2013's Year End Top 10 from MRR

I’m not following orders here I just wanted to include things that were the best in 2013. It’s lame because of how few non-USA bands have made the list. Bands from all over the world send me your stuffs. I don’t wanna miss the good materials this year. - vargyai.viktor at gmail.com 

Top 8 lp

Gun Outfit – Hard Coming Down (Post Present Medium)

Gun Outfit sounds like music I have already heard but actually I have never heard such music. Gun Outfit makes me recall memories I just wish i had. They bring me to places where I haven’t been or want to go back. They write songs about life but everything sounds better through their music. It’s so real and magical at the same time. Every of their record is better than the one before and every of their new record is their best. This band is amazing. Dream punk.

Society Nurse – ST (Iron Lung Records)

This year many bands have succeeded with writing a full length hardcore lp. Society Nurse stands out with their disgusting, threatening, destruction filled, never resting music. The vocals are angry as hell, the guitars remind me to Mecht Mensch, I wanna run around and fall to the bass bridges or whatever the fuck it’s called when hardcore music gets really groovy between two fast parts. This record is pure rage, a beautiful piece of falling apart punk hardcore.

Una Bestia Incontrolable - Observant Com El Mon Es Destrueix (La Vida Es Un Mus)

This catalan band carries the torch of amazing reverb spanish hardcore. Gathering psychotic and psychedelic rotten sounds, mixing it with larger than life beats and channeling through it dirty basements. Sometimes the guitars tell you more than the singer’s howled angst. It’s a manic stuff for acid freak hardcore fans.

Hoax – ST (Self Released)

I did not believe the hype. Although I have way to often found myself watching their live sets on youtube at nights. There was something in the singer’s eyes that was more frightening than his bleeding forehead. By doing this their sound has grown on me and luckily the lp is nothing to get used to. From the first second it’s the perfect echo of the vandalism this world is doing against the misfit crowd. So they turned it up against the victimizers. It’s pure alienation, suffering, desperation and running into the wall with nothing to lose. The songs sound as crucial and heavy and noisy as it’s possible, there is filth everywhere. Just look on the cover it’s so psychical you can say they put even their bodies into this not just their fingertips. I hate cheap shots as bleeding band members but with Hoax that should be the last thing to remember after this LP.  

Broken Prayer – ST (Sorry State)

I’ve never been so friendly with the idea that punk needs progression. I like how diverse it is with its million sub-genres but I felt no need from the music I love to progress. What Broken Prayer does is a bit of progression. For me using keyboards in Hardcore / Punk and leading their songs into something different which is closer to slackerish indie rock is nothing alike. It might sounds horrible but they are not just avoid failing with it but doing something amazing. If you ever wondered how would Wrangler Bruts sound with a keyboard here you are. This is so well thought, really something different while it still has the essences of punk in its core. Amazing.

Vixens – ST (La Vida Es Un Mus)

Visceral noise, ideas from all around, whatever happens, it has to happen. I only heard this album two weeks ago but since then they can’t disappear from my playlist. Amazing rage, what collapsing since forever but from these life ruins they build a wall wherein assholes are not allowed to be. Total Void worship, don’t be a fool this rules!!!!

Life Stinks – ST (S-S)

For some reason proto and post punk sounds better at midnight. I have spent nights listening to Modern Lovers, Velvet Underground’s European Son, early Pere Ubu and The Fall. Life Stinks sounds like even at midday as you were listening to these bands’ best songs at midnight. While you can hear these influences they are adding some indescribably new to their sound. Could it be the distorted bass, the desolated feelings, anything. They do not joke but it’s not as artsy as it could be. More like cool punks trapped in a gallery for a weekend, trashing painting, skating on sculptures, never sleeping. Sooo good!

Manipulation – ST (Sorry State)

I don’t know how much of a treasure were Talk is Poison and Deathreat when the punk scene was influenced by labels and trends, not by bands themselves. Those dark medieval times when there wasn’t a blog run by all of your housemates. But I do know these two bands above are fucking cool and so does Manipulation who are heavily influenced by such bands. And maybe a bit of Citizens Arrest. I love hardcore but many times I love hardcore more when it’s played by punk, by freaks by people in boots and not sneakers. When it’s hard because they are so fucking angry not because they see how fucked up this world is not because they are hurt by some of their friends are changing. Manipulation is this, its punk music but punker than punk. Put it on and burn your local police station.

