Whoa… didn't really expect to hear from those Minneapolis folks again, as five years have already passed since their strong debut EP. On their first long player we get more of that stuff - times 10, thanks to noticeably refined songcraft and forceful performances. This is plain old unpretentious, melodic Punkrock with a clear early 90's bent at its very best. Kinda like a Fusion of Daylight Robbery and Superchunk, but you might also hear some Echoes of Jawbreaker, Samiam, even a very slight trace of Leatherface every now and then…
New recorded material by Hank Wood & his crew has become a somewhat rare occurence in recent years… but whenever some new tunes crop up, you're instantly reminded why you fell in love with his soul-infused Garage Punk in the first place - more than ever, i'd say. Songwriting and arrangements are just as spot-on here as we've seen on past releases, propelled forward by razor sharp performances. Those hammers keep hitting every nail with impressive precision.
On their second EP, New York punks Signal brew up a strong potion consisting of raw noise-/fuzz punk and post punk/-core. To me it sounds a bit like an amalgamation of earlier Lié and Littly Ugly girls, but also contains quite some of the rough, garagey vibes similar to Warp or Vexxx.
No rocket science on Chubby & The Gang's debut album, just the plain old melodic punk rock schtick. But boy, is that some really fucking good stuff. '77 catchyness is injected with loads of hardcore energy and given a rough garage surface. Kinda like Booji Boys recorded in high fidelity.
Atlanta noise rockers Vangas stay beautifully unconventional on their new 7" via Chunklet. On the A-side, a slow-burning groove creeps along toward an inevitable eruption at its midpoint, where shit finally gets weird. The even more unpleasant B-side then reminds me quite a bit of their Portland noise rock contemporaries Marriage + Cancer or canadians Nearly Dead.
This debut EP by Philadelphia band Gunky is kind of an odd and deliciois bastard of (post-)punk and noise, boldly plundering its way through large portions of underground punk history. I think i hear some echoes of MX-80 and mid-eighties Sonic Youth, The Mentally Ill and of early Saccharine Trust's proto postcore. In other moments, their sound reminds me of more recent bands, the likes of like Patti or Plax.
This group, probably from Phoenix, Arizona, sets up some chemically unstable noise punk shit welded to a garagecore rocket drive ready to blow up in your face. At times you might feel pleasantly reminded of acts like Beast Fiend, Anxiety, Bo Gritz or Mystic Inane.
Another batch of awesome garage punk with an occasional hardcore edge from the ever reliable melbourne scene. At times, Punter's music has a frantic quality reminiscent of Jackson Reid Briggs & The Heaters, combined with the slightly more grounded garage sound of Civic or earlier Vaguess, with the latter's pop instincts as well as some Pist Idiots-style drama boiling over at the EP's most anthemic moment, A Minute's Silence.
I'm not sure if Alien Nosejob currently exist as a full blown band, but at least for their second long playing effort, Jake Robertson (Ausmuteants, School Damage, Leather Towel, Hierophants, etc.) has been recording everything on his own. While the last few releases turned out to be a rather wild and unpredictable ride - touching on Power-/Jangele Pop, Synth Pop and Hardcore Punk among other things - Alien Nosejob's newest album is an unexpectedly consistent work mostly operating in a spectrum of sad power pop and more familiar Ausmuteants style garage fare, wrapped in a warm and fuzzy analog aesthetic varying from mid- to high fidelity. Without exception, these songs are top rate stuff, just classic Robertson at his best.
On their newest EP, Washington's Iron Cages give us three excellent new blasts of garagified hardcore punk which indicate massive step forward for the band, towards a more compact and coherent sound friends of stuff along the lines of Fried Egg, Punk Guitars, Cülo, Anxiety or Electric Chair will surely appreciate.
