Four Decisions Every Minute
Egg Punk, Power Pop, Pop Punk, Death Metal, Thrash Metal, Speed Metal and more!
Mornin’ y’all.
It’s a new year. I tripped and fell into another thrash/death metal rabbit hole, so for the first post of 2025 it seems I’m already over-indexing on that stuff. But, I’ve made sure to include a bunch of other genres I’ve been listening to, so there should be something for everyone. I’ve also got my first review of a 2025 release in here too, so there’s that.
As for me, been trying my hand at cross stitching and have yet to complete a project. I am going to make 2025 a craftier year, maybe? I built this little wood drum set kit, that was a nice distraction.
What have you been stoked about lately? What have you been listening to? Let me know.
Don’t forget, I’ve got an Album Club running this month which you can read about over here (and join in a discussion in my Substack Chat):
Icon legend:
⛏️ denotes picks of the week, my favs.
🌱 seedling denotes albums I liked, but may grow on me.
✨ means worth a look, if you like the genres listed in particular.
✂ denotes favourite tracks from a given record.
As always, please reach out on the hellsite, the better site, or join the Rosy Overdrive Discord server where I can be found now and again. You can also find me in the corners of Rate Your Music scrounging for obscure emo, hardcore, indie rock and pop punk.
Don’t forget: if you’re reading this in your email it will be cut off. Read on the web for the full list of reviews!
⛏️ The Ghoulies - Shafted by the Algorithm (2025)
Genre: Egg Punk, Garage Punk, Synth Punk
That synthy high pitched egg punk thing is a genre that I feel like burned out bright. I dug a lot of what Snooper were doing, but there seemed to be a ton of bands who all sounded super similar in the genre and I kind of tired myself out of trying to keep up. GHOULIES are the first band in a while to shake me out of that disinterest.
Maybe it's because they're over-cranked so wildly, or that they anchor their off-the-rails synthy punk in pop hooks more effectively? There's definitely as much Dirtnap/Recess style garage pop punk in these songs as there is DEVO worship or herky jerky new wave worship or other signifiers of the egg punk genre.
Ultimately this is just 20 minutes of a good time, and the first release of 2025 to catch my ear in a significant way.
⛏️ Nasty Facts - Drive My Car (1981)
Some teenagers in the early 80s playing super poppy slightly new-wave-y ("Gotta Get to You") pop punk. If you think it'd be really shoddy because it's a bunch of teens, you'd be wrong because this is super tightly wound, hook forward, dope as hell stuff with that late-70s sound. Surely a generation of pop punk bands can be traced back to this just as easily as some of the more well known seminal releases we usually think about.
⛏️ Mandator - Perfect Progeny (1989)
Genre: Thrash Metal, Speed Metal
This is really dope if you like that kind of thrash metal that is hella riff heavy and still has shreds of DNA derived from cheesier pre-Thrash types of metal.
The fun here is that they can jump from melodic moments back into bad-ass punch you in the face rhythmic thrash attacks. Dueling guitars and horse gallop drums et al. Shades of power/speed metal for sure. The title track kicks so much ass! This is the kind of thrash metal that I always say makes me wish I was drinking shitty beer in a crappy garage. Bonus points for the amazing cover art.
✨ Siren - No Place Like Home (1986)
Genre: Heavy Metal, Progressive Metal, US Power Metal
This is basically US style power metal with a vaguely glammy, progressive RUSH-like sheen to it. Some NWOBHM as well. It's a good time! Nothing that you'd give to a long-haired listener who wants something "actually" heavy, but if you like epic cheese this is fun stuff and probably a bit overlooked considering it only has ~200 or so ratings.
⛏️ Gorguts - Considered Dead (1991)
Genre: Death Metal
I think I tried some Gorguts at some point previously and bounced off them a little bit, so I'm trying again today. I may have reached my death metal limit for the past 24 hours, but that won't stop me from being able to tell that this whoops ass. Really great vocal performance actually, nails a perfect balance between mostly legible and throat-shredding-vocal-chord-slashing evilness. Nice pinch of heavy tough guy-ish breakdown riff moments surrounded by blast you in the face death metal with just a tinge of thrashiness ("Bodily Corrupted"). A real nice blend. Will have to investigate The Erosion of Sanity further, because if they take this sound further into the tech death angle I might just fall in love.
✨ Sonetic Vet - Peer (1994)
I really dug this. Sounds like if Dahlia Seed dialed back the aggression/emo a tad and input more shambly pop punk into their overall vibe. There's definitely a pinch of that "pop punk but influenced by alt-rock" thing going on here too, but not so much that it gets into that "wait, is this grunge-pop" territory that bands like that sometimes do. They come close on a song like "Hangover Davey" though, which is very noisy and angular in that way I'm trying to describe.
Rounding out their kind of cluttered sound is a bit of twee influence on some of the melodies ("Fanatic"). I thought overall this was a solid record, and apparently the singer went on to make cut-and-paste electro-pop as Solex, which sounds intriguing to me.