Top 6 mini lp

Tony Molina – Dissed and Missed (Melters)

#1 thing of 2013? Getting together with my girlfriend. #2 of 2013? Listening to this album after failed dates and in drunken loneliness.

No – The Great Space (Static Shock)

Don’t know what triggered the chaps of UK to form amazing hardcore bands every second day but NO is winning this not easy game easily with putting out such ragger. What the fuck is this? This is faster than high quality amphetamine. Put together the fastest songs of Siege, some outer space noisy guitar parts and a bit of DYS and play it on 90 rpm.

Flesh World – ST (La Vida Es Un Mus)

I trust Jess Scott. I’m a huge fan of Brilliant Colors, loved the Index tape and this is nothing less than the previously mentioned bands. This is dreamy, reminds me of the weird and uncategorized feelings of NZ guitar bands, but its punk music for those who are fine with weekends spent alone in their rooms having fun in their own world, for travelers with no direction for bus rides at rainy middays. The whole sound gives me the feelings of spinning. This band is something new, something different, something amazing!

Stoic Violence – ST (Katorga Works / Video Disease)

Are they humans? This is raging hardcore punk played really well. Still there is something more pushing every sound from the speakers, jumping on you, pulling you down. They play this music as the angriest people in the world. It’s good when not only the music sounds angry and fast but the people behind it.

Pleasure Leftists – ST (Deranged)

I’m not a huge fan of this goth-new and dark wave of punk that is the huge thing nowadays. I thought Pleasure Leftists falls into this trend as well but I was soo wrong. They do sound post punk, but it’s more like they used tamed punk to raise the tension. Outsider music, while it’s not hard to listen to but kinda hard to understand. Alienated voices from a gloomy world. Can’t wait to host them in my room. They have deserved my pizza!

Sickoids – No Home (Sorry State/Grave Mistake)

The sonic hymn-ness of Hüsker Dü has disappeared. The raging aggression of Midwest hardcore stayed. It got mixed with Japanese speed and a bit noise. Guitars are used amazingly well here, maximum pedal core. The pace and part changings are unique. It toke some time for me to get used to this record but they still are a hardcore/punk power house, raging nerds. Also, Eric has become my ball brother in 2013 so there you go!

Top 5 7'' inches

Good Throb – Culture Vulture (Muscle Horse)

Loved their previous 7” and this is no different. The conscious rage of Crass (or just the accent – not sure) the heaviness of Negative Approach and the weirdness of Desperate Bicycles. Get this foolz!

White Wards – Paint Huffer (Self Released)

All right, so I haven’t heard this but I did hear the upcoming LP of what this is a sneak peak. The lp will be the best thing in 2014 so whatever from that is pure gold. Get into this or get out. Nah, not really stay even if you don’t like this.

Diat – Everyday (Iron Lung)

Picked their first 7” blindly from a distro after everyone said they are amazing and I saw too many people wear their shirts. One of the best decisions of 2013. This ep is gold too. So desolated, frustrating and distant. Post punk songs that remind me of the second half of the first SODS lp. Sometimes spooky, mostly slackerish paranoia. Even if there’s no tomorrow this makes the present better.

Gag - This Punk Shit Is Cool But I Hope I Am Rob Zombie When I Am 28 (Bedside Records)

They were the band of 2013. Hope they will come out with an LP soon. This is infantile hardcore/punk with catchy hooks that makes me wanna be at basements shows where I can lose my shit. At the same time they remind me to SSD and No Trend. Puke punk on your shoulder.

Die – ST (Sonic Terro Discs)

Just as NO, Die is delivering amazing hardcore / punk from UK. A tsunami of threatening angst. Seems like some DYS represses has landed in the kingdom because they too remind of that band. The guitars are crying, the drums are ignorant enough, there is feedback and slow bass lines. Greatest record for stomping in the loneliness of my room.

