Strange Attractor – Good Boy Bad Boy
I didn’t really expect this to happen, close to a decade after their last recorded sign of life, yet here we are beholding the wonders of a new Strange Attractor LP. This is a smasher from start to finish in their trademark style loading up some of the most ancient possible ingredients of garage punk with a raw and primal, quirky and unkempt energy that is very much of their own, non-stop cranking out those infectious hooks with frightening ease and efficiency.
Album-Stream →Black Button – Rejoice
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.
Album-Stream →Silicone Values – Bystander Apathy / When The Future Seems Futile
It took the Bristol group just shy of a year to come up with the newest installment in their, so far, absolutely spectacular and flawless run of (digital) singles. I’m glad to announce that i’ve got nothing new to say about this one – these two tunes are yet another masterclass of melodic post punk and power pop songcraft with clear echoes of Buzzcocks, Television Personalities, Mekons and many more artefacts of predominantly british DIY punk history.
Nick G – Broken
This neat little EP by St. Louis, Missouri dude Nick G and friends delivers seven blasts of dark yet melodic, heavily song-based post punk – admittedly not a terribly original thing at this point but not too predictable either, solidly constructed throughout. A definitive treat for fans of stuff á la Criminal Code, Public Eye, VHS, Sievehead or Bruised… with occasional flashes of Trauma Harness or The Estranged to boot.
Album-Stream →Another round of boozy…
A thoroughly high quality new batch of 7″s and even a CD from the ever reliable italian garage punk institution Goodbye Boozy Records.
Tee Vee Repairman is yet another project of Ishka Edmeades who you might also know from acts such as Satanic Togas, Set-Top Box, Research Reactor Corp., Gee Tee, Remote Control, Mainframe… this dude seems to be in pretty much anything out of the Warttman orbit and beyond that. Let’s just say dude’s been’s a constant fixture on this blog in recent years and will sure crop up many more times because everything he touches tends to become instant garage punk and power pop gold.
A different beast altogether is the 7″ by Wayne Pain & The Shit Stains, a simple & stupid attack of decidedly oldschool fuzzed-out garage punk with that classic rockabilly edge to it.
Speaking of rockabilly… Qinqs have a touch of that going on too, although in their case it reeks less of The Cramps and more of The Fall – The Great White Wonder might as well be called How i re-wrote Elastic Man – as well as more recent occurrences á la Shark Toys, Ex Cult, Parquet Courts or The UV Race.
The newest tape by the mysterious Zoids then is another endearingly eccentric treat of minimalist electro-/space-/garage punk transporting more than just a little bit of a Suicide-meets-Metal Urbain / Dr. Mix and the Remix vibe. Also: Yeah, fuck vinyl ‘cos the future belongs to the compact disc bro.
Dadgad‘s tracks then serve as the perfect transition between the aforementioned electric space punk stylings and the opposite half of a 7″ featuring – yet again – that dude known as Zhoop… or was it Feed? Djinn? Brundle maybe? I don’t care really it’s all good shit!
Factory City Children – F.U.M.E.S.
Factory City Children releases January 19th via Toxic State Records.
Greg Wheeler and the Poly Mall Cops – Nothing
Manic Fever releases March 24th via High Dive Records.
Purling Hiss – Yer All In My Dreams
Drag On Girard releases March 24th via Drag City.
Spirit of Hamlet – Sardine $
Northwest of Hamuretto releases March 17th.
