KILLING CALIFORNIA – Bones & Sand (Basement): SoCal’s KILLING CALIFORNIA treat their guitars like liquid fire, spraying a revved up sound in all directions on this six song EP. Fast and grizzled, these guys love old-school hardcore punk like their labelmates BULLET TREATMENT and VULTURES UNITED. The vocals could use some more punch, but maybe that’s because the fierce guitars steal all the spotlight.

TRENCHES – The Tide Will Swallow Us Whole (Solid State): boomCRASH. BOOMcrash. TRENCHES’ epic mid-tempo progressive metal/hardcore sound hits with the weight of a mile-long concrete slab falling on a singular grape. The DEFTONES wish they could record music with this much pressure. When then prog element to this band takes over, songs wander and churn with deliberation, and the smothering presence declines. That’s expected, and probably a relief, since it allows lead vocalist Jimmy Ryan (ex-HASTE THE DAY) to shine. Rare is the modern record worthy of being called intimidating.

FASTER FASTER – Hopes & Dreams (Oort): There’s a description of this release on Interpunk that goes “clean, clever pop/punk,” and it couldn’t be more dead-on. Georgia’s FASTER FASTER are as contemporary as it gets in sound – a mixture of FALL OUT BOY, MAYDAY PARADE, THE ACADEMY IS, and so forth, where every song is seemingly about the opposite sex, and in a smug, disarming kind of way. No doubt, the musicianship is solid, and the recording quality is superb, but memorability comes in short supply.