Knowso "Hypnotic Smack"

LP - $12.70
STREET DATE: 9/5/25
CAT#: SSR-152
LABEL: Sorry State

Hypnotic Smack is the new album from Knowso, the Cleveland punk duo featuring Nathan Ward (Cruelster, Perverts Again, the Carp) and Jayson Gerycz (Cloud Nothings). If you’ve heard Knowso’s music, you know they’re spiritual children of Devo, both in their proclivity toward dense and nervy rhythmic experimentation and in the way their lyrics turn a cracked, distorted mirror at the world and its many absurdities. Like the Fall’s best records, Hypnotic Smack attacks the body and the brain simultaneously, your hips jerking uncontrollably to the robotic pulse of “You Climb the Sphynx” and “Club Music is the Soundtrack” while your brain chews the koan-like cud of lyrical nuggets such as “every boss in America is a real estate agent.” Ward’s cryptic lyrics reflect the psychedelic labyrinth of horrors that is your daily doomscroll, but it’s OK… we can still dance the night away to “Panopticon,” the goth club dance anthem no one predicted Knowso would write. The world is full of punk bands that are great at pummeling you, but Hypnotic Smack is the rare punk record that beguiles and entrances.

TRACK LISTING:
01. You Climb the Sphinx
02. Blue
03. There Is No Connection
04. Perfect for Bleach
05. Fluorescent Pink
06. Sacred Mystery
07. Consumer Talk
08. Panopticon
09. Club Music Is the Soundtrack
10. Sin of Property
11. Blood in Your Memory

MARKETING POINTS:

• Knowso shares a drummer with Cloud Nothings and is part of a close-knit scene of related bands, a kind of punk cinematic universe that also includes Cruelster (whose new LP just came out on Convulse Records), Perverts Again, and the Carp (recent LP on Total Punk)

FOR FANS OF:
Devo, the Fall, Cruelster, Cloud Nothings

Illiterates "Does Not Compute"

LP - $12.70
STREET DATE: 9/5/25
CAT#: SSR-148
LABEL: Sorry State

The “dumbest band in hardcore” returns with twelve more rampaging tracks. While Illiterates’ last record, 2023’s No Experts, trimmed their compositions to the bone, Does Not Compute widens the scope just a hair, making room for anthemic mid-paced parts (see “Remember When” and the epic title track), blazing Straight Ahead-esque crossover rippage (“Sustainability”), and even a touch of trad youth crew (the Can’t Close My Eyes influences were all over No Experts, but “No One Wants To” is pure Revelation Records circa 1988). Illiterates have also added a new guitarist since the last record, which they’re so excited about they wrote a song about it (“Hig Champion”), though they tastefully limit themselves to just a few eruptions of fret-melting lead licks. And while Illiterates insist they’re dumb, their lyrics are full of wisdom you don’t get at the library, like the anti-pretension anthem “Read the Room” (my favorite lyric: “one thing school didn’t teach you is how to read the fucking room”). Hair-splitting aside, Does Not Compute is another great hardcore record from one of the best bands in the game right now.

TRACK LISTING:
01. Remember When
02. Commodified Life
03. M.O.E.
04. Does Not Compute
05. No One Wants To
06. Read the Room
07. Hold a Grudge
08. Grey Cloud
09. Hig Champion
10. Sustainability
11. Self Diagnosed
12. Won't Bring Me Down

MARKETING POINTS:

• Actively playing shows around the eastern US.
• European tour in October 2025
• Previous LP is one of Sorry State's best sellers

FOR FANS OF:
Youth of Today, Speed Plans