Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Our Quiet Whisper
All In Good Time, out December 13th via Castle Face Records.
Pinko - Rats In Reverie
You & You, out December 13th via Hex Records.
Alien Nosejob - HC45
Alien Nosejob seem to become the kind of band where Ausmuteants singer Jake Robertson only does whatever the fuck he wants to at the moment. They started out as a more or less exact copy of his more well known band, then it started to get unpredictable as they ventured into retro tearjerker power pop, among other things. Also, we had to suffer through a maxi single of ultra-cheesy synth pop. This time they make it easier for me: It's hardcore. It rotates 45 times a minute. And it's very good.
Album-Stream →Acrylics - Sinking In
After a number of incredible EPs, it took Santa Rosa's Acrylics a good two years to assemble their fist long player, which - to no real surprise - turns out to be their most varied and mature chunk of noise. Their ambitious, but simultaneously always perfectly coherent mix of styles draws a perfect triangle between the dark post punk of Criminal Code, hardcore punk of the quite punishing variety reminiscent of Cülo, Hate Preachers, Impulso and forward thinking Postcore of acts like Ivy and Bad Breeding.
Album-Stream →Yammerer - Reality Escape Resort
Two preview tracks from this (probably) british band's debut EP already made me kinda hungry for more of their shit and now the record's other two songs prove we haven't been promised too much. A soundscape of restless garage punk unfolds, transporting a feeling of widescreen spaciousness you rarely get to witness in this genre - somewhat as if recent Uranium Club met Radio Birdman and Modern Lovers, complemented by a bit of MX-80 weirdness. Also, the epic closer Seasons 13-31 seems to have taken some cues from Wipers' Youth Of America.
Album-Stream →Kumusta - Kumusta #1
Exquisite shit from Rouen, France. Kumusta emerge on the scene with a fun mixture drawing a line from noise rock & -core on one end of the spectrum, some raw garage energy on the other, a shitload of post punk & postcore in between. Imagine a fusion of slowed-down Bad Breeding with Criminal Code in certain moments, or at other times, you might be reminded of Australia's postcore powertools Batpiss and Bench Press.
Album-Stream →Big Bite - Trinity
Last year's long playing debut by Seattle group Big Bite already struck me as an anomaly of the most welcome kind. Now their sophomore effort comes across as no less brilliant - once again breathing new life into a particular 90s niche, oscillating somewhere between straightforward, no-fuss but high-thrust indie- and alternative rock plus a bit of shoegaze. Think Sugar, Polvo or Swervedriver when it comes to bands of the aforementioned era, or of more recent acts like early Ovlov, Pardoner, Milked or Dead Soft. Psychedelic moments are given a bit more emphasis here than on their first, while in the album's final stretch you can sense a subtle post punk vibe of the Teenanger or Constant Mongrel variety.
Album-Stream →Plataforma - La Equitativa
Once again Barcelona's scene is killing it! Plataforma manage to do just that thanks to a beautifully rough, DIY-as-fuck sound in the realm of dark-/post punk with a healthy dose of goth/death rock doom & gloom. Crisis come to mind as well as the early 2010's Kopenhagen scene - think Lower and early Iceage - and some more recent stuff like britain's Disjoy.
Album-Stream →Girls In Synthesis - Arterial Movements 7"
While their last EP Fan The Flames didn't appeal to me as much as i hoped for, their newest 7" shows London's Girls In Synthesis at their best. Just like before, their sound is a skilled balancing act on the threshold between post punk and noise rock, thus operating in much of the same realm as Bands like USA Nails, Tunic or John (timestwo), among others. The definite highlight here is Smarting with its kinda Big Black-esque way of guitar shredding.
Black Button - Demo
This band from Richmond, Virginia gives us another ten minutes of pissed off and exquisite no-frills garage punk just dripping with loads of raw hardcore energy.
Album-Stream →