Hardcore punk bands the Goons and Soulside are again with new music

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Washington’s Nineteen Eighties hardcore punk (or “harDCore”) bands have been identified for vigor, depth and speedy stylistic evolution. However the impatience audible of their songs additionally manifested in one other method: Few of the teams continued for lengthy, usually leaving an album or much less as a legacy.

Some 40 years later, harDCore is surprisingly very important and more and more obtainable. Unhealthy Brains, the D.C. punk-reggae quartet that started its on-and-mostly-off profession in 1977, gained the rights to lots of its grasp recordings in 2021 and has regularly reissued six albums, an EP and its debut single. The Goons, based nearly twenty years after Unhealthy Brains, simply pressed a brand new version of their “Stay on the Black Cat,” recorded at a February 2000 gig.

When the Goons play a record-release present this weekend — on the Black Cat, after all — the night’s lineup will span generations. One of many opening acts might be HR Band, a gaggle named for and fronted by Unhealthy Brains lead singer Paul “H.R.” Hudson.

But reissues are simply a part of the story. Unexpectedly, quite a lot of harDCore veterans are making music collectively once more. Two bands that started within the ’80s, Soulside and Scream, have recorded new albums. Additionally latest are debut albums by Hammered Hulls and the Homeowners, quartets that embrace former members of such native ’80s teams as Ignition and Grey Matter, in addition to the more moderen Autoclave and Medicines.

Soulside’s “A Temporary Second within the Solar” arrived in mid-November. Scream’s “D.C. Particular,” its first album since 1993, is due this 12 months, however a precise date has not been set. Whereas particulars are guarded, “D.C. Particular” is predicted to incorporate many visitor appearances, together with by the Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, Scream’s onetime drummer. (All 4 albums are distributed by Dischord Information, the native punk label based in 1980.)

The ’80s D.C. scene had a small forged of characters, and whereas the inhabitants expanded over time, the brand new bands usually resplice earlier ones. Hammered Hulls singer Alec MacKaye collaborated with many different harDCore mainstays within the Untouchables, Religion, the Heaters and Ignition; that final group’s drummer was Dante Ferrando, now co-proprietor of the Black Cat and percussionist of the Homeowners. Additionally within the Homeowners is longtime Cat worker Laura Harris, who performed drums in Ex Hex with native guitar virtuoso Mary Timony. Each deal with bass of their new bands.

Whereas some harDCore alumni have ventured into different musical genres, the present crop of revived or realigned bands pursue kinds that most likely wouldn’t have provoked a single boo at an ’80s D.C. punk gig. Musically, the placing factor concerning the Homeowners’, Soulside’s and Hammered Hulls’ albums is their consistency and urgency, not their innovation.

The Homeowners’ self-titled album options speedy, simple rock-and-roll that recollects the much less arty exponents of Nineteen Seventies British glam rock, particularly through the collective-yell choruses of such songs as “Crimson Room Nights.” Soulside makes use of chugging onerous rock to anchor Bobby Sullivan’s wordy lyrics and bluesy singing; the latter is commonly woven with guitarist Scott McCloud’s backing vocals in call-and-response preparations that counsel gospel music and different African-rooted genres. (The quartet’s different gamers are drummer Alexis Fleisig and bassist Johnny Temple.)

On their “Careening,” Hammered Hulls hew closest to a traditional Dischord mode. MacKaye shout-sings roundabout refrains akin to “permission requested/permission denied/permission requested/permission denied” atop Mark Cisneros’s tightly circling guitar riffs. When Hammered Hulls make use of call-and-response, the dialogue is between MacKaye and himself.

Though punk can categorical the identical kind of teenage complaints pioneered within the Nineteen Fifties by Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins, it’s identified for addressing larger points. Soulside’s album takes its title from W.E.B. Du Bois’s characterization of the Reconstruction period, and lots of of its songs deal with racial justice. (Such tracks as “70’s Heroes,” which references Black activist John Africa, ought to most likely include a research information.) If there’s much less reggae affect on Soulside’s new music than on its ’80s fashion, Bob Marley’s mixture of grievance and affirmation does echo within the album-ending “It’s All About Love.”

“The Homeowners” has a lighter tone, as Catherine Ferrando sings with un-punk precision concerning the joys of going quick and going out. However the quartet additionally delivers ideas on local weather change in “Wrecked the World” and gentrification in “Low Lease Paradise,” a duet with guitarist Al Budd. The playful and the political tunes are equally full of jaunty drum fills and exuberant “heys!”

By the mid-Nineteen Eighties, the breakneck and declamatory punk of Unhealthy Brains and Minor Menace appeared to have exhausted itself. Whereas Unhealthy Brains started to toggle between velocity metallic and reggae, Minor Menace frontman Ian MacKaye (Alec’s brother) cultivated a extra diverse and expansive strategy with Embrace and, most famously, Fugazi. (On Feb. 11, AFI Silver will host a screening of “We Are Fugazi From Washington, DC,” a documentary assortment of dwell footage shot by the band’s followers.) However hardcore punk had change into a longtime fashion, able to be adopted by successive waves of younger musicians. For instance, the Goons.

That band’s “Stay on the Black Cat” is clearly protest music, even when Serge Goon’s vocals usually journey too rapidly for the lyrics’ targets to be deciphered. Such titles as “Nation in Misery” and “America Hates Its Youth” set the tone, and the singer’s introduction to “Ozone Alert” signifies that he was simply as aggravated about air pollution as about grown-ups generally.

On their new releases, the resuscitated and reshuffled ’80s D.C. punk bands show they will nonetheless carry out with adolescent vehemence effectively into their 50s. The present lineup of the marginally youthful Goons ought to reveal the identical factor onstage this weekend. However among the many causes for the reconstituted band’s fervor is a tragic one: The Goons’ authentic guitarist, Patrick Crean, died Dec. 27 after a lifelong wrestle with cystic fibrosis just lately difficult by most cancers remedies.

The band is promoting T-shirts that bear Crean’s likeness and on the Black Cat will supply band mementos on the market. All proceeds will go to the Cystic Fibrosis Basis. Regardless of how a lot enjoyable it's to roar a punky “no” at every thing, typically constructive motion could be simply as satisfying.

The Goons carry out Jan. 21 on the Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. blackcatdc.com. $20.

Soulside performs March 23 on the Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. blackcatdc.com. $20.

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