The Dredge: Crime Light, HIRS, and Cel Ray

Over the many years contributor Chris Coplan has been writing for Merry-Go-Round Magazine, readers have no doubt come to learn that he loves his punk music in every shape and form. Last year, Chris launched The Dredge, a newsletter you can subscribe to here, in which he further highlights his ever-expanding collection of hardcore, noise rock, Riot grrrl, Oi!, and more! MGRM is happy to be editing and re-publishing old editions of The Dredge into a regular column you can explore here on the site! Enjoy!

Crime Light – CRIME//SHAME//ILLUMINATION

Strategic sonic savagery.

For years, I couldn’t stand hardcore. Part of my “rehabilitation” has been finding those bands that toe the line—acts that make brash, aggressive music without falling prey to the derivative genre trappings. That’s clearly Ohio’s Crime Light, and their 2022 EP, CRIME//SHAME//ILLUMINATION, is next-level hardcore without the pomp and circumstance. “Trapeze” may be based on a Kafka story, but it spins experimental odd-and-ends that make the coming aural annihilation slice as sharp as ever. When they explore “political” subject matter in “27 Words” and “Waste Not”—about our asinine gun laws and global hunger, respectively—there’s a certain poetry and sheen of earnestness that pushes these away from the scene’s overt, often heavy-handed stances on key issues. More than anything, there’s an energy that permeates, like on “Crime Light,” where genre lines and cultural structures fade for something direct in its expression—even if it’s just more bile and dissonance. If all hardcore were this unassuming and strategic, I’d have to start buying patches or something.

Final Thoughts: Hardcore for the Extra Discerning Crowd, 8.1 / 10
RIYL: Antidote, Jay Reatard, and misdemeanors
Get the Album Here

HIRS – THE SECOND 100 SONGS 

Life’s a bloody marathon, ya dig?

This Philly queer collective changed the game for powerviolence with this 2015 mega-compilation. It’s not a gunship mowing down a populace; face it, enough folks are regularly bulletproof to these “unapproachable” bands. No, it’s like that fella exploring heads in Scanners—with HRIS totally strategic and targeted in how they turn our domes to mush. Like their choice of media samples (a true genre staple) as plot devices, including George Carlin and Employee of the Month. Or, how the song bits aren’t jokes (yet they sooo are) but a perpetuation of their own “ethos of de-individualization” and music as a collective social and political expression. (Same goes for the lyrics—cutting insights obfuscated for engagement with the text and other tunes.) Maybe the way the interludes (like the pulverizing “Mandatory Consent”) lead into more substantive efforts (the surprisingly textured, equally assaultive “Breed”), and how that contrast continually does wonders for both. Even this whole gimmick—surely, who could survive 101 songs and 50-plus minutes of pure sonic torture—plays out like some joyous in-joke between the band and its listeners. So grab the oversized bull by the pointy horns—you may find something playful, profound, and poised amid the endless punishment. 

Final Thoughts: You Should Be in It for the Looooong Haul, 6.6 / 10
RIYL: Full of Hell, Team Dresch, and fist fights and social theory
Get the Album Here

Cel Ray – CELLULAR RAYMOND

Chicago punks embrace the vibes.

Chicago punk often doesn’t make a lick of sense. It’s too Midwestern-ly polite to be hardcore, and too hip and edgy for proper pop punk. And in that space of uncertainty we get awesome up-and-comers like Cel Ray. Their six-track CELLULAR RAYMOND tape is a scattershot of punk devotion that gleefully shuffles context and meaning. “Surf’s Up (Garfield Park)” clings to its titular genre, but surfing Lake Michigan ain’t exactly manageable. “Clock Me Out” could be a savage attack on capitalism if it weren’t so undeniably charming. And “Dog War” has the makings of a post-punk ballad that quickly goes to the dogs (literally). But a nebulous identity suits these kids; their pinball approach to punk is born out of a truly Midwestern mix of hard work/devotion and an aw-shucks level of openness. It makes CELLULAR RAYMOND ring true with that most punk-ish tenet: a frenetic passion to ideas both shiny and oh-so important.

Final Thoughts: A Soundtrack for Skeezy Summers in Lake View, 6.8 / 10
RIYL: Negative Scanner, Uranium Club, and barcades
Get the Album Here