Words by Jim Testa
Jim Testa founded the highly influential zine, Jersey Beat in 1982 which he continues to edit to this day. Through writing for his own publication and a number of other outlets, including as a staff writer for Hudson County’s Jersey Journal, he has championed local, regional and national up-and-coming bands. Punk has always shunned credentials, but rest assured that Jim won’t lead you astray.
HOME RUNS
CATHEDRAL CEILINGS – La La La… Whatever (Dromedary Records)
If this doesn’t turn out to be my album of the year, then this will have been an excellent year for rock indeed. These rock ‘n’ roll lifers have credits as long as your arm and a seemingly endless array of chunky riffs that they pile into terse, frantic, imaginative three minute miracles, every one on point and memorable. Ralph Malanga’s for the voice and the guitar, Nick D’Amore’s on drums, and bassist Tom Diello fills out the bottom end and fuels each song’s propulsion engine. But since they’re East Coast vets with deep Jersey roots, they’re Ralphie, Nicky, and Tommy to everyone who matters, a long list that should include you. Where to start? “My CEO” attacks corporate greed and wealth inequality but does so with a killer hook that Cheap Trick would kill for, a clever counter-vocal straight out of early Todd Rundgren, an adrenaline-soaked tempo and a churning battery of electric guitars that provide texture and context while Ralphie wails out the melody. Oh, and there are melodies here, lots of ‘em, enough for me to make a laundry list of all my favorite bands from the 90s and 00s which these guys unabashedly and unashamedly worship. Maybe Picasso never actually said “Good artists borrow, great artists steal,” but then ol’ Pablo never had Cathedral Ceilings blow his mind by how friggin’ good they are at sounding like all your favorite loud, fast records.
KAL MARKS – Wasteland Baby (Exploding In Sound Records)
Frontman/principal songwriter and sole original member Carl Shane has said that these songs are his way of dealing with his crippling anxiety over the prospect of becoming a parent and bringing a child into the world on the brink of global disaster; in short, a wasteland baby. To be frank, though, I listened to this album (again and again and again) without the benefit of a lyric sheet, and what I hear describes a voyage through and beyond oblivion, with the prospect of a coming cataclysm fueling the nervous, jittery tone of the first part of album and, after surviving the Apocalypse, coming out the other end with a renewed sense of hope and even salvation. That said, Shane and the Kal Marks 4.0 lineup (bassist John Russell, drummer Adam Berkowitz, and guitarist Christina Puerto, Shane’s life partner) have taken the angry, brittle post-punk they’ve made up to this point and expanded it in ways both musical and philosophical. At times, Wasteland Baby sounds like a transmission received inside a bunker, complete with radio static and other effects. But then the title track explodes like a pop superhit from the MTV era, with a soaring vocal and glorious melody, Shane singing the line “you’re a wasteland baby” triumphantly, the way you sing when a war has been won. There’s a lot to digest here, plenty to think about, and a world of complex sounds to experience. Enjoy.
EARLY RISER – Big Life (Asbestos Records)
Holy crap, it’s another band with Mikey Erg! In this one, the busiest man in pop-punk mans the drums while three women – Kiri Oliver on lead vocals and guitar, Heidi Vanderlee on cello and vocals, and Nicole Nussbaum on bass and vocals – sing lots of chirpy harmonies and provide light and bouncy melodies. The mood is upbeat, the tone light, the melodies buoyant, even when Oliver advocates for female empowerment, brushes off a loser boyfriend, dreams about leaving left alone (her idea of a “big life,”) or wonders what to do when “you’re a superstar in a shit town.” Pop-punk needs more assertive and confident female voices, and if you do too, Early Riser is a great place to start.
THE DOPAMINES – 80/20 (Rad Girlfriend Records)
I’ve been a Dopamines fan since they emerged on the tiny It’s Alive Records back in 2008, and now they’re back with their first new release in seven years. Happily, the guys haven’t lost a step, although they have lost founding bassist Jon Weiner (to sobriety and Jesus, so I’m told). But he’s still aboard for this ride, trading riffs and vocals with guitarist John Lewis over 13 tracks of grinding pop-punk. Usually, Jon & John spit out every lyric like their lives depended on it, with a barrage of distorted guitars, throbbing bass, and thrashing drums behind them. And you get that here, but with a few more introspective moments as well. And of course they’re the Dopamines, a band that’s never denied its Descendents DNA, so there’s humor (“Jon Goes To Camp,”) puns (“Parasites Lost,”) and plenty of whoa-oh-oh’s. Welcome back, guys. And Godspeed, Mr. Weiner.
