Skumdum (Sweden)

Eduardo Taú of Wreck The Place Fantastic reporting in with our International Spotlight. The spotlight features updates and music downloads from bands outside the North American market. This week we're headed to Sweden:

"Take a stand for what you believe in," is what vocalist Pierre screams in this Skumdum song. That's also what this fast and furious partypunk band from Skelleftea, Sweden is all about. Live and enjoy, soon we'll all be dead. That is Skumdum.The band has been playing together with their present line-up since 2002 when Linkan joined, but Chris, Pat and Pierre have been playing together since their early teens. The music is aggressive, the lyrics often political, but this is always compounded with strong songwriting and catchy harmonies. Through blood, sweat and a lot of hard work, Skumdum have become one of the most popular punkbands in Scandinavia. They have done a lot of heavy touring, both national and international. Their unique sound, in-your-face mentality and uncompromising attitude has given Skumdum a well earned reputation for being an extraordinary and mindblowing live act. Combining true passion and devotion for the music together with the aim to make every show even better than the last, it's easy to understand why Skumdums popularity has increased so rapidly during the past three years!

Skumdum - "Take a Stand" (MP3)

Red Lights Flash (Austria)

Eduardo Taú of Wreck The Place Fantastic reporting in with our International Spotlight. The spotlight features updates and music downloads from bands outside the North American market. This week we're headed to Austria:

Hailing from Graz in Austria these punk rockers inked a deal with AF Records, who recently released their album Free in the US. Red Lights Flash is a band that manages to mix all that punk angst with the energy of rock and roll. I've been following the evolution of the Austrian punk scene and I can say with confidence that it is one of the main cradles for good bands in Europe these days. This band is exhibit A, having recently been featured as the opening act for Anti Flag throughout their latest European tour. "Time The Lights Went Out" is the album's first single.

Red Light Flash - "Time The Lights Went Out" (MP3)

Death Is Not Glamorous (Norway)

Here's Tim Krysko of Wreck The Place Fantastic reporting in with our International Spotlight. Every week we're featuring updates and music downloads from bands outside the North American market. This week we're headed to Norway for another track from a band that's getting plenty of buzz `round these parts:

State Of Mind Recordings has produced some incredible hardcore these past couple years from bands like This Is Hell, No Roses, and Dead Hearts. One of their new releases is an EP from a band that I think may be their best finding to date: Oslo, Norway's Death Is Not Glamorous. The EP is essentially the band's 5-song demo, which previously went out of print in Europe, remastered. It sounds very Lifetime-inspired. Over in the UK, Dead & Gone Records is announcing a CD/7' to be released this month called "Undercurrents" consisting of new material. The band's currently touring their asses off around Europe.

Death Is Not Glamorous - "Elephants" (MP3)

The Scare (South Africa)

Here's Tim Krysko of Wreck The Place Fantastic reporting in with our International Spotlight. Every week we're featuring updates and music downloads from bands outside the North American market. This week we're headed to South Africa:

This week I want to take a look at one of South Africa's many up'n-comers, The Scare, who reside in the thriving music town called Cape Town, are comprised of six self-proclaimed metal enthusiasts - that's two vocalists and two guitarists in the band - that have been together since just late 2004. Their first career highlight was winning three categories of a battle of the bands called Bandslam 2005: best band, best vocals, and best drums. The Scare's name since has been popping up at every key event in the South African undergroun scene. Last year they opened for Most Precious Blood when that band visited the country, and so far in 2006 they've played the crucial Witchfest and Knifefight festivals, and next month, Noisefest. The Scare have yet to release any recordings, but they recently signed to South Africa's Murdercall Records owned by Ivan of The Hurt Process and Hanu of The Narrow, so an album is currently in the works.

The Scare - "Broken Chains" (MP3)

Verses You (Luxembourg)

Here's Tim Krysko of Wreck The Place Fantastic reporting in with our International Spotlight. Every week we're featuring updates and music downloads from bands outside the North American market. This week we're headed to Luxembourg:

It sounds like Chicago in Luxembourg right now. A reader pointed me in the direction of this band from the tiny Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, he said sound a bit like the Lawrence Arms, and they play the style very well. I have to agree with him. Versus You has only been around since 2005, though the individual members have 'ex-member' histories going back seven or so years. Other Chicago punk influences that they cite include Screeching Weasel and the Broadways, plus lots of West Coast staples like Jawbreaker, early Green Day, and Pinhead Gunpowder.

Versus You is a three-piece; guitarist and vocalist Eric also maintains a solo career called Communicaution, while bassist Giordano founded and runs the only punk rock record label and booking agency in Luxembourg called Winged Skull, and drummer Pait plays in a second band, a hardcore band called Eternal Tango. They have one album out so far, titled Like a Bug on a Windshield, and here is one of its tracks, "An Artist with a Self-Portrait Has No Imagination".

