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 columnist for Off Shelf with the Punk Rock Scouting Report and 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. This list is not meant to be definitive and almost certainly incomplete but here are his top ten albums in no order.
BAMBERDOST – Songs About Your ‘Girlfriend’ (self-released)
Staffed with veteran musicians who helped launch NJ’s punk scene back in the 80s, Bamberdost hews toward garage punk and the bumptious melodic hardcore of the 90s. Songs tackle typical rock ‘n’ roll tropes – broken hearts, toxic relationships – but written with much more sophistication and insight than your typical post-adolescent punk band.
BE MY DOPPELGANGER – “Lost Songs” (self-released)
Be My Doppelganger were a top-notch pop-punk from the mid-2000’s to 2014, part of the global Ramonescore revival. This collection of “lost songs,” originally recorded for the band’s 2104 Artless album, channel the anthemic fist-pumping energy of the era, with some crazy guitar skronk that sets it apart from the generic mush of the era. Perhaps these songs were abandoned because they represented a new direction the band was exploring? At least we get to hear them now.
THE CAMPBELL APARTMENT – (510) (Mint 400 Records)
On (510), the Campbell Apartment – essentially singer/songwriter/musician Ari Vais and a fluid cast of backing musicians – deals with divorce, falling in love, loneliness, anger, and in “Winter2028,” wishing the world would just stop for a while, set to mid-tempo indie-rock with flowing melodies. “30,000 Days” ponders how long we’re likely to live and what to do with the time we have left, and to me represents quintessential Campbell Apartment: clever, tuneful, and just a bit too angular to be dismissed as power-pop.
DAUBER – Falling Down (Dromedary / Recess / State Champion Records)
Dauber is a new band formed by former Screaming Female Mike Abbate on lead vocals, guitar and keyboards. He’s clearly having a ball taking on the role of frontman, belting his guts out on vocals and banging out forceful, melodic punk rock whose energy and enthusiasm contrast the gloomy lyrics, making for an impressive debut that invites multiple listens.
GANSER – Animal Hospital (felte)
Here’s a female-fronted trio offering a distaff version of the corrosive, propulsive Lad Rock of Idles, Fontaines DC and Mclusky. This is post-punk unleashed, exploring new sounds with ferocity but staying true to a propulsive examination of ideas and experiences with a palpable tension.
MINOT – And You’re Not (Crush Grove)
This trio from Missoula, Montana dips deeply into what Greil Marcus famously called “the old, weird America,” with an album that draws significantly from the blues with a nod towards lo-fi garage-rock. At times peppery and punky, at times yowling like Poly Styrene in an Alabama cottonfield, with a distinctive slap-echo guitar sound that eschews punk’s usual overdrive and distortion, this is a band that deserves your attention, if only to ponder what the fuck it is they’re doing.
PANEL – A Great Time To Be An Empath (Don’t Sing Records)
While Minneapolis’ Panel is primarily the songwriting project of the well-traveled singer/guitarist Annie Sparrows (The Soviettes), the band includes familiar names from the Midwest pop punk scene delivering a New Wave pastiche that’s more indie-rock than hardscrabble punk; bouncy and melodic, laden with irony and cheek, and eminently hummable.
TEA EATER – I Don’t Believe in Bad Luck (La Fam Recordings)
Brooklyn’s Tara Thiessen, a veteran of Sharkmuffin and Gustaf, provides the voice and guiding spirit of this ambitious art-punk project with a debt to The Velvets and Sonic Youth. The music qualifies as any number of hyphenates, but if we stick to art-punk, we can appreciate the band’s attempts to subvert expectations and create ear-bending textures. This group has a distinctive sonic identity and maintains it through 11 tracks.
WONDERLICK – Wonderlick Goes To War (People Still Suck Music)
Wonderlick is a side project of singer/lyricist Tim Quirk and multi-instrumentalist Jay Blumenfield of Too Much Joy. While Too Much Joy tries to make you laugh, Wonderlick wants you to think. And so we get a satiric and often allegorical look at the human condition, from how a children’s book feels waiting on a shelf until it fulfills its destiny in the hands of a child, to what our fascination with human cruelty says about us, or how we need to make the most of life with what we’re given. This is a soft-spoken album that manages to say a lot.
YAWN MOWER – I Just Can’t Wait To Die (Mint 400 Records)
Asbury Park’s Yawn Mower combine fuzz-core and power-pop into a clever and distinctive brand of indie-rock. What sets these mooks apart is how catchy their misery sounds. It’s that blend of sludge and sunshine that makes them more than just a novelty. It’s a noisy, sarcastic, hook-stuffed middle finger to both your bad day and the looming specter of mortality or, in short, the most Jersey thing you’ll hear all year.
More of Jim Testa’s contributions