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.
GRAND SLAM
GOO – Oh Wow Oh Well (self-released)
Keighley, UK’s Goo grab you by the collar on opener “Payday” and shout, “We are Goo, we are good, listen!” Well, not really, but the message comes through loud and clear. It’s a bold move, but they back it up. This debut doesn’t just make a first impression, it leaves a mark.
Tanisha Badman is the band’s not-so-secret weapon, delivering vocals that feel beamed in from some alternate ‘90s where New Wave cool and grunge still coexist without irony. She flips between detached talk-singing and full-throttle attitude with ease, sounding at times like The Go Go’s in anthem mode or like Justine Frischmann after a long night and zero regrets. Meanwhile, Sam Drury slathers on guitar like he’s paid by the riff – thick, sticky, and impossible to ignore – while Bryn Price and Kurt Wood lock into a rhythm section that bounces as much as it bludgeons.
The band thrives on whiplash shifts: fuzzy, overdriven riffs give way to spaced-out psychedelic detours, then snap back into something surprisingly tender without losing momentum. Lyrically, it’s all cracked celebrations and self-inflicted wounds: “I’ve blown out my candles, I’ve blown it again, cake for breakfast, death for dessert” is the kind of line that sticks because it feels a little too real. Even a track called “Pep Talk” spirals into a comedown rather than a confidence boost.
Still, for all the emotional wreckage – bad habits, worse relationships – there’s an undercurrent of hope. The songs shimmer even when they’re circling the drain, and by the time “Balloons” rolls in, the band lets a little light break through. It’s a big, swelling finish that feels earned, not forced. For a debut, this is more than promising. It’s a band already swinging for the fences like they know exactly who they are.
HOME RUNS
KNOCKOUT ARTIST – Ramshackle Deluxe (self-released)
“Side 2” kicks this thing off like we’re already halfway through a long night – loose, a little greasy, and completely locked into its own groove. There’s a Velvet Underground chug holding it together, but it’s dressed up in country finery, Lou Reed in a Nudie suit: pedal steel sighing in the background, guitars that twang without going full hayride, and Phil Venable’s vocal that splits the difference between Mark Knopfler’s cool detachment and John Doe’s Dust Bowl sincerity.
What makes Ramshackle Deluxe stick isn’t just the mash-up, it’s how natural it feels. This isn’t some lab experiment in genre splitting. The band slides between country, garage rock, and a little side-trip to psychedelia like they’ve been doing it forever, tossing in harmonies and hooks that feel worn-in rather than worked-up. Even the slower moments don’t kill the buzz, they just give you time to order another round.
I don’t spend much time drinking these days, but this record nails that specific kind of night where things blur just enough to be perfect. It’s not nostalgia so much as muscle memory. Knockout Artist taps into that feel without trying too hard, and that’s exactly why it works.
HORMONES – Hot For Hormones (Stardumb Records)
Australia’s (not Austin’s) Hormones mainline Ramones DNA like it’s part of their daily vitamins, and they’re not even pretending otherwise. Betty Hormone handles guitar, JimJim Hormone bangs out the bass, Stuey Hormone keeps things moving on drums, and then there’s Joseph Ling on vocals, who, despite the non-Hormone surname, fits right in (and sounds uncannily like Leonard Phillips from The Dickies after a couple cups of strong coffee).
What could’ve been a one-joke Ramonescore exercise instead turns into something that, while still fun, hits a lot smarter and a lot more important. These songs rip by with buzzsaw efficiency, but they’re loaded with hooks and, more importantly, something to say. Tracks like “I Wanna Be Your Herfriend,” “Out of the House, Out of the Closet,” and the standout “Got My Head Straight (The Rest of Me Got Gay)” don’t just plant a pride flag—they make the whole culture war surrounding gender and identity feel as ridiculous as it actually is.
