Has it really been a mere two-and-a-half years since we've last heard of New Orleans garage powerhouse Sick Thoughts? It feels a lot longer to me. Anyway, the first new music in quite a while by Drew Owen and company sounds as fresh and electrifying as ever - the pure essence of oldschool '77- & garage punk distilled into two ultra-dense shots of adrenaline.
…and here's yet another half pound of competent DIY garage punk made by some british dude, although this stuff smells more like something out of the australian Warttman Inc. roster. I'm thinking especially of Set-Top Box, R.M.F.C. or Satanic Togas here, plus the unavoidable hint of Ausmuteants.
On their fourth Longplayer, the UK punk duo consisting of both a Red Cord and a Proto Idiot goes for an all-out synth punk sound - more stubborn and bare-bones than ever before - and it works admirably, the way they're churning out one minimalist blast of quirky bleeps and lo-fi beats after the other.
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Fun & inventive Garage Punk from Melbourne clearly on the eggy side of the spectrum (man, i always wanted to avoid this Egg/Chain-Terminology here but in this case it just fits so perfectly) coming accross a bit like Eric Nervous, R.M.F.C. or Neo Neos covering old Dead Milkmen anthems.
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Excellent post punk of the moderately dark variety with some traces of postcore, math- and noise rock is what we get on this australian group's first EP, kinda like a Fusion of B-Boys, Girls In Synthesis and Rank/Xerox… but also not entirely dissimilar to stuff like Video, Public Eye, Tunic or The Estranged.
Third longplayer by this Oakland group and of course it's some pretty amazing shit once again. I still find it kinda hard to believe how what started out as sort of a Hüsker Dü soundalike has developed into one of the most powerful, original and instantly regognizable bands of recent years, effortlessly channeling the raw energies of hard- & postcore, noise rock and garage punk into a rowdy, unpredictable force.
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Nice little split tape via Dirtbag Distro. Never heard of Kansas City's Foil before, but this dude's three songs on here instantly get my blood pumping with a quirky, raw and shambolic take on hardcore punk.
Silvie S on the other hand is another alias for the guy known as Billiam, who also seems to be part of Dot.com and Disco Junk, among others. From him, we get another trio of fun little ditties in his familiar style of minimalist DIY garage- and synth punk.
Another fine EP by North Carolina electro-/sample-/mashup punk duo ISS on which they, among other things, venture into full-on hardcore territoty (in Facemask), which i don't think they've ever done before and it works just beautifully here.
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Mat Williams' solo project Liquids has been around for a good while now and every new entry in his by now pretty substantial discography has been a pleasant, albeit inconsistent experience, as many of his releases felt like rather loose collections of material with varying degrees of quality. That's not the case at all for Life is Pain Idiot, his strongest collection of songs in quite a while. With Erik Nervous once again working his producer magic here, new stuff blends in perfectly with what i consider to be the definitive versions of songs which already appeared in some form on one of his previous releases.
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Broken Vessels are a group from Santa Ana, California featuring members of Grimly Forming and Rolex (whose incredible debut album/compilation/re-recording thingy i didn't post here as far as i remember, so give that one a spin if you haven't yet). Their debut EP sounds a lot like a somewhat dumbed down version of Rolex, while Mystic Inane comes to mind as another valid and wholly flattering comparison.