Verses You - "An Artist with a Self-Portrait Has No Imagination" (MP3)

Hollow Jan (South Korea)

Here's Tim Krysko of Wreck The Place Fantastic reporting in with our International Spotlight. Every week we're featuring updates and music downloads from bands outside the North American market. This week we're headed to South Korea:

Hollow Jan hail from South Korea and play melodic, emotive hardcore very much in line with early Envy and other Japanese hardcore bands. They're a five-piece band based out of Seoul with an EP to their name titled Hyacinthus Orientalis of Purple EP. The EP has been released by the Korean label Better Tomorrow Records and will shortly see a US release courtesy of Tennessee's I've Come for Your Children Records. A couple more tracks are available at the band's purevolume page.

Hollow Jan - A Hateful Speech (MP3)

Fugo (Switzerland)

Here's Tim Krysko of Wreck The Place Fantastic reporting in with our International Spotlight. Every week we're featuring updates and music downloads from bands outside the North American market. This week we're headed to Switzerland:

This week we present a little-known band called Fugo, from faraway Aarau, deep within the confines of Aargau (which is in Switzerland, believe it or not). Formed in late 2000, Fugo began as a side project for a couple of its members, and soon evolved into a full-time band. They signed in 2004 with Engineer Records in the US and UK and issued their first album, Aie. Every track on this disc is titled after a letter, a period, and a parenthesis; the track we've selected is the album's opener, "W.)" - sung entirely (to the best that I can discern) in French. Here's how Engineer described it:

"There is definitely a nod in the direction of early Fugazi with the slow deliberate chugging build ups but also the groove of early Quicksand and the general weirdness of Alice Donut or even Dead Kennedys thrown in there too. A tempered record that is so deliberate you worry for the bands sanity. It's hard to explain, so you'll just have to hear it for yourself, it's a kind of "other music"!"

Fugo - W.) (MP3)

Since Yesterday (Turkey)

Here's Tim Krysko of Wreck The Place Fantastic reporting in with our International Spotlight. Every week we're featuring updates and music downloads from bands outside the North American market. This week we're headed to Turkey:

The Turkish underground scene has been developing steadily for a number of years now. The country has already produced some stellar bands that have come and gone (look up Antisilence, Radical Noise, or Less for starters), but now there's a plethora of young bands positioning themselves to make a name for the Turkish music community. And lately, from what I hear, the buzz is around the country's capital, Ankara, as opposed to its cosmopolitan hub city Istanbul. One of the bands building their name in Ankara and across Turkey is Since Yesterday. Their first recording was a seven-song record called Maybe Tomorrow which appeared in 2002. The following year they shared a split with fellow Turkish band In Between, and in 2004 those two bands joined together with the US's Planes Mistaken For Stars and the UK's Candy Sniper for a 4-way split. Since Yesterday is hard at work on new material, but in the meantime here's one of their tracks called "The Last Message".

Since Yesterday - The Last Message (MP3)

Subs (China)

Here's Tim Krysko of Wreck The Place Fantastic reporting in with our International Spotlight. Every week we're featuring updates and music downloads from bands outside the North American market. This week we're headed to China:

A few weeks ago, my friend Paul (who's been my 'source' in Beijing since probably 2000 or so) helped us put together a Chinese punk mix for Wreck The Place Fantastic. This sixteen-song digital compilation is a pretty thorough survey of mainland China's booming music scene. By now you're probably aware of Brain Failure. You may know of Reflector. Another one of the city's leading bands is called Subs. The band formed in Beijing in 2002 and has since that time toured China extensively and made a couple trips to Europe. The screamiest band out of China I have heard to date, Subs has one of the region's more unique styles, one that is influenced by the Hives, Fugazi and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Here's a track called "8 o'Clock".

Subs - 8 o'Clock (MP3)

M.Knox-Music (Brazil)

Here's Eduardo Taú of Wreck The Place Fantastic reporting in with our International Spotlight. Every week we're featuring updates and music downloads from bands outside the North American market. This week we're headed back to Brazil:

The Brazilian post-rock outfit M.Knox-Music came around in 2002, and released the following year their debut EP Music and Confrontation in such an Ugly Time. Last year they were in the studio tracking their first full length, which comes out in 2006 on Enemy One Records. During the recording process, they had already redefined their sound, surpassing the strong American indie music and emo-rock influences of the EP, towards more sonic dynamics and inventive textures, with memorable psychodelic and discopunk influences, and an all around more experimental agenda. Their new album "Espelho" carries the concoction that can be considered the signature identity of theirmusic: the explosive combination of assorted elements of 70's rock and roll with the punk rock sound of the late 80's, something like a mix between Led Zeppelin and say Fugazi. In the heart and soul of each song there's a pulsing groundbreaking feeling, pioneering even, and an outstanding progressive songwriting logic and repertoire assembly. It's not really recycling, but more of a quest for solid references as grounds to create a brand new sound.

M.Knox-Music - Moral Codes (MP3)