That doesn’t mean the record’s living in some bubble of punk rock utopia. There’s tension baked in – fear, pushback, the sense that not everyone’s on board and maybe never will be. It gives the songs some weight without slowing them down. “Hayley Smith” tips its hat to the importance of seeing yourself reflected somewhere, anywhere, while “You Don’t Have a Son” hits surprisingly hard with its mix of vulnerability and restraint. And yeah, “When I Was a Boy, I Was Really a Girl” could slide right into “Hedwig & The Angry Inch” without anyone blinking. It’s that good… and that touching.
It’s catchy, it’s fast, it’s occasionally funny, and it actually has a point—something a lot of bands in this lane forget to bother with. Think of these Hormones as the Antipodean Pansy Division. If this one doesn’t get to you, the problem probably isn’t the record.
BIST – Not Quite Conscious (self-released)
Hailing from urban North Jersey, Bist may still be stuck in the all-ages punk/hardcore circuit (front man Greg Reyes finishes high school this month) but this is a band that already understands how to operate as a unit. Their debut full-length, Not Quite Conscious, pulls together 10 tracks (a few already released as singles), recorded with Max Rauch at Domestic Bliss. Reyes’ guitar doesn’t dominate so much as it weaves, locking in with Jade Recio’s melodic, supple bass lines and Joaquin Narucki’s drumming, which is confident enough to break into brief solos through the album. Reyes sings like someone with nothing to lose. He’ll drift into a fragile falsetto one minute, then snap into something raw and ragged the next. Lyrically and emotionally, the record leans heavy on longing and low-grade heartbreak, It’s not exactly a feel-good vibe, but it’s often a pretty one, even when the guitar tone gets scrappy. With college and lots of choices looming, Bist may not have much of a future, but boy, do they have potential.
WORTHINGTON’S LAW – Funnier! Punkier! Bandier! (Sell the Heart)
Comedy punk is one of those things that either works or makes you want to leave the room. Worthington’s Law, born out of a punk lifer and an improv comic crossing streams (always a risky proposition), rips through 17 tracks in under half an hour, which tells you they’re not interested in overstaying their welcome. The sound jumps between hardcore, pop-punk, and the occasional left turn into ska, all wrapped up in their self-coined “cul-de-sac-core,” which is about as accurate a label as any.
Lyrically, it’s a suburban anxiety buffet. “All My Friends Are Punks” is a rallying cry against hanging out with civilians, while “Binaca” proves that bored kids will inhale just about anything if it kills five minutes. “AFV (America’s Funniest Videos) Normalized the Surveillance State” seems like the kind of one-joke track that could fall flat but doesn’t. The trick is that Funnier! Punkier! Bandier! doesn’t feel like a novelty record. It feels like a band that would still be fun even if you stripped the punchlines out – though that would kind of defeat the purpose. Either way, this thing moves fast, hits often, and gets out before you can get sick of it, which is more than you can say for most bands, funny or otherwise.
POP FLIES AND FOUL BALLS
MARC-ALAN PRINCE – Runaway (self-released)
Folk-punk may not have the cultural currency it once did (remember Plan-It-X Records, sigh…) but give a punk an acoustic guitar and sparks can still fly! Milwaukee’s Marc-Alan Price is willing to give it a try. Recorded in a makeshift studio in the funky end of Austin, Runaway is just a voice and a strummed acoustic guitar. The title track chronicles Prince’s life as a high-school dropout and vagabond – Woody Guthrie updated for the digital age – a song he makes not about him but everyone like him: “We are the lost / We are the brave / We are the uncontrolled that can’t be found.” Just one problem, he continues the same conversation on every track. It’s one thing to celebrate society’s misfits and castoffs, it’s quite another to sing about nothing else. Prince throws off some memorable, almost Dylanesque, lines: “Fuck who I used to be, now I’m who I need to be,” on 34; “they’ve taken what they want and come back to clean our plate,” in his ode to the disenfranchised, Fighting Man. But when we get to “Oh, oh, oh, tonight I’ve never felt so alive, oh, oh, oh, I’ll see you at the end of the line,” it starts to feel like secondhand Springsteen.