This Chicago-based one-man band really upped their game on their 2025 Sunk EP after the dude’s previous releases still sounded more like fleeting snapshots of a developing act still in search of its own voice. This new tape released via the good folks at Knuckles On Stun now once again sounds like he means business, delivering four super-compact, simple and catchy treats of power pop-infused, melodic DIY garage punk with a subtle hint of Wipers that never misses a beat and always gets straight to the point.
These folks from Rye, Australia have been around for a couple years already but i can’t remember them ever hitting it quite as hard as they do on their newest 7″ on Legless Records, on which they retain their previous releases’ catchy songwriting prowess but enrich them with a bit more of a primal garage vibe and some melancholy overtones that – despite no current members of that band playing in this incarnation of Doe St, i think – certainly expose ther personal and geographical proximity to Melbourne’s garage punk dynamos Split System. If you’re into that shit, don’t miss out on this either!
So here we have the debut EP of a new group from Berlin featuring members of Les Lullies and Slander Tonge among others, confidently acing their way through four flawless tunes of jangly power pop elegance. This is a genre that lives and dies by the quality of the songwriting and these folks pull out all the stop to make it work… the tunes, the arrangements, the performances. Simple as that.
This Baltimore group features members of Nag and Quitter, which already raises expectations and it appears that on their first EP, they’re pulling every lever to subvert rather than fulfill those. This record certainly has a split personality of some kind with every tune sounding like it originates from a different Group entirely and i’m gonna say it fucking rips! Carte Blance is four minutes of math-y noise rock, the kind you’d expect from such groups like John (timestwo), Luggage, the earlier works of Tunic or Help. Vertices then feels a tiny bit closer to the bleak and monotonous post punk vibes you’d have expected at first but there’s also a dusty americana vibe goin’ on kinda like what we’ve heart on that recent The III tape. Cranberry is a dissonant and noisy burst of hardcore, followed by three minutes of experimental drone/noise in The Gate. Then at last in Kept Bread, a doom-/drone-ish beginning leads into what probably bears the most resemblence here to the aforementioned Nag, if maybe Played at two-thirds the speed. A puzzling release that is and i can’t wait to find out where they’re gonna end up going with all this!
Sex Mex have been a constant for the past couple years as my go-to act for straight-ahead fuzzy and melodic no-frills garage punk that doesn’t evolve much beyond its time-tested formula but so far hasn’t ever disappointed either, always kept afloat by the quality of the song material and this newest EP is without doubt among the strongest sets of new tunes they’ve let loose so far, another no-frills treat of synth-enhanced, euphoric garage pop to lift the spirits when we desperately need it.
Here’s another quick rundown of worthy hardcore releases that have accumulated here in tha past couple weeks. Dublin’s Flower Power already had a kickass EP out last year and on their newest one, they subtly dial down the (still quite prominent, mind you) garage foundations of their hardcore ruckus that’s alternately strikingly simple and unexpectedly elaborate in other places, channeled into a perfectly dialed-in fuzzy lo-fi aesthetic that sounds like a mixture between Stunted Youth, a touch of Lumpy and the Dumpers and that whole Stucco/Impotent Fetus and Delux Bias school of quality filth. Next up are Ultimatum from Pittsburgh, who adhere a bit more to a fairly classic sounding hardcore formula but spike that whole thing with some seemingly NWOBHM-inspired riffing that wouldn’t feel out of place on a Poison Ruïn record, which in combination with an undeniable knack for catchy hooks makes for a neat sonic jackhammer indeed. Third addition to our growing collection of power tools is Boston group Feeble Minds who take the oldschool vibes even further here while never failing to massage the synapses with plenty of catchy ear candy that serves as the basis for their rabid band performance. If all of that is still a bit too clever and newfangled for your tastes, maybe give the demo of Glasgow’s Attest a spin, which does indeed sound like something stuck in a classic-era early eighties timeloop and i’ll say dog bless ’em for that!
The debut EP of this Auckland, NZ group feels a lot like a welcome throwback to the early days of (proto-)eggpunk to me in how they combinine a sound somewhat akin to the likes of early Erik Nervous, Hobocop, Coneheads, Neo Neos, Skull Cult and an up-and-coming young Billiam with plenty of an oldschool abrasive garage punk edge not so often heard from the more recent wave of eggheads. No complaints here, that shit still works.
