Vaguess - Thanks /​/​ No Thanks

A main­stay of re­cent years in garage punk is back with a some­what more high-pro­file LP via Er­ste Theke Ton­träger fol­low­ing a re­cent string of more un­der­stat­ed cas­sette and dig­i­tal re­leas­es. This thing is as eclec­tic as any of these but at the same time, a lot more fo­cused, de­ter­mined and con­sis­tent than some of those more scrap­py re­cent of­fer­ings. Span­ning a spec­trum from the propul­sive post punk of the open­ing sal­vo (When It's Gone, A.P.A.C.), melan­choly in­die rock bal­lads (Texas Cloud), comp­fy synth pop tunes (Let U Know) to straight­for­ward garage-/fuzz punk ex­plo­sions (Can't Take It, 2 Car Garage), there's plen­ty of meat to dig your teeth in­to, all held to­geth­er by Vin­ny Earley's al­ways con­fi­dent, of­ten plain­ly bril­liant song­writ­ing pow­ers. Last but not least, Week­end Shad­ows and Car­ry­on are fur­ther ex­am­ples of ex­act­ly that kind of supreme pow­er-/fuzz pop hymn the dude has al­ways ex­celled at.