Still having compared their last digital single mainly to the established Mission of Burma formula, i'll expand that assessment to a more nebulous triangle of Burma, Wipers and Sonic Youth in face of the newest tracks by the Wollongong, Australia group - an aesthetic hovering inbetween the worlds of post punk, noise rock and fuzz punk which you might as well compare to more contemporary groups like early No Age or recent italian sensation Orrendo Subotnik.
A sonic experience wonderfully out of touch with the zeitgeist, crafted by some Bellingham, Washington group. Prime influence here seems to be a whole battery of early-to-mid eighties, loosely SST and Touch & Go-connected stuff - on the more strummy, folk-infused side of things admittedly, but never afraid of spontaneously morphing into short bursts of hardcore punk either. Most obvious amoung those influences would probably be shit among the lines of Angst and Meat Puppets, early Dinosaur Jr. and, secondarily, U-Men, Mudhoney and 80s Scientists, some very slight hints of Dicks and Wipers. Or alternately, you might think of more recent Acts like early Milk Music, Dharma Dogs, Chronophage and Damak.
A neat little yet-to-be-pressed 7" by a Sydney group sounding a little as if a more spiky version of Lithics collided with the likes of noisy post punkers Brandy, the recent noisecore of Shove, a very slight hint of Wipers and the ancient recordings of noise rockers World Domination Enterprises.
Following up on their already quite awesome 2019 demo, Austin group Dregs shift their sound a good bit away from a more garage- and fuzz punk leaning sound, further towards a harder to pin-down mix of influences on the fringes of 80s-to-mid-90s hard- and postcore, among others suggesting the likes of X (US), Dicks or Flipper at some points, postcore groups like Gray Matter or Drive Like Jehu at others while more recent bands like Vexx, Cel Ray, Gen Pop or Little Ugly Girls wouldn't sound too far off either.
This group from Portarlington, Australia creates a droning, sprawling and nonetheless absolutely ripping soundscape that combines the traits of such timeless greats as Wipers, 80s Sonic Youth, U-Men or Live Skull, just as much as a fuzzy clump of AUS and NZ groups like The Gordons, Fungus Brains, X and Feedtime.
Tempe, Arizona group Soft Shoulder have been at it for way over a decade now and still seem as lively and productive as ever, having churned out a steady stream of singles and EPs released digitally and as limited lathe cuts the past year. Their newest LP presents them as focused as they haven't been in a long while though, their quirky-as-fuck mixture of post punk and noise rock bursting with energy as catchy grooves somewhat reminiscent of The Fall from the late eighties onward collides with a decidedly no-wave school of noise and dissonance.
It took me a while to notice but the newest LP by Marseille group Catalogue turns out to be their strongest effort to date. Where their sound could still be a little tiring on their previous LP, they show a lot more variety on their newest one keeping things interesting throughout. Their noisy post punk, as usual being driven forward by eighties-style drum machine beats, may owe a little to Big Black in some parts, Live Skull in others or some no-wave dissonance gets loaded up with catchy hooks. In Houseplants we even get to hear some almost synth-/new wave stylings.
More awesome shit courtesy of Painters Tapes by a Detroit group having a strong proto-grunge vibe to them that wouldn't seem out of place next to early Mudhoney, U-Men, Feedtime, X (the australian group) or 80s Scientists. Also you might find some traces of american proto noise rock á la Flipper, Broken Talent just as well as more recent groups roughly in the orbit of TVO or Vexx in there.
A beautifully out-of-fashion 7" by a Leeds group creating a sound located amidst the rough coordinates of math rock, postcore and noise rock, obviously paying trubute primarily to the 90s-to-2000s era of Dischord Records and in particular to groups of the Jawbox, Autoclave, Hoover, Lungfish, Q and not U variety.
Having made somewhat of a splash with their unpredictable 2019 demo and a more conventinally hardcore-leaning EP in 2021, the Richmond, Virginia group is shaking things up once again with their first full-length effort, significantly slowing things down and seemingly taking plenty of cues from left-field 80s acts on the experimental intersection of hardcore punk and (proto-)noise rock in the vein of, among others, Flipper, No Trend, Spike in Vain or Broken Talent, while also not entirely dissimilar to more recent groups like Soupcans, Vulture Shit, C-Krit or Stinkhole.