KILL LINCOLN – No Normal (Bad Time Records)
My zine covered a lot of ska-punk in the 90s so I’m pretty sure I got to see every worthwhile band that ever-played Warped Tour or Wetlands, and I’d stack Kill Lincoln up against any of them. Vocalist Mike Sosinski not only leads these horn-fueled adrenaline junkies but he’s also been keeping ska-punk alive by running Bad Time Records, so kudos for that. Props also for making sure that “Ume” Umemoto’s trombone and “Food” Ellis’ sax do a lot more than stand in the back and shimmy during the choruses. These guys play ska-punk like it was jazz, with every instrument getting its spotlight moments. I really don’t need to mention that it’s catchy as fuck, do I? Because that’s baked into the genre. But the lyrics also deliver sarcasm, political rants, life lessons, and mental health PSAs. Kill Lincoln maintains an absolutely frantic pace through 11 songs that fly by in under 30 minutes. I swear, if you skanked as hard as these guys play for that time, you’d drop dead of a heartattack. Happily, Kill Lincoln is still very much alive.
THE LINDA LINDAS – No Obligation (Epitaph)
Half Asian, half Latinx, with one only high school graduate among them so far, this adolescent female quartet embrace their musical heritage – L.A. punk, the GoGo’s, 60s bubblegum, 90s riot grrl, and maybe a little X-Ray Spex, – while harmonizing beautifully and singing about female empowerment, the pains of growing up, and racism. It was a viral video for their song “Racist, Sexist Boy” – based on a true-life experience when a classmate said he couldn’t talk to one of the girls because her family was Chinese – that brought the band to the attention of enthusiastic fans like Thurston Moore, Paramore’s Hayley Williams, and finally, Epitaph Records. The hooks just don’t stop and the band delivers them with big, brassy vocals (the members take turns singing lead) and convincing musicianship; this is the real deal, and it’s easy to think of the Linda Linda’s as 2024’s answer to 1979’s Redd Kross. The kids are all right. Aren’t they always?
PINHEAD GUNPOWDER – Unt (1-2-3-4 Go Records)
This punk rock supergroup hasn’t released any music since a 7-inch in 2008 but the members – who have been making music together since 1990 – reportedly get together whenever families and careers allow, and now there’s 14 new songs. Fifty-somethings Billie Joe, Green Day touring guitarist Jason White and guitar tech William Schneider, and zinester/musician Aaron Cometbus clearly do this for the joy of it; the album has an almost bubblegum buoyancy. “Unt,” the opening track, boasts a simple melody that sounds like an old folk set to a pop-punk beat. “Scum of the Earth” and “Green” could be Green Day outtakes, while “Oh My” dips into folk-rock territory. “Nothing Ever Happens” sounds plucked from Lookout Records’ catalog of classic “whoa-oh” tunes, “Here Goes The Neighborhood” flirts with power-pop, and “iHola Canada!” is just plain fun. With several different lead singers and (one assumes) songwriters, Pinhead Gunpowder doesn’t share Green Day’s burden of having to write songs that can fill arenas (both sonically and commercially), so there’s a genuine sense of fun and camaraderie here, and even a stab at sincere introspection (“Song For Myself”). Given how forgettable I’ve found Green Day’s post-2010 output, this came as a pleasant surprise.
VISTA BLUE – “They Came Back” (self-released)
Halloween’s here and with pretty much any major holiday, Mike Patton’s written and released an EP about it under his band name Vista Blue. As with anything from Vista Blue, it’s catchy, bouncy pop-punk with clever lyrics; face it, the guy’s a song machine, so just smile and sing along. We get four tracks with a Halloween vibe, three originals (of which “Let’s Scare Jessica To Death” is my favorite and “He Came Back” the most Ramones-y) and a cover of Ministry’s “Every Day Is Halloween” (less spooky but also less ridiculous than the original). Visit their Bandcamp because most of these EP’s are free downloads, and while you’re there, grab September’s single, “Vista Blue Are the Pop Punk Preservation Society” (a funk Kinks pastiche) b/w “Nobody Told Me It Was Bandcamp Friday.”
