Rancher - Pummeler

What we got here is twelve min­utes worth of min­i­mal­is­tic, un­com­pro­mis­ing DIY in­dus­tri­al noise/-punk shit by some duo from Riv­er Falls, Wis­con­sin. Be­ing more of a clue­less id­iot tourist in this par­tic­u­lar field, i'd de­scribe this as what a ful­ly elec­tron­ic vari­ant of Big Black might have sound­ed like. Or maybe draw par­al­lels to the more re­cent but com­pa­ra­bly min­i­mal­is­tic noise by Black Pus.

Al­bum-Stream →

Pink Guitars - We Are Made Of The Sun

Just like its pre­de­ces­sor, the sec­ond EP by this band from Buf­fa­lo, NY turns out to be an­oth­er high­ly con­cen­trat­ed dose of un­con­ven­tion­al, in­ven­tive and at times strik­ing­ly melod­ic hard­core fun, al­so ex­pand­ing its styl­is­tic ten­ta­cles in­to places of garage-, fuzz- and KBD style punk.

Al­bum-Stream →

Isolation - Isolation

Ba­si­cal­ly, this Fal­mouth, UK band's line up con­sists of lo­cal punks In­ter­nal Cred­it mi­nus one dude. Com­pared to the latter's rather straight­for­ward garage punk, Iso­la­tion roll out a some­what more rigid sound on their de­but EP, ex­pand­ing their sol­id garage foun­da­tion by a cer­tain post­core edge, bring­ing to mind Hot Snakes or Youth Avoiders, as well as melod­ic post punk acts like Red Dons, Day­light Rob­bery, Anx­ious Liv­ing, Ner­vosas and maybe some tiny traces of Wipers. What's not to like about that?

Al­bum-Stream →

Speed Plans - More Hardcore

Okay… this is an easy one to ex­plain. You just put equal amounts of MC5 and Bad Brains in­to a blender and the re­sult will have a taste sim­i­lar to what­ev­er this group from Pitts­burgh, Penn­syl­va­nia does on its third not-quite-an-LP. As sim­ple as that and every bit as elec­tri­fy­ing as you might hope for.

Al­bum-Stream →

Unclaimed Diamonds - The First Five Slabs

This Philadel­phia band's de­but tape via State Cham­pi­on Records al­ready makes an ex­cel­lent first im­pres­sion. Dis­tinct­ly 90's in­die rock vibes akin to Breed­ers or more re­cent stuff by Melk­bel­ly col­lide with rather con­tem­po­rary sound­ing post punk el­e­ments, somwhat com­pa­ra­ble to WALL or The Ba­by, ra­di­at­ing a won­der­ful­ly crude, off-kil­ter charme through­out.

Al­bum-Stream →

The Cowboy - The Cowboy 7"

Cleveland's The Cow­boy are back! Two years af­ter their ex­plo­sive de­but al­bum, the group fea­tur­ing mem­bers of Plea­sure Left­ists and Ho­mostu­pids haven't lost their abil­i­ty to kick ass with a sound os­cil­lat­ing be­tween garage- and post punk, noise rock over­tones, an abra­sive sur­face com­bined with dis­arm­ing catchy­ness. All this re­minds me of bands like Plax, Ex-Cult, Shark Toys and Flat Worms. Al­so, in a rather un­ex­pect­ed turn of events, we get ex­posed to a laid back in­die­rockin' in­stru­men­tal tune on the b-side.

Goon - Natural Evil

Here's an ul­tra neat at­tack made of noise-drenched hard-/post­core by a band from Den­ver, Col­orado. Think of a cu­ri­ous mix­ture of Lumpy & The Dumpers, Anx­i­ety, Cü­lo or their qua­si-suc­ces­sors Taran­tüla.

Al­bum-Stream →

Shit Giver - Meaningless /​ Transition

Shit Giver's 2017 de­but al­bum left quite an im­pres­sion on me with its am­bi­tious and ver­sa­tile vi­sion of post punk, burst­ing with ex­cen­tric ideas and un­pre­dictable song struc­tures. The L.A. group's first new mu­sic in al­most three years doesn't fail to amaze and sur­prise once again. It's their melod­ic song­writ­ing abil­i­ties that come in­to sharp fo­cus here, tak­ing shape as an ir­re­sistible mix of post punk, pow­er- and goth pop, de­vel­op­ing a catchy­ness i wasn't pre­pared for. Mean­ing­less ig­nites some un­ex­pect­ed­ly straight­for­ward pop fire­works, com­plete with a bor­der­line-cheesy sax so­lo, the kind of which a less­er song wouldn't sur­vive, but in this case i can't help but per­cieve it as a well-de­served cli­max. Tran­si­tion seam­less­ly con­tin­ues their new­found love for gloomy pop, but al­so proves that Shit Giv­er haven't lost their taste for elab­o­rate struc­tures, ei­ther.

Champion Lawnmower - Champion Lawnmower

This Van­cou­ver outfit's sec­ond tape is such a mas­sive load of fun. Their play­ful style of post punk bal­ances with ease be­tween its rough edged tex­tures and high­ly dance­able grooves, which puts their sound right in the mid­dle be­tween the ex­cen­tric punk rock of acts like Neg­a­tive Scan­ner or Twist­ed on one hand, the in­fec­tious rhythms of Slumb Par­ty or Rapid Tan on the oth­er.

Al­bum-Stream →

Sallow Pillow - Wince Meat

This ex­cel­lent De­but EP by Liverpool's Sal­low Pil­low eas­i­ly wins me over with its fla­vor of straight and ef­fec­tive, slight­ly surf-in­fused garage punk right in the vein of Black Lips, ear­ly Ty Segall or De­bate Club. You can al­so sense a con­sis­tent Gun Club vibe as well as a cer­tain post punk edge sim­i­lar to Lux­u­ry or scan­di­na­vian acts like Holo­grams and RA. And to make things com­plete, when they roll out some amer­i­cana in­flu­ences like in Wear Out The Rope i can't help but feel pos­i­tive­ly re­mind­ed of Vaguess.

Al­bum-Stream →