyth through the murk and go straight for the back of your brain, struggling up from the leaden mire of the rhythm section, which pounds monolithically (this is of course a good thing). The lighter songs, covers of "Whiter Shade of Pale" and "House of the Rising Sun", while still maintaining the downer vibes, disrupt the flow of the sludgier pieces somewhat, and break up the album in a mildly frustrating way. Well above the biker rock/heavy psych average though.

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The Index - The Index (1967)

This is what you'd expect the first Velvet Underground record to sound like if you'd only read reviews from the time: raw, depressive, smack-addled garage rock for a degenerate, anomic civilisation. This record is bathed in an unrelenting cloud of grey noise, 60s reverb-obsession taken to its anti-logical conclusion. Their version of "Eight Miles High" bears about as much resemblance to the original as Husker Du's, taken the sweet out of the Byrd's bittersweet rendition and facing the horrors of Vietnam with blank resignation. The wintry doombeat excursions of "Rainy Starlet" and "Fire Eyes" remind me of Joy Division, with ahead-of-the-curve hippie disillusionment replacing post-punk angst. These guys were from Detroit, an industrial city in decline just like late 70s Manchester. There's definitely a similar noise-loving impulse to The Stooges, those other detroit pre-punk legends, but The Index are about drug-addled introspection rather than Dionysian release.

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