Tenement - Napalm Dream

Tenement - Napalm Dream

Tenement are a punk band from Wisconsin who are totally killing it. Napalm Dream has hooks for days and sounds like Hüsker Dü mixed with the Descendents and Bracket. Good luck getting these tunes out of your head, cuz Tenement write some syrupy-sweet jams bro. One of the best releases of 2011 for sure. Go buy the 12" of this bastard from Mandible Records and look for their new 12", Blind Wink, out this month from Cowabunga! Records.

Buffalo Tom

Buffalo Tom - Self Titled

Buffalo Tom - Birdbrain

Buffalo Tom - Let Me Come Over

Buffalo Tom - Big Red Letter Day

Buffalo Tom - Sleepy Eyed

Great Boston rock band influenced by Hüsker Dü and The Replacements. The self titled debut and Birdbrain were both produced by J. Mascis and pretty much sound like Dinosaur Jr. minus the face-melting guitar solos (although J. does wail away on the track Impossible off the self titled). On Let Me Come Over the band enlisted the famed production duo of Paul Q. Kolderie and Sean Slade and it featured a much sleeker and polished sound. For Big Red Letter Day they worked with the Robb Brothers who scored a hit with The Lemonheads' album It's A Shame About Ray. It is also the most successful Buffalo Tom album and contains the hit single "Soda-Jerk" that was used in the TV series My So Called Life. The boys also appeared in a seperate episode of the show playing the song "Late At Night". Buffalo Tom took a much rawer approach on the album Sleepy Eyed, both in production and songwriting. Its the most punk sounding of their albums since the self titled. Frequent Dinosaur Jr collaborator John Agnello recorded the album and its a real rager. This band just got better and better with each successive release. They are back together now and will have a new album out early next year. If you are a fan of 90's alternative rock i.e. Dinosaur Jr., The Lemonheads and Superchunk then you're bound to find something to like here.

GobbleHoof

GobbleHoof - S/T

GobbleHoof - FreezerBurn

Both these albums were produced by J. Mascis (who also played drums on the self titled) and released on the Minutemen's New Alliance Records. GobbleHoof featured J. Mascis' childhood friends Charles Nakajima (former Deep Wound frontman) on vocals, Kurt Fedora (a frequent guest on Dinosaur Jr albums) on bass and future Dinosaur Jr member George Berz on drums (for the FreezerBurn album). The sound on the self titled is a hybrid of punk and metal, you can hear some Rollins Band, some Black Flag and even some Butthole Surfers. On FreezerBurn they upped the metal and added some wah-wah drenched guitar and some seriously rad guitar riffs (a-la Soundgarden and Tad). Pretty rad proto-grunge.