TRIPLES, DOUBLES, FOUL BALLS
THE MERINGUES – Pavlova’s Dog (self-released)
Here’s a pleasant surprise: the sophomore album from a hitherto undiscovered (by me) quartet from Kingston, Ontario. Fronted by the dynamic team of Amanda Pants and Ted Evans, ably supported by bassist Jackson Baird and drummer Alastair Morrison, The Meringues prove that post-punk doesn’t have to mean dreary, heavy, or angular. These tongue-in-cheek tunes bounce along with genuine galumphing charm, bratty insouciance, smoldering sexual chemistry, and warm, rounded tones, coming to a climax with “70 Lemon Trees,” a frantic psychedelic freakout.
THE IMPLANTS – Annihilation (Cyber Tracks)
With members who’ve played in Strung Out, Pulley, Ten Foot Pole, Authority Zero, and The Tank, you can imagine what the group’s second album sounds like: 90s skate-punk with shades of emo and nimble guitar solos. A few tracks feature intros that flirt with thinking outside the Warped Tour ’98 box, but once each tune gets cranking, they’re all more or less interchangeable. Which is great if you’re still rocking a wallet chain on your black cargo shorts and smearing Vaseline into your faux hawk. For what it’s worth, this album is ska free, for anyone with allergies.
DETENTION – Dead Rock n Rollers (Left For Dead Records)
Originally released as a 7-inch EP, Detention’s “Dead Rock n Rollers” from 1983 was one of the first “hardcore” songs from a New Jersey band, although by today’s standards, it’s not nearly hard, angry, or fast enough to qualify. This reissue combines the original single with seven unreleased tracks, and what stands out most is the adolescent humor that characterized NJ’s punk scene at the time. From tastelessly poking fun of celebrity deaths in the title track, to naïve political ranting about “El Salvador,” to enjoying a “Teenage Party Fantasy,” Detention was very much a product of its time. The reissue’s first five tracks descend from the likes of The Dictators and Slickee Boys, with the band finally achieving hardcore velocity by “Bad Dream,” a harbinger of what Adrenalin O.D. and a small army of like-minded teenage knuckleheads would soon be churning out from suburban garages and basements across the state. Left For Dead Records has similarly unearthed fossils from the Jurassic Hardcore Era from Jersey’s TMA and Manhattan’s Comateens.
THE OFFSPRING – Supercharged (Concord Records)
I met The Offspring at ABC No Rio (an artists’ squat that began hosting DIY punk shows in 1991) literally weeks before they became rock stars, so I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the guys. Initially, I thought they were a brilliant singles band with a genius for writing catchy commercial rock songs, built for radio and MTV back when that stuff still mattered. And then, as the years passed, The Offspring didn’t seem to matter much at all. I stopped listening. Now there’s “Supercharged” (a title one hopes was meant to be ironically self-deprecating rather than a boast; these guys are all pushing 60, after all,) which sounds like the band has forgotten how to write an Offspring song (or, more unkindly, “write a hit Offspring song”). “Lookout Out For #1,” which starts the album, exemplifies this artistic amnesia. At its core, it’s a decent grown-up punk rock song in the style of Bad Religion, but then a kitchen-sink array of goofy effects and changes kicks in and it’s like you’re spinning a radio dial and hearing a half dozen different classic rock songs bleed into one another. Again, on the very next track, a decent fast ‘n’ loud punk song segues into a WTF? Middle Eastern bridge it didn’t need before going back to the whoa-oh-oh’s. “Make It All Right” tries vainly to recapture the magic of those early Offspring novelty songs, “Ok, But This Is The Last Time” wallows in emo self-pity, “Come To Brazil” has a weird heavy-metal arena-rock intro, and oh my god, “Get Some” is just an unmitigated mess. There’s bits and pieces here that make me believe the Offspring might still make a record I’d want to sit through, maybe even enjoy. But this ain’t it.