Top 5 demo tapes

Deformity

Wow. Most of the bands I like are influenced by the early 80s hardcore, but they do play and sound better than their roots. Altough it doesn’t mean they are better bands. But this demo could have been made in the glory days it’s so pure, full with real rage, mutant sounds and the rock and roll vibe. This is not garage rock but among the high speed, distortion, misplayed notes there is that thing what makes music the best thing. After sex and drugs.

Ivy

An all-star band with weird as fuck noise. This tape sounds like it was recorded by a tape deck smashed in the opposite end of the room. Still I can hear everything. Mostly that they know what makes a punk band great and unique. Nasty shit just the way I like it.

The Smear

I thought I had enough of pop-garage-punk. I bet this band has some connection to Marked Men. If not they are that essential too. Take Ramones, Misfits, Wipers and mix them together, make them sound like only you get what they did and create something new from them. Oh wait, you are too late The Smear has already done this.

Love Interest

Again I don’t like modern day goth punk. But this band is recreating feelings not clichés of a genre. There’s a party in your room, with pills and dystopian novels but you haven’t invited anyone. This is good if you could relate to gloom.

Ajax

High speed hardcore punk not influenced by Oi but by skinhead violence. I can’t type more about them they make me trash my room and pick a fight with my neighbors. They play something that’s not unique but they are playing it uniquely good.

Top 4 Reissues

Urinals – Negative Capability (In The Red)

Urinals is the band. I love them. They are essential for my life. You know how they sound. You have felt how they sound. You picked up a guitar and wished to create something they did. It didn’t happen still you did something cool. URINALS URINALS URINALS. Now you can buy all their songs on vinyl. ACK ACK ACK

Neo Boys – Sooner Or Later (K Records)

They say punk is for outsiders. But mainly it’s just white, middle class males who are depressed. Most of the times because of they are single or young and clueless. So when the real outcasts of this world plays punk it’s something different, it’s more real and whatever they do it fits just right. Neo Boys were girls making noise and this is just great. As the record goes further and I have heard more songs it just grows on me. People recreating their own universe. This is real!

Division Four – 1983 (Smartguy)

What a treasure. It toke some time to believe this is really from ’83. Brought me the same feelings when I heard Death for the first time. Division Four is futuristic amphetamine Oi, played by scared weirdoes. It sounds like Kubrick hired them to score Clockwork Orange II but the whole project failed so this demo landed in a box. How could we live without this? Who knew about it? Why wasn’t anybody told anything about them? One of the best things…EVER!!!

Deep Wound – ST (Armageddon Shop)

Perfect, awkward, teenage bedroom noise. Total geek band with virgins who locked themselves in basements to release their angst. It happened and it turned out super fast, falling apart, distorted chaos. Why am I describing this to you? If you don’t know them why do you care about me? This 7” is better than whatever I’ve done.

#370

It’s January the 2nd. I’m gonna be 27 in a few hours. January 3rd is the date when Nietzsche gone mad because he lost his faith in humanity. Not sure what is up to me but probably I will just go fat by eating homemade pizza while I will try to defeat my girlfriend in scrabble while we will drink gin tonic before cuddling. So humanity please don’t get too fucked up on my birthday.
Now it’s 14th of January and I’m pushing deadline with my Year End Top Ten. My birthday went better then planed even if my better half beat me with few points in Scrabble. But I got two cakes from her and from my mom thus felt a bit like someone close to Marie Antoinette. My girlfriend surprised me with a balisong knife (which turned out to be illegal to have with me in many countries, hungary counted as well) and a homemade Urinals t-shirt which are amazing gifts. She gave me a Modern Lovers LP for Christmas. Among other things I made her two mixtapes for Jesus’ bday. One of the tapes had Glue as the opening track cause unity songs are about love.
We were out at a gig the day after my birthday because one of my bands played a Food Not Bombs benefit show. The lineup was great with many of the best local bands. Too many friends again, too much moonshine always. I got so drunk at one point I wanted to break dance but people picked me up from the floor because they thought I fell and was rolling on the ground. I have jokingly reenacted horrible scenes from midday talk shows with my girlfriend, laughed a lot, started playing on a guitar that was in the neck of a performing guitar player at one show and woke up with vague memories. That show raised lots of money which is cool because Hungary is a place where the government is as dumb as they are hot headed so they do whatever they think is right and it forces many people out on the streets and FNB events are attended by more than a hundred people. This is where solidarity comes in, and benefit shows are a good way to support a noble cause while the only thing you do is you go to a show and have fun. But many times these shows have better vibes. For me almost every show is a benefit show since it benefits my every days when I’m being close to punk music among punx.

