The Witzard

"It's not a reunion anymore. This is one of the most radical things we've ever done, both musically and lyrically," Refused frontman Dennis Lyxzén quipped upon the sporadic release of the Swedish Hardcore Punk band's first single in some 17 years, "Elektra." "Nobody wanted us to f*ck with the image of the band who makes a great album and splits up," drummer David Sandström added. "Nobody wanted us to dilute it. That actually provoked us." While it should have arguably been one of the formative Punk Rock records I 'cut my teeth' on as an angsty teenager along with Black Flag , The Misfits, and Minor Threat/Fugazi , for whatever reasons, I hate to admit, I only first heard Refused's genre-shaping magnum opus, The Shape of Punk to Come just a few years ago; upon a first listen, "Elektra" follows in line with what Rolling Stone sums up as a seamless "fusion of Hardcore, Techno, Jazz , and Hip-Hop ,...

Since initially bursting onto the music scene in 2008-09, Philly Psych-Pop band PO PO has somehow mysteriously morphed from "family affair" (3 brothers) to the solo endeavor of remaining member, Zeb Malik . Regardless of "current events," PO PO have signed to home-bred label, Mad Decent and are gearing up to release their long-awaited debut album, DOPE BOY MAGICK . Labelhead Diplo and Nick Launay lent their production talents, but with such a tensured past, it's almost hard to tell how many bandmembers are ACTUALLY present on each specific recording. Zeb teamed up with [art] director, Clayton Vomero on Staten Island to produce the music video for "Teen Dreamz / "Let's Get Away" along with DOPE BOY MAGICK's featured artwork (Noah Conopask) . Stereogum debuted the new PO PO video yesterday afternoon, which for all intensive purposes... is a short film oddly rooted somewhere between the genres of gut-wrenching Horror and Roman...