Can't Sleep With Deep Heat

Melbourne punks Deep Heat have put out some great releases over the past couple of years, especially their 10" EP New Design - it is still one of the most played pieces of vinyl I own. And their split with White Walls is so good, I bought a second one to put into the first Sonic Masala giveaway (I think the other pieces were a Dreamtime record, a Tym Guitars T-shirt and something else I can't remember...) So to hear that they have re-joined Poison City Records to launch their second record, Still Life. They have been quite of late, with members spread across taking part in The Stevens, Infinite Void and Shaking Hell. They are revitalised and ready to tear the air asunder. Listen to that frenetic bass that opens first track of the record, 'Sleep'. They have not lost any of the hedonistic rush of finding melody within raw angularity, the round-vowelled and clipped yet drawled delivery of Gus Lord meaning that lyrics are more insinuated than finely articulated, and Katie is so tight as the drumming rhythm that it's impossible to think of a better calibrated beast. 'Sleep' pitches into the past, echoing the darkness and desperation of blue-denim punk rock, whilst also propelling into the dank twilight of Melbourne's sweaty inner suburbs, a warm yet suffocating place, where insomnia is both a blessing and a curse. If this is the kind of nugget that callused minds churn out from being starved of rest and oxygen, keep them on the hamster wheel. I fucking love this song; I fucking love this band; and I can't wait until 2016 when I can fucking love this album.

Rancid Mutton

I somehow missed commenting on this brutal bile-fuelled band at the beginning of the year, then again when they supported Sonic Masala Records' own Gazar Strips on their Sparkling EP tour in May. Well I'm sure these guys don't need much of an introduction if you are into gutter noise punk rock outta Melbourne. To the rest of you - introducing Mutton.

I first heard 'In Between The Dirt', the last track off their self-titled EP, and thought of fellow trash Batpiss (one of my favourite breakout bands of last year). But this is even more indebted to Yow and his acolytes than most of the pricks running around Brunswick, and that alone makes them an exciting proposition. you can't state that this is particularly "new" - but what's original when you are flailing on the floor trying to gouge your eyes out with a broken pool cue? Plus they have a band T-shirt of Sam Kekovich being torn apart by rabid sheep - an in-joke for the Aussie AFL/lamb-eating crowd, sure, but that imagery alone buys them miles of shit-stained cred.

Mutton are already aligning themselves with some of the gold-flecked detritus of the Australian underground, playing shows with the likes of Sewers, Cuntz, White Walls, Scul Hazzards, Worm Crown, Bone and the excellent DEAD - but these guys are flaying themselves to the front of the pack. Join in on the flagellation.

Pining For The Harshest Of Blackouts

Remember No Anchor? The brutalist Brisbane trio who reckon they aren't together much anymore? Donnie Miller records music and is in Sonic Masala-affiliated shoegaze band Roku Music; Alex Gillies cuts wood and is in metal throwbacks Greig; and Ian Rogers elocutes about music and plays in Shaking Hell. But Ian isn't done with flaying his vocal chords or our eardrums, as new side project Black Pines (joined by Rational Academy alum and the Pale Earth duke himself, Ben Thompson) attests. In the most obvious move yet from excellent outre outsider label Wood & Wire will take any risk, they have put out Harsh Out, six tracks of psych - but not as you know it. The duo want to scrape the underbelly of the 60s psychedelic dream with rusty knives, before diving straight in and letting the intestinal truth shower down. With comparisons of Bardo Pond, Boris, Swans and Unsane (circa 89-92) bandied about, you know that this is atonal obliteration of the most delicious kind. The red-eyed tint of a man driven insane by demons both without and within; swastikas etched through the skin, through sinew, through bone; nightmares real in Giallo Technicolour, an ecstatic mess, before spiralling into a pastiche of Korine-helmed dirt and Noe-driven madness. All done without preamble, without compromise, without apology. If you thought The Golden Bridge saw an upswing in Ian's temperament, with tongue embedded in cheek, then Black Pines is here to irradiate those memories beyond reproach.

As always, Wood & Wire are offering Harsh Out as a free download here. Let's hope there is some sort of physical release of this soon, yeah?