Three hardcore releases especially stuck out this week, all of 'em more or less treading off the genre's beaten paths. The most conventionally sounding - relatively speaking of course - is the EP by People's Temple on NY label RoachLeg Records, giving us an extremely tuneful variation on 80s hardcore, at times coming across like a blend of Circle Jerks with early-to-middle-era Naked Raygun and with occasional flourishes of Hüsker Dü to boot. Of more recend Bands, Fried E/m might also fit the bill. Hickey's tape on Archfiend records then infuses contemporary strands of garage-, synth- and eggpunk weirdness with plenty of oldschool hardcore energy, along the way also evoking the some vibes of Flipper, Spike in Vain, Broken Talent… With this release, we might just be entering the eggcore era! Montreal's Hood Rats operate in a vaguely similar territory, also having a sound grounded in garage punk brimming with lo-fi eggpunk quirkyness just as much as with an unkempt KBD energy and the tunes to make it stick.
Synth punk maestro Klint doesn't need an introduction here at this point, i guess. His half of this awesome split cassette gives us another three artifacts skimmed off the top of that bottomless pit of pure creativity that dude seems to magically conjure up as soon as someone allows him to plug a cable into anything. Orrendo Subotnik from Pisa, Italy then craft a very different, yet no less exciting soundscape. Having sent some shockwaves already with their ultra-rough second tape last year, their sound comes into much sharper focus here. A weird mixture that is, charging up the noise pop and fuzz punk of acts like early No Age, Male Bonding or Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger!, noisy and darkly melodic post punk á la Die! Die! Die!, Piles or Times Beach, with a decidedly hard-/postcore kind of energy and a sense of widescreen drama you might expect of Lower or early Iceage… among tons of other stuff i've yet to unpack.
On this unbelievably un-british sounding LP - kind of an expanded version of last year's Happy Bank Holiday EP - Sheffield group Big Break set up twelve furious bursts of undiluted garage punk thrust in a way that most often reminds me of both australian and US acts such as Hank Wood and the Hammerheads, Split System, Easers, Jackson Reid Briggs & The Heaters and The Cowboy, to name just a few.
A kickass EP of this Glasgow group originally released roughly a year ago, now hopefully getting saved from relative obscurity by local label Gold Mold Records who've just reissued this beauty digitally and on cassette. On it, we get fresh supply from the realm of dungeon punk-ajacent noise reminiscent of a whole range of groups like, naturally, the current genre overlords Poison Ruïn, the heavily motörized/sleazified garage punk of Cheap Heat, Golden Pelicans and Polute, hard-/postcore-leaning acts like Tarantüla, Bloody Gears and Video.
On their second full length, Malbourne group Civic continue hold up the banner of oldschool garage punk of the heavily Birdman-indebted variety while still cautiously expanding on their sonic spectrum. Blood Rushes, for example, has some power pop vibe to it, reminiscent of early Scientists while in Trick of the Light, a touch of mid-eighties Wipers in the verses leads into some serious New Christs-like riffing in the chorus.
Here's your obligatory weekly fix of melodic garage-/egg-/synth punk shit, this time coming from a Winchester, Virginia outfit whose quirky noises will surely satisfy the needs of afficinados primarily of the austalian scene including acts such as Ausmuteants, Research Reactor Corp., R.M.F.C., Set-Top Box, Tee Vee Repairman, Eugh, Daughter Bat & The Lip Stings… as well as some US acts á la Eric Nervous, Sex Mex and Liquids.
Punter came up with an excellent demo in 2020. Their new EP on Drunken Sailor Records elevates their sound to a whole different level though, combining the strengths of "heavy" metal- and hard rock-infused garage acts á la Polute, Cheap Heat, Cement Shoes or Stiff Richards, the hard rockin' hardcore attack of, say, Cutters and Cülo, postcore of the Dollhouse, Acrylics, Flea Collar variety and all the drama, rage and melancholy of Pist Idiots, Jackson Reid Briggs & The Heaters.
Garage Punk with a weird thematic fixation on mopeds and buttholes by some New York dude which sounds a lot like his city ca. '73-'77, inhabiting a sonic space somewhere inbetween the proto- and early punk of the NY Dolls, Modern Lovers and Dead Boys, with further echoes of the wider early US scene á la Pagans, Black Randy and the Metrosquad on the more relaxed side of things as well some serious early australian Saints- and Birdman energy in its wilder moments.
Simple and straightforward-as-fuck Garage Punk by a London group which, if you ask me, doesn't sound much like London at all, rather reminding me of a bunch of continental european acts of late like Italy's Dadar, Shitty Life and The Dirtiest, Belgium's Mitraille and Itches as well as american acts á la Sore Points, Big Baby, maybe a hint of Sick Thoughts or (early) Hank Wood & The Hammerheads.
Not long after the recent 7" on Goodbye Boozy Records we get the first LP of Sydney's Tee Vee Repairman on that other garage punk powerhouse label Total Punk. As you might've guessed this is another juicy treat of simple and stupid melodic garage punk and power pop delight well suited for fans of shit like Bad Sports, Tommy and the Commies and Bed Wettin' Bad Boys while of the dude's own other projects, you might be most reminded of a sugar-coated version of Satanic Togas or recent R.M.F.C..
