Dadar - Iron Cage

Good­bye Boozy re­leas­es tend to come in batch­es and here we have the clear stand­out of this lat­est one - the newest EP or LP or what­ev­er by Par­ma, Italy garage punks Dadar who take an­oth­er kin­da straight­for­ward, risk-averse ap­proach here styl­is­ti­cal­ly, while they once again ex­cell at en­gi­neer­ing catchy melod­ic det­o­na­tions of pure garage- and synth punk fun in the well-trod­den neigh­bor­hood of Aus­muteants, Mononeg­a­tives, Use­less Eaters and the like.

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Catastrophic Dance Ensemble - Panko /​ Sad Machine

Al­ready hav­ing made a great first im­pres­sion with their re­cent Vol. 1 tape, Cincinnati's Cat­a­stroph­ic Dance En­sem­ble have an­oth­er tiny treat for us, rough­ly two-and-a-half new songs in their heav­i­ly egg-lean­ing odd­ball cheesy mix­ture of garage-, post- and synth punk that friends of, say… Set-Top Box, R.M.F.C., Eu­gh, Met­dog, Mononeg­a­tives, Nuts are gonna have an­oth­er field day with.

Nubot555 - No Way Back

More in­cred­i­bly bonkers shit out of the bel­gian Bel­ly But­ton Records or­bit. What we get on this dude's de­but EP un­der the Nubot555 moniker (pre­vi­ous­ly the cul­prit has been do­ing shit as King Dick) is some garage- and elec­tro punk may­hem of the over­whelm­ing­ly egg-ish va­ri­ety. These lo-fi gems man­age to coun­ter­bal­ance all their quirky weirdnes with plen­ty of smarts and cre­ative en­er­gy, mak­ing for an im­pres­sive de­but eas­i­ly stand­ing out even in its fair­ly crowd­ed genre pool. I'd say Egg Id­iot have found their match here.

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Freak Genes - Hologram

You can't go wrong with any new re­lease by that UK garage-/synth punk duo team­ing up Pro­to Idiot's An­drew An­der­son with Char­ly Mur­phy of groups such as The Red Cords, In­ter­nal Cred­it and Iso­la­tion. Af­ter ex­plor­ing a more cold, min­i­mal synth aes­thet­ic sound on their pre­vi­ous LP, this one presents them in a some­what fuller sound and prob­a­bly at their catchi­est so far, chan­nel­ing pri­mar­i­ly the spir­it of first-wave synth punk acts á la Prim­i­tive Cal­cu­la­tors, Ner­vous Gen­der, Scream­ers, Units, Min­i­mal Man and of course De­vo (duh!), while from the cur­rent land­scape, com­par­isons to Iso­tope Soap or Alien Nose­job in full-on elec­tro mode may be drawn as well.

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Erste Hilfe - Erste Hilfe

Awe­some synth-/ elec­tro punk shit from Berlin that kin­da plays out like a cu­ri­ous mix of Pisse, Puff! or the most re­cent, elec­tro-heavy Schi­ach EP. Fur­ther you might draw com­par­isons to Spy­roids, Heavy Met­al as well as old synth punk sta­ples á la Scream­ers, Ner­vous Gen­der. Klick­farm in par­tic­u­lar might have tak­en some cues from the Vis­i­tors' clas­sic rip­per Elec­tric Heat as well.

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Exwhite & The Gobs - Split

Ex­cel­lent shit via Tur­bod­is­cos. Leipzig/​Berlin group Exwhite shouldn't need an in­tro­duc­tion at this point, hav­ing blast­ed a re­spectable hole in the floor with their re­cent Estray EP. Their side to this kick­ass lit­tle EP won't dis­ap­point ei­ther as they de­liv­er two com­par­a­tive­ly straight-ahead, no-frills garage punk smash­ers.
No less ex­cit­ing are the tracks by Olympia, Wash­ing­ton synth-/garage punk act The Gobs who've al­ready been mak­ing waves with a whole shit­load of blown-out lo-fi de­mo re­leas­es. Here we get to wit­ness them in some­thing ap­proach­ing prop­er mid-fi qual­i­ty for the first time. Sounds fuck­ing awe­some too, who would've thought?

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Klint - Heat Wave

New shit by the world's on­ly viking synth punk project… and we've got an­oth­er win­ner! The ti­tle track just sucks you right in with a throb­bing beat not un­like to the re­cent Dance sin­gle, spiked with a hint of an­cient eu­ro­trash cheesi­ness. With Go Ahead we then get an ef­fec­tive straight-up no-frills punk smash­er, while the odd­ly placed/​titled In­stru­men­tal In­ter­lude feels like fun hom­mage to clas­sic chip­tunes that will al­so mesh well with the on­go­ing dun­geon syn­th/-punk wave.

Liquid Lunch - Road King

The Min­neapo­lis group's de­but EP last year was al­to­geth­er ex­cel­lent stuff al­ready, yet on their most re­cent out­put they still up their game con­sid­er­ably - some added punch ow­ing to a mod­est in­crease in pro­duc­tion val­ues per­fect­ly match­es up to a sub­stan­tial­ly cranked-up en­er­gy lev­el on the group's part, show­cas­ing their quirky and play­ful style of garage- and synth punk from their best side yet. Don't miss out on this if shit á la Pat­ti, Re­al­i­ty Group, Re­search Re­ac­tor Corp., Sa­tan­ic To­gas, Erik Ner­vous, Aus­muteants, Liq­uids or Spodee Boy means any­thing to you!

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Spasi - HTCM in Block City /​ Jerk Squad

The de­but cass­in­gle (?) of this Seat­tle group de­liv­ers a way too short yet al­to­geth­er ex­cit­ing synth- and garage punk freak­out, the A-side HTCM in Block City burst­ing with an en­er­gy not too dis­tant from acts like Liq­uid Face, Klint, Mononeg­a­tives, Ghoulies or Slimex. As for the B-Side Jerk Squad… Is kraut­wave an ac­tu­al genre? 'Cos that's ex­act­ly what i'd de­scribe this stuff as.

Cosme - Demo No. 2

Just like its pre­de­ces­sor, this new tape by Cosme from Ciu­dad López Ma­teos, Mex­i­co is a thor­ough­ly joy­ful ride. While the open­ing track goes all-in with its synth wave vibes and the clos­er dab­bles in a bit of hard­core, the two mid­dle tracks con­tin­ue the first tape's ap­proach of garage- and fuzz punk with that sug­ary syn­the­siz­er coat­ing on top. All of that works out just beau­ti­ful­ly.

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