S.U.G.A.R. - II

Fol­low­ing last year's some­what un­even de­but LP of this Berlin group, their newest al­bum is a huge step for­ward in every as­pect - the huge­ly im­proved song sub­stance be­ing dri­ven forth with un­re­lent­ing mo­men­tum and cap­tured in a mid-fi aes­thet­ic that fits them per­fect­ly. Sound­wise, they're clear­ly tak­ing cues from a long lin­eage of pro­to- and old­school garage punk - ob­vi­ous­ly Stooges, MC5 and Death to be­gin with, in ad­di­tion to Dead Moon and some Wipers touch­es but, most of all, that austal­ian breed of groups like Saints, Ra­dio Bird­man, Sci­en­tists ap­pear to have left their mark in their sound, not to men­tion the larg­er-than-life fuzz punk one-hit-won­ders God - but while the lat­ter seemed to flame up and burn out over the short du­ra­tion of one glo­ri­ous A-side nev­er to reach such heights again, S.U.G.A.R. show no signs of wear yet, re­peat­ing that mar­vel eight­fold for a cer­ti­fied all-killer-no-filler al­bum.