It appears this Austin, Texas group's second full-length has already been slowly rotting away on their bandcamp page largely unnoticed for a while now. This has to change fast. The album starts out somewhat akin to the melodic Lo-Fi garage punk and power pop of Vaguess or Booji Boys, then cycles through various iterations of a slightly KBD-esque garage-, and hardcore-leaning sound not entirely unlike recent acts in the Launcher, Liquid Assets, Fried Egg or Freakees vein, with the occasional subtle Gun Club vibe. Also, there's a beautifully shambolic cover version of Minutemen's Corona that manages to not suck in the slightest. Now all of you go make these dudes filthy rich and famous!
Another delicious leftover from last week is this debut EP by an australian group, made up of four flawless hardcore-meets-garage punk bangers, the straight and simple Frustrated Youth being nothing short of a timeless anthem. Inevitably i'm reminded of Cement Shoes and - to a lesser degree - earlier Electric Chair, Chainshot or Exxon.
One of my favorite unidentified noise-emitting Berlin entities has done it again! Gear up to be enraptured by four of his newest, straightforward-yet-playful lo-fi garage- and post punk jams.
An awesome little debut mini-LP by a Buenos Aires group. Revolving around a more-or-less oldschool-ish, brass-enhanced style of garage- and art punk vaguely reminiscent of Downtown Boys, they certainly like to mix things up a bit here and there when they occasionally enter post punk territory or try on a '77-touched Buzzcocks-meet-Undertones powerpop vibe like in Sin tu amor, keeping this a fun and entertaining ride throughout. While not everything hits the bulls-eye quite yet (Ya no soy is simply too little of an actual song), most of it works out just beautifully.
Some pathetic loser in Leipzig, Germany is playing around with bleep-emitting hardware and recording equipment, not yet fully realizing this leads to him ending up fighting the good battle at the forefront of the egghead revolution. This record is a fucking masterpiece you need to have in your life. Having only listened to it once, i already feel a lot smarter, more balanced - full enlightenment only inches away. Almost being a wise old man myself, i can't stress enough how fucking proud i am of this little shit.
Business as usual on the newest 7" by L.A.'s Flat Worms. Delightful, high quality business that is, with these two songs nailing their very own formula incorporating elements of garage punk, post punk and bursts of noise just dead on. So far, Flat Worms never failed to deliver the goods.
This London, Ontario group had put out a couple of already quite neat EP's in 2019 but it's only on their new full length debut that all the moving pieces really click into place for twelve 12XU-certified killer tracks made up of charmingly odd, highly inventive and exquisitely energetic garage-, synth- and post punk echoing shit like Useless Eaters, Pow!, Ex-Cult and Predator.
This week's mandatory injection of Devo-ish garage- and synth-punk comes from some Perth based group whose quirky and catchy sounds surely won't fail to more than adequately re-vitalize admirers of groups like Skull Cult, Research Reactor Corp., Alien Nosejob, Isotope Soap or Erik Nervous.
I've been a bit late to the party when it comes to this Atlanta group which has been around for over a decade by now, with their 2018 No Face 7" being my first exposure to them. Also, i didn't know at that time they're sharing members with post punk minimalists Nag. Now that certainly makes sense. Not only is this clearly the same singer here, but there are also abundant sonic similarities to note. Predator kinda sound like the slightly more sociable cousin to Nag, leaning heavier into garage territory with occasional hardcore moments. I mean like… at times they almost sound like they're actually enjoying themselves!
This Melbourne group's newest EP starts out quite good, then becomes even better with every song, first suggesting kind of a mix between synth-less (at first) Ausmuteants, Ex-Cult, Sauna Youth, early Teenanger… but also with a slight post punk edge á la Flat Worms, Constant Mongrel. The latter tendency (plus the formerly elusive synths) then kicks into overdrive in the record's second half and that's where things go from good to great, culminating in the epic anti-hymn Australia - an unmistakable fuck you to nationalism in their home country whose lyrics strike me as unapologetically frank and straightforward.
