TJ Cabot - King Grove

Cana­di­an garage dude TJ Cabot's out­put on­ly grows stronger with each new re­lease and this one ain't no ex­cep­tion in once again hit­ting every sin­gle nail on the head, ham­mer­ing home a catchy-as-fuck mix of pow­er pop and garage punk that doesn't need to shy away from com­par­isons to greats such as The Marked Men, Erik Ner­vous, Tom­my & The Com­mies, Andy Hu­man & The Rep­toids, Liq­uids, Bad Sports or Nick Nor­mal.

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Green/​Blue - Paper Thin

This project re­volv­ing around Jim Bla­ha (The Blind Shake, Jim and the French Vanil­la) and An­nie Spar­rows (So­vi­ettes, Awe­some Snakes) sounds quite un­like any of Jim Blaha's oth­er groups that i'm aware of on their sec­ond LP, these songs with­out ex­cep­tion hav­ing a dreamy, melan­choly pow­er pop vibe and an un­like­ly post punk edge to them - kin­da like a mix be­tween Ra­dioac­tiv­i­ty, Mind Spi­ders and a slight­ly mut­ed The Es­tranged fused to­geth­er by rock sol­id song­writ­ing chops.

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Ex-Gold - We Are Good

I al­most over­looked this beau­ty which ap­pears to have been out for a cou­ple months al­ready. Knoxville's Ex-Gold had put out a de­light­ful de­but EP in 2018, a cou­ple of whose songs have al­so been re-record­ed for this new one while the new tracks seam­less­ly con­tin­ue the ex­cel­lence of their de­but. That means more quirky pow­er­pop and garage punk with both a slight '77- and an old­school in­die rock touch. The best com­par­i­son i can come up with right now are UK wise­crack­ers Pro­to Id­iot but fans of stuff like Tom­my and the Com­mies, Bad Sports, Ra­dioac­tiv­i­ty, Sweet Reaper, Cor­ner Boys or Steve Adamyk Band should al­so get a kick out of this.

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Beta Máximo - Spain Vice

Span­ish garage pop­pers Be­ta Máx­i­mo al­ready left a rather pos­i­tive im­pres­sion on me with their cou­ple of fair­ly re­cent EPs but with this one, they're fi­nal­ly nail­ing it if you ask me, strik­ing a per­fect bal­ance be­tween snap­py garage punk and surf-in­fused pow­er pop - kin­da like a some­what less eggy, less lo-fi in­car­na­tion of Barcelona group Prison Af­fair.

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Famous Logs in History - Fancy!

The New York group's newest cas­sette clicks with me in­stant­ly, their quirky pow­er pop tunes strik­ing me as a some­what new wave-ish melange of melod­ic, pre­dom­i­nant­ly ear­ly british post punk some­where in the ex­tend­ed neigh­bor­hood of groups such as Des­per­ate Bi­cy­cles, Mekons, Tele­vi­sion Per­son­al­i­ties and Swell Maps.

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Neutrals - Bus Stop Nights 7"

Noth­ing short of pure bril­liance is what we get once again from that weird­ly british sound­ing Oak­land, Cal­i­for­nia group. Their newest EP might be their least post punk, most pow­er pop sound­ing record so far, bristling with tons of mas­ter­ful­ly craft­ed, end­less­ly charm­ing Tele­vi­sion Per­son­al­i­ties wor­ship plus a touch of Mekons or Des­per­ate Bi­cy­cles.

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Weak Signal - War and War

Wow, i didn't re­al­ly ex­pect that much en­joy­ment out of the most re­cent LP by this New York group… in fact, these folks have com­plete­ly evad­ed my radar so far. What we get is a heav­i­ly Vel­vet Un­der­ground and Je­sus and Mary Chain-in­spired melange of fuzz-/pow­er-/noise-/dream pop that con­vinces by sheer strength of the un­der­ly­ing song sub­stance while in terms of son­ics, they sure like to slow-cook their songs at low-to-mod­er­ate heat - the re­sults are fuck­ing de­li­cious, just to­tal­ly melt­ing in your mouth as you rel­ish every sin­gle hook, every speck of low-lev­el tex­ture in their rich son­ic land­scape.

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Print Head - Change

A new tape by that mys­tery out­fit (pos­si­bly) from Hicksville, NY on which they stay as un­pre­dictable as ever, this time de­liv­er­ing a batch of in­fec­tious be­low-one-minute melod­ic garage smash­ers - high speed fuzzy pow­er pop kin­da like an al­ter­nate-re­al­i­ty garage in­car­na­tion of ear­ly Guid­ed By Voic­es.

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Toe Ring - Footage

A won­drous and strange lit­tle EP full of oth­er­world­ly garage-/pow­er-/fuzz pop from a Philadel­phia Duo. The tape starts out as if the in­sane pop qual­i­ties of, say, Boo­ji Boys or Daugh­ter Bat & The Lip Stings col­lid­ed with the smart rhyth­mic post punk of Lithics, while the re­main­ing three songs then set­tle in­to a slight­ly more low-key kraut-lean­ing psy­che­del­ic groove, the likes of which you might sus­pect some­where in the lo-fi pop worlds of acts like Germ House, Far Cor­ners, Vi­o­lent Change, Hon­ey Radar or even ear­ly Woolen Men. Ex­cel­lent shit through­out.

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Daughter Bat and the Lip Stings - More Love Songs

Sydney's Daugh­ter Bat And The Lip Stings, who've al­ready been mak­ing some waves with a whole shit­load of fun EPs in 2020, are now re­turn­ing with their strongest se­lec­tion of tune­ful garage punk, fuzz- and pow­er pop smash­ers so far, their knack for catchy hooks pro­vok­ing thor­ough­ly flat­ter­ing com­par­isons to the likes of Boo­ji Boys, Ra­dioac­tiv­i­ty, Roy­al Headache or Sweet Reaper.

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