With their third Album, Chicago's Luggage deliver a seamless continuation of the qualities established on their 2017 effort Three, even double down on those. Fittingly and unmistakably recorded at Electrical Audio, a brittle, often crawling sound in the rough area of Noise- and Math Rock, Post- and Slowcore allows itself ample time to unfold and sounds a lot like their hometown in the late 80s to 90s. Or, at different points, like a more straightforward Shellac, slow motion Tar, much louder Slint or an even more bleak variant of Codeine.
Alien Nosejob seem to become the kind of band where Ausmuteants singer Jake Robertson only does whatever the fuck he wants to at the moment. They started out as a more or less exact copy of his more well known band, then it started to get unpredictable as they ventured into retro tearjerker power pop, among other things. Also, we had to suffer through a maxi single of ultra-cheesy synth pop. This time they make it easier for me: It's hardcore. It rotates 45 times a minute. And it's very good.
After a number of incredible EPs, it took Santa Rosa's Acrylics a good two years to assemble their fist long player, which - to no real surprise - turns out to be their most varied and mature chunk of noise. Their ambitious, but simultaneously always perfectly coherent mix of styles draws a perfect triangle between the dark post punk of Criminal Code, hardcore punk of the quite punishing variety reminiscent of Cülo, Hate Preachers, Impulso and forward thinking Postcore of acts like Ivy and Bad Breeding.