✨ Hydra Vein - After the Dream (1989)
Genre: Thrash Metal
Had previously reviewed Rather Death Than False of Faith, but stumbled on this one on YouTube when the Seagrave art caught my eye. I burned through a lot of thrash last year so it wasn't like the name was ringing a bell. But immediately I'm reminded why I dig this kinda shit. This shifts away from the "cartoonishly evil" sound a little bit, and is inching further and further towards something that would be considered tech thrash. Wouldn't go so far as to call it polished, but it's less nasty without losing that edge.
"Passed Present / No Future" almost gets close to softening to the point of power metal when it comes to the melodic content, vocally. But I'm not allergic to that kind of thing, so I don't mind.
Just good ol' high riff-density fun with lots of enjoyable little diversions and asides.
✨ Blind Guardian - Follow the Blind (1989)
Genre: Speed Metal, Power Metal, Thrash Metal
I don't listen to much power or speed metal, but I do have a high tolerance for fantasy baloney and someone in the comments box called this “brutal speed metal”, which honestly now that I've heard it makes a lot of sense. It's not going to win over someone allergic to this kind of metal, but it is very entertaining and I had a great time listening to it (cover song tacked on to the end notwithstanding.) I have to say that continues to be a terrible trend in many metal genres where they toss some unrelated cover onto their record. No thanks!
✨The Gamits - Antidote (2004)
On Endorsed by You, The Gamits were fully a poppy borderline skate punk kind of band that had a huge helping of power-pop in their sound.
Here, they fully take the turn away from straight up pop punk into power-pop forward sound. More mid-tempo, melody-soaked stuff. I like this kind of thing, so even weaker songs like "Never Before Noon" - which sounds more like alt-rock power-pop - work for me, because when it finally gets past the verse-pre-chorus-second-verse-pre-chorus structure, the melody is a nice one. Is it a huge hook that will be in your ears for weeks? Absolutely not. But in the moment, or between songs with bigger melodies, it's nice enough.
If you don't like the pop punk-less kind of power-pop that gets associated with pop punk, this probably won't work for you. It's mostly mid-tempo numbers with a couple jangly ones for good measure. But if you do like that, it goes down easy despite being a bit samey and faceless.
✂ Dotted Lines, How To Escape, Like White Noise, Curious Vanessa Black
✨ Benediction - Transcend the Rubicon (1993)
Genre: Death Metal
It's getting late, I'm working after hours, and I'm looking for a death metal album to listen to. This gave me what I wanted. I couldn't tell you if this is a particularly stunning example of the genre, but I can tell you that it did the trick. Leaning on the generous side of things since I wasn't exactly paying the closest attention but it was suitably heavy and seemed like there was some sick riffs that caught my ear throughout.
🌱 Carnage - Dark Recollections (1990)
Genre: Death Metal
This is good and suitably nasty but I don't think enough of it stood out or grabbed me beyond being really rock solid 90s death metal. There are some cool rhythmic moments that ensure this isn't just hammering you over the head the whole time, which is nice. Since this comes from Earache you can expect a good amount of punk / grindcore influences in the foundation of their death metal sound. I probably need more time with this one to really know if I love it or just like it.
🌱 Death Angel - Act III (1990)
Genre: Thrash Metal, Heavy Metal, Funk Metal
ixuptokill in the comments box on Rate Your Music nailed it: "you look at pictures of them from this era and you see Cro-Mags, Fishbone, Public Enemy, Discharge shirts."
Honestly, kind of the key to unlock this album, imo. I don't think it's some masterpiece but "Discontinued" really hits as a fun amalgamation of thrashy funky extended solo-y fusion-y fun and makes the rest of the record make sense, even when the material can be a little up and down quality wise.
"A Room With a View" is a bit too "standard acoustic-led ballad on metal album", and "Stagnant" maybe gets a little too close to the "fonk zone" for me, but if you don't have an allergy to that kind of Californian alt-metal-funk-etc. tinge to this stuff, it's honestly pretty fun... not exactly rocket science.
The Beckies - The Beckies (1976)
Genre: Power Pop, Piano Rock, Hard Rock, Baroque Pop
Was excited to spin this based on the album art, that it was released by Sire Records and seemed like a 70s power pop LP that flew under the radar. Looking into it, I read that it comes from former The Left Banke, Montage and The Stories member Michael Brown. Not very familiar with their acts but nonetheless I maybe had overly high hopes.
There are some solid songs here that you might be able to cherry-pick out for some playlists. Not exactly a top-to-bottom solid spin, and to me the songs seemed to jump around genre-wise in a disparate way where the record didn't end up hanging together as a whole. Some of this stuff dips out of straightforward power pop for more symphonic/baroque pop ("River Bayou"), which is fine, but not what I was interested in when I hit play.
Still, some tracks worth looking into if you like vintage power-pop/radio rock that dabbles in more arranged compositions adorned on top of straight ahead hooks.
That’s it, that’s all. Be excellent to one other.