After this I have spent ten days with gathering almost everything that falls under my radar of punk music and I not just listened but tried to write short reviews for my hungarian blog. I ended up with many bands that I have missed out and twenty A4 pages of reviews. It was kind of an interesting / cool / painstaking / exhausting experiment I wish to happen with everybody who loves music and likes to have an opinion. In the breaks I was reading Rilke’s prose, not poems because I hate poems, and he writes a lot about sunlight and how it breaks through windows and how it encounters people’s faces. It was interesting because he has written about sunlight which is a simple thing and I was writing reviews after reviews of punk bands that most of the times are as simple and similar to each other as the sunlight that we enjoy every day. I tried my best but 70% of these reviews are sentences try to bullshit about music that is fast, ugly, dissonant, disordered, desolated, bleak, aggressive, ignorant, beautiful and funny. I don’t really care anymore how it ended up. I do want to be a good writer, I do want to improve and I do think there is more to music than a guitar player who shreds chords and a singer who screams lines which might rhyme. But other times even if something is really good you just can’t express how good it is without starting to speak about awkward, rambled thoughts. Which is fine with me.
I have also learned that critics are useful because they do the dirty job. This is one of the jobs where it’s the purest form of that you gave your time for others. Now if someone wants to know about punk records in 2013 in hungarian they just have to hit up my blog and decide if they trust me or not.
Conclusion One: We use channels (critics with platforms) to learn about new things. There won’t be hordes of bands kicking in my doors, presenting their music. MRR is a channel; blogs are as well as live shows. But I feel like I listen to too many American bands and I wanna find out about bands from more hidden, distant places. I’m sure amazing things are happening there as well.
Conclusion two: Punk is still amazing and fuck everybody who says there is just too much music that has been made. Music is not for critics, not for fans, not for listeners. It’s for people who wanna express themselves in a sonic way. There are people out there writing essays on the subject that there is too much culture and people should might stop making it but at the same time we just shrug our shoulders on the bullshit that is fabricated by the leaders of this world. When and why have we become our own enemies?
I’m also aware of how many bands have I missed to include in my list which is one of the reasons I made this list. I made this list because I hate lists. I can’t put up orders thus I felt I will write about every band. And I wrote about a few. This proves that lists are not sacred and who knows what will be the best thing from 2013 like even in a year from now? Wipers influenced more people in the 00s than they had in their hey days. Does it matter to listen to fresh bands? Are they fresh? We are punx we can do whatever the fuck we want to.
So what do i want to do in 2014? I started putting together a fanzine where i want to have lots of interviews. Never did this, i was never really down for interviews but this is something new i try to do. I will try to use my time way better than i manage with it now. I wanna write short critics on my own language about music, movies and books for my blog, I wanna keep doing shows here at Budapest, I wish Norms will be able to write, record and release a record. I also wanna make other zines, a graphic novel with my girlfriend who is a talented graphic designer. I just want to keep doing my punk things.

What do I expect from 2014? Not really an expectation because I have already heard it but the new White Wards LP is the shit. It’s everything! I also heard the Hysterics 7” (Nah, I don’t get promo shit, sadly, I do use soulseek – szivdkianyadbolageci). Hysterics will play here in May and if any of you ladies are reading this you will be hanging with me and I will make you pizza for breakfast. A month from now I will have Autistic Youth in my room and later Pleasure Leftists, Condominium, etc. 2014 will be sick. I guess every year is a bit better than the one before and 2013 was kinda cool. My band got released on vinyl, we booked shitloads of bands, I did my radio show, continued writing for MRR, joined bands, toured, got together with my girlfriend, left my shit job, was an intern at the coolest news paper in hungary, bought cool records. Check my YETT there I talk about music.
I accept gifts from anyone. Even digital links for non-usa bands.