Faunas, Shit ShowSelf-released

The debut EP from fuzzed-out power-punk duo Faunas isn’t fucking around. Its five tracks of pummeling, thrashy garage-punk might be short, but it hits you like a storm, leaving you disheveled, broken, and yearning for more.

RIYL: Pissed Jeans, Pinkwash, face-numbing garage-punk.

Mock Identity, 4 SongsSelf-released

Something like a local supergroup—comprised of members of Antonia, Insect Factory, Supersonic Piss, and more—Mock Identity’s 4 Songs is the fierce, in-your-face post-hardcore 2017 deserves. Vocalist Adriana-Lucia Cotes sings and screams unpleasantries about liars, harassers, and abusers over angular riffs and a knotty rhythm section.

RIYL: Tricot, Drive Like Jehu, early Deerhoof, math rock.

Puff Pieces, Born 2 DieLovitt Records

The new two-song 7-inch from D.C.’s minimalist post-punks is most deceiving, but nonetheless a simple masterpiece. The A-side is “Born 2 Die,” a classic Puff Pieces track about the absurdity of life as we know it. And on the B-side, the track is reimagined as a throwback dance tune, composed entirely through synths and electronic drum programming. 

RIYL: Minimalist post-punk, no wave, proto-punk. 

 

Black Lodge + em.g, Assassin SuiteBlight Records

The second collaboration between Paperhaus’ Alex Tebeleff (as Black Lodge) and Maggie Gilmore (as em.g) continues the duo’s foray into the dark sounds of experimental electronic music. Tebeleff’s modular synthesizer produces eerie, industrial beeps, boops, and beats as em.g.’s processed vocals ebb and flow with an otherworldly, alluring calm.  

RIYL: Suzanne Ciani, experimental electronics, dark industrial, what you imagine the inside of David Lynch’s brain sounds like. 

Dove Lady, OneDZ Tapes

For their first proper full-length album, One, Dove Lady—the duo of Andrew Thawley and Jeremy Ray—delivers pure blasts of cathartic, heavy riffs and banging drums. It’s skronky, angular post-hardcore that seamlessly weaves in an array of influences, from free jazz to noise rock, emo, and even shades of pop-punk. 

RIYL: Cap’n Jazz, Lightning Bolt, skronky post-hardcore.