No Brains - Cheap Shot /​/​ The Celebrities - Redd Karpet

Two out­stand­ing re­leas­es rolled in this week dab­bling in un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly old­school aes­thet­ics, both pre­vail­ing in their own way by fair­ly dif­fer­ent means. No Brains from Utrecht, Nether­lands present an un­com­pro­mis­ing­ly straight­for­ward blend of time­less garage punk and ear­ly eight­ies, some­what hard­core- and KBD-ad­ja­cent nois­es. I give this shit 0/​10 stars for orig­i­nal­i­ty and 20/​10 stars for sheer un­re­lent­ing force. That av­er­ages out to an ac­tu­al 10/​10 record, mind you. You think oth­er­wise? That's 'cos you suck at math dude, deal with it.
Al­so plen­ty of garage ac­tion, al­though with more of a '77 and pow­er pop vibe, is what we get on a brand new EP by Cal­i­for­nia group The Celebri­ties via US garage punk bul­wark To­tal Punk. A bit more re­laxed tem­po-wise but these are per­fect­ly fun and catchy lit­tle tunes with some pro­nounced Dead Boys-meet-Dick­ies en­er­gy goin' on here, mak­ing for an ex­quis­ite sug­ar rush of an ad­mit­ted­ly, at times, kin­da cheesy qual­i­ty which thank­ful­ly al­ways gets coun­tered by way an ex­pert­ly craft­ed wall of fuzz. I give it a 11/​10 for all the glitz, glam­our and star pow­er. Maths man, noth­ing we can do about it.