An stunning second solo effort by some dude who simply knows what he’s doing, having so far played in noise rock and postcore groups Pale Heads, The Nation Blue as well as the more folk leaning Lee Memorial and Harmony, among others. This record strongly veers toward the louder side of his discography while still adding a few new ingredients to the mix, covering a quite impressive spectrum including malancholy Wipers-esque post punk with hints of Red Dons or Nervosas, postcore of the rather melodic variety reminiscent, to varying degrees, of Meat Wave, Bloody Gears, Hot Snakes as well as some breathless garage energy á la Jackson Reid Briggs & The Heaters. Tons worth of larger than life drama, the songs to pull it of and a performance powerful enough to make you believe every single note.
Covid year turns out to be quite a productive one for Cleveland garage-/post punk group Knowso who recently unleashed both a new EP and LP, their second and third releases this year alone. Sonically, this is a seamless continuation of their previous awesomeness – minimalist, abstract Post Punk bearing some similarity to Nag, Brandy, Constant Mongrel or more recent Usless Eaters. What sets them apart is the sheer efficiency of their arrangements and performance, kinda like their riffs and beats are purposefully designed to play nice with conveyor belts, be easily stackable on pallets, best moved around with a forklift.
Whoa… gotta say i wasn’t prepared for the kind of storm this group from Milan, Italy lets loose on their first longplayer. On a surface level this is some variety of vaguely oldschool hardcore punk with strong anarcho influences, some traces of crust – you know, the kind of stuff we’ve had no shortage of in recent years. But then again, this record is characterislzed by an endless string of colorful, unconventional decisions and flourishes, making what could have been a rather cookie-cutter, decent genre effort into an ambitious, thrilling beauty to behold. Also helped by a production which strikes the perfect balance between relentless propulsion and blown out Lo-Fi scuzz. As far as contemporary hardcore goes, this shit stands completely on its own and simply hits evey single nail on its head.
Man, do i not wanna live in England right now. Well, Cool Jerks still do and their first full length effort paints a convincingly grim picture while excelling on the sonic front once again, ridding their sound of their first EP’s garage elements in favor of a simple, modern blend of punchy postcore with noisy textures, comparable to a simplified version of Bad Breeding, Ascot Stabber or Acrylics.
Portland’s Public Eye already were one of the more interesting and adventurous post punk groups of our time to begin with and i always felt we hadn’t quite heard their best yet. Turns out i was right about something for a change… On Music For Leisure their sound has evolved pretty much into its own thing. Imagine the works of some 2010’s post punk standouts like Diät, Marbled Eye, The Estranged, Institute, Rank Xerox, Creative Adult and Bruised rolled into one. Then add a fair amount of garage punk of the early Teenanger, Sauna Youth, Flat Worms variety, sprinkle in a hint of Wire and some jangly folk influences á la Volcano Suns. Public Eye bundle all of that, then slow it down to a comfortable strolling pace while tackling the whole thing with a decidedly song-based approach. The result is one of the most mature, consistant, well-constructed post punk records i’ve heard in a good while.
This Melbourne group’s debut 7″ is a concentrated blast of highly flammable garagecore spiked with additional noise- & postcore accelerants, achieving a resolute punch akin to ADVLTS, Bad Breeding while their unruly garage & oldschool hardcore riot leaves a trail of destruction not unlike Fried E/M, Electric Chair or Modern Needs.
Respected Los Angeles garage powerhouse Vinny Vaguess keeps things interesting. While his previous two longplayers turned out a bit mellower, leaning quite heavily into powerpop melodicity, his newest EP mixes things up again in somewhat unexpected ways by introducing quirky post punk elements, often making generous use of vaguely devo-esque synths. Speaking of the devil… with Lesser Of Two we even get a full-blown synth pop hymn, not dissimilar to some stuff Alien Nosejob did recently. Other points of reference might be Nick Normal, Andy Human and the Reptoids, Teenanger, occasional flashes of Ausmuteants. Everything works admirably here, in no small part thanks to the kind of excellent songcraft we’ve come to expect from this dude.
Some chicago dude’s latest EP delivers four and a half short & sweet bursts of extra blown-out krauty spacerockin’ psychedelic garage fuzz ecstasy. Destruction Unit-meet-Chrome, Draggs collide with Dr. Mix & The Remix. Turn on, tune in and… run to your stereo and hit play again ‘cos the whole thing is only nine minutes long.
I tried hard to dismiss this Orlando, Florida project as just another cookie cutter DIY synth punk/-garage artifact of our times… with the first EP that was. The second one was able to sow some mistrust in my own judgement. Number three finally served as a reminder on how full of runny shit my dysfunctional lump of grey matter can be sometimes – so bad i wish someone would transplant an anus onto my head. Evolution, you’re such a terrible disappointment… These twelve songs are an incredibly fun synth punk ride overall, the kinda pop oriented variety, just getting progressively better with each new EP. Take a juicy bite if you can stand stuff like Trashdog, Warm Exit, Dot.com, Set Top Box, Power Plant, T.L.B.M., Spyroids.
Just a quick announcement: Instead of taking care of this blog as i should, i recently procrastinated my own mastodon instance into existence. Or more specifically, it’s actually a pleroma instance. Or for those who still don’t get what the fuck all that gibberish is supposed to mean: Mastodon and Pleroma are two compatible server implementations of the ActivityPub protocol, which quite a few decentral social platforms are based on, mastodon being the most popular of those at this moment.
Also in the works is a Hubzilla instance, which is supposed to bridge the gap for me between Mastodon/ActivityPub and the incompatible Diaspora network. In the long term, my aim is to go fully independent of the big commercial platforms. I’d be delighted if a few of you dip their toes in the warm fediverse waters too, simply because the corporate web sucks so hard at this point anyway and i’d like to accelerate its death a little bit.
If you want a user account on elefant.onetwoxu.de, just tell me via the contact form… but be aware that this piece of shit might not be 100% stable yet, definitely needs a bit of fine tuning and you’re basically becoming my guinea pig if you dare to register. That thing could explode at any moment. Thus, until i have that stuff under control, i’d rather recommend you register an account on the music-themed linernotes.club instance – or anyother inctance whose user base, themes and policies appeal to you. Mastodon allows you to move your account somewhere else at any point, just in case stuff didn’t work out for you.
