A new tape by that mystery outfit (possibly) from Hicksville, NY on which they stay as unpredictable as ever, this time delivering a batch of infectious below-one-minute melodic garage smashers - high speed fuzzy power pop kinda like an alternate-reality garage incarnation of early Guided By Voices.
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With quite a bit of delay - as has unfortunately become kind of the new normal for anything intended to be released on vinyl - we get the newest opus of sweden’s prime synth punk outfit Isotope Soap and oh boy, is this a spaced out new level of quirky and weird even for this group. As you might have noticed by now, i’m a sucker for this kind. Consisting roughly half of instrumental interludes radiating vibes not unlike a bizarro John Carpenter score, the actual Songs on this LP more than ever seem to draw inspiration from oldschool pioneers of the genre - yeah, of course there is some Devo in there but even more i’d suggest stuff like Screamers, Units and Nervous Gender, all mixed with more recent groups 'a la Set-Top Box, Digital Leater and, occasionally, i even sense a touch of grim post punk in the vein of Video or VHS.
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Well here’s yet another batch of low-originality, high-enjoyability first-rate kickass Garage Punk, the straightforward no-frills kind that will help out those who are already showing their first Sick Thoughts withdrawal symptoms and the kind that won’t alarm fans of Dadar, Shitty Life or, at some points, Booji Boys too much either. These pretty normal Babies only drink beer after all, rather than blood. Admittedly, that’s mildly surprising indeed for a group from Trittsburgh, Trennsylvania.
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A fun, smart high-energy blow of garage-infused hardcore punk delivered by a group that might or mightn’t be from Long Beach, California, holding a perfect balance between dumb straight-ahead oldschool energy and the various quirks and eccentricities of more recent hardcore phenomena, which sorta locates them on the genre map somewhere in the excellent company of other contemporary troublemakers such as Mystic Inane, Launcher, Fried E/M, Modern Needs or Liquid Assets.
Simple and catchy post punk from the ever-busy scene of Leipzig, Germany. While it won’t win any awards for innovation, their synth-heavy, minimalistic approach to the genre has that vaguely oldschool cold-war-era vibe dialed in just right while in Shining River Utah, some folk/americana vibes akin to Angst or mid-to-late 80s Gun Club creep in. Subsequently they like to mix shit up and keep things interesting all the way; despite staying well inside the genre’s established parameters radiating an unexpectedly fun, warm and uplifting vibe much of the time.
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Such a neat cloudy puddle of innocent and filthy joy, this set of lo-fi demo recordings by some philadelphia garage group kicking up a fuzz of the most oldschool and primitive kind. Kinda like the early works of Eddy Current Suppression Ring and UV Race augumented with that more primal energy akin to earlier acts such as Gories, Oblivians, Reatards.
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Ooohkay… still recovering from yesterday's "deutschpunk" ambush, let's now focus on our foreign language / world music department again. "Wöd" appears to be austrian for "World", as well as "pretty fuckin' rad", at least that's what the internet says and the internet is always right. So yeah, this shit's pretty wöd, as you'd expect from the successor to the Vienna garage punk group's kinda leiwand 2020 EP.
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Not long after the kickass Schedule 1 EP we get to hear yet another group reviving the spirit of late 2000's / early 2010's melodic post punk, once again brought to us by the punk powerhouse that is Dirt Cult Records. This time the folks responsible are from, lemme see… Bielefeld, Germany?!? Are you fuckin' kidding me? No, no, no this can't be right. Musically this is your familiar, somewhat oldschool Wipers-influenced, song-driven approach and the songwriting chops on display here are more than able to pull that shit off. This is a hell of a treat for fans of stuff á la The Estranged, Anxious Living, Daylight Robbery, Xetas, Red Dons or, more recently DDR and the aforementioned Schedule 1.
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Their recent Skeleton/Runaway digital single was some quality shit already and a huge step up from previous releases. With their newest EP, the Austin, Texas group keeps the good stuff coming, clear highlights this time being the perfect power pop one-two punch The Amazing Super Ultra Spiderman & Shit Me Out but the rest is great fun too, coming across a bit like an amazing super ultra holy trinity of Ausmuteants, S.B.F. and Set-Top Box.
A highly appetizing first taste that is, the debut EP of this London group playing a somewhat hard to pin down, adequately rough-edged yet also kinda catchy style that's like 60% garage punk and 40% postcore, overall reminding me of a rather diverse cluster of groups among which are the likes of The Abandos, Obits, Golden Pelicans, Mass Lines, Dumb Punts and Ascot Stabber.
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