Murderous Punk Albums Share Plenty With Each Other and Nobody Else

Das Oath have made a great punk rock album. What that means in 2004, I’ll let boring people figure out. All you need to know is I’m 35, and recently I got drunk and almost cried listening to a Judge record cuz it sounded so friggin’ beautiful. And I’m hardly the biggest fan of post-Y.O.T. S.E. CT H.C. So I’m not always discerning when it comes to speed and riffage. But I do know that half-Dutch/half-Yank Das Oath’s glorious combo of mosh-worthy breakdowns, drum pummeling, and screamo yowling with hardcore’s brute force is invigorating and corrosive enough to hypothetically inspire murder with bare hands. But in a good way. And what a relief to hear an album that isn’t a part of the great Converge/Dillinger Escape Plan crusty-math-major war, or yet another short-attention-span-theater spazz attack à la Lightning Bolt or the Locust (who have their place, even if I’d opt for Bolt Thrower and the Crickets).

Nearly as homicide-inducing, also 27 minutes long, also filled with ex-members of 50 other unknown bands, and also self-titled is the new album by Coliseum. Sounding a bit like Entombed covering Motörhead or Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing Discharge, Coliseum build brawny, bloody tunes out of vitriol, venom, and vigor. (The three V’s of punk!) Hence: two more big guns in my late-night arsenal of nihilism and ecstatic, awkward dancing.