Bill Bondsmen - self released

There's another side to Detroit, an even scuzzier and faster than the garage side to Rock City. It's no surprise that the falling apart center of the universe, the symbol of the great United States at the peak of it's powers that's become a shadow of it's former self would encourage this faster than hell, hardcore blasted sound of the Bill Bondsmen.

"Peasant Under Glass" has a sweeping feedback distortion that fades in and plows right into hyper gated cut off chunks of riffs. They seem to have more effects this time around expanding on the cruddy distorted riffs. Tony on vocals is laying into his own distorted take on things and this watery sounding chorus pedal here that I definitely haven't heard from these guys is adding a weird angle turning this into something hard and creepy like the Cramps. The hard distortion against this underwater warble gives this a weird unbalanced tension, the back and forth separate from both channels is partly heavy riffs and haunted house metal.
A bottle on pavement opens B-Side's "Dead" with beefy guitars that drop out to a piercing doubled up note and a voice way off in the background is an echo'd creep. They're taking these hardcore punk standard ideas and then pushing them in new directions, just when you think that head melting eee eee eee eee rhythm can't go on for another measure without head bashing, it does. Brief stops to drop in on the other side the heavy distortion on the vocal more extreme than the guitars, toying with the tempos you'd expect for this kind of energy. This plows into a whole pile of windows and bottles to slowly run out of steam. I appreciate every one of these hand screened releases and they continue to evolve and continuously play towns near you. Don't ever stop.

My friend Sawyer from Kissing Contest loves these guys and I'm glad they saw fit to send their bad ass punk to a not hard ass like me anyways.

Get this direct from the band on tour or email (billbondsmendetroit AT gmail.com)or from Permanent Records Chicago.

Bill Bondsmen "Nineteen" self released

Amado from Bill Bondsmen ended up sending me another one of their handscreened singles a couple weeks back now. I should have recognized it from their last woodcut looking screened sleeve back over the summer, and even then I was going on about their industrial '90s sound...and I swear I didn't even look at that old review when I was writing this. It's hardcore, fast and punk, but the number of effects and noise style of the arrangement I guess is taking me in that direction.

A-Side's "Nineteen" has this guitar sound positively warbled right through a space echoplex, the vocals carry a similar weight of effects, but this distortion is flattening, the shimmery crunch on the electric drives this thing right off the cliff, and maybe it's the vocal texture that takes this into an industrial place for me. The promise of Pigface, that frightening supergoup of Ministry and contless others, the crossover of punk/electronic and antihuman everything, the massive angst and anger, the hipstamatic, film shutter, grain and dirt at that point were as important than the track. All those things come to mind, but with a faster and harder edge with real craft in crisp, thick melodies and they even add the ring of a telephone into the final round of heavy guitar bursts? It's the little things like that make me think this is working on a more than hardcore level.

"Things fall apart" consists of that clean, gated guitar again and the vocals on the B-Side are even more agressive, they take all their precision and throw it out the window bending the necks straight off with metal growling, they want to remind you they can get that crazy. Anything can happen, with Hot Snakes style speed and thick harmony, which ends in a repeating locked loop, a creepy lady saying "in the same way" She sounds mean. Bill Bondsmen happened to send an extra copy which means they wanted you, the reader to email me and I will send it to you.

You can pick this up on blood red vinyl over at Inimical Records or Sorry State.

Bill Bondsmen self titled single

Got this one in from a 4 piece out of Detroit, The Bill Bondsmen, looks like they pressed this one up themselves complete with hand screened covers of that creepy woodcut face on a glossy white sleeve. They've got a heavy rock, sort of hardcore sound and aren't afraid of a little creepy synth sound to make it's way into their own decrepit apocalyptic future.

A-Side's "Overcrowded Control" is taking me back to the Pigface sound and all the late 90's industrial kind of stuff I had cassettes and cassettes of. Space echo on the guitar, giving it that little bit of machine, anti-guitar sound, the melodies here are actually fairly grooving, this bassline is all over the place. Kind of classic rock metal guitars, the number of effects piled up makes for this weird combination of punk industrial rock, or it's the massively distorted vocal that's constantly yelling... aggro as hell. Can you tie this directly to the shell of a city itself? Maybe, it sure makes a hell of a lot of sense.

It's sort of working in this post industrial way, while being fairly rocking, there's some serious instrumentation going on sounding like the kind of free skronk jazz of Z's...soemthing with a lot of training involved...maybe right on the edge of that envelope and can't be accused of ripping anything else off in the last 10 years. Slick production on this one, Adam Cox knows what he's doing in separating this thing out in the two channels. Sort of not a lot of rhythm to grasp on too, it keeps changing... especially when you think its over, they come back and hit you over the head again.

"Untitled" on the B-side has plenty of fading in feedback and a slow bassline groove. The high squeal got trapped and a synth comes out to warble around. A snare comes wandering in out of the fog, you better get ready for more angst. A Phaser is revving up. This thing isn't stopping....the whole track wrapped around this swishy sound. Nice groovy distortion this time comes up with a pretty classic riff. The vocal are seriously destroying everyhting in the rest of the path, layered and pushed as loud as possible. It's a harsh life, full of loud sounds, when they take a minute it's really just unfair. Make it hazy, you don't want to hear everything. It's better this way.

Get this one from Dead Beat Records, or there's more where that came from on Acme, including a full length.

Preview below:

Bill Bondsmen- Overcrowded Control 7”. New Bill Bondsmen single here self released by the band. Bill Bondsmen remind me a lot of Career Suicide in approach. This Motor City foursome approach hardcore in a way that draws on a KBD style of roots punk and fuses it with an early American sounding style of hardcore. The result is a sound that borrows the musicality of punk with the fiery-ness of hardcore. On this EP I hear the Bondsmen going for the energy of Reagan Youth with the vocals and chops of Poison Idea. Another winner from this Detriot band. 7” LIMITED TO 500 COPIES WITH HAND SILK SCREENED COVERS. NO TWO LOOK ALIKE SO THE COLOR SCHEME ON THE ONE YOU RECIEVE MAY LOOK DIFFERENT FROM THE ONE IN THE PIC.

Or from the band themselves:
$5ppd (cash or money order made to CASH)
Bill Bondsmen
15106 Paris
Detroit, MI 48101