Newcastle, Australia based garage punk goofball Robbie Thunder’s shit remains a thoroughly charming affair on his seventh LP in just over two years and holy cow, has this one reached a new level with its strikingly simple and minimalist, somewhat Ramones-ish fuzzed out punk smashers as the hits just keep coming here and where previous releases sometimes could feel a little samey, this one just strikes the perfect balance of familiarity, sufficient variety and brevity – with its barely 15 minutes long duration feeling like the perfect length for a crunchy little potato chip of a record like this.
Reactivated old-timey australian punk veterans The Vacant Lot have a new 7″ out on Iron Lung Records and it’s a special one in multiple ways – to begin with, these are a bunch of formerly lost classics written in ’78-’79, now pulled from their stash of unrecorded gems and given a proper new recording for the first time. The current incarnation of the band has Ausmutents and Alien Nosejob front magician Jake Robertson handling the guitar, who also appears to share production duties with another indespensable central piller of the australien garage punk scene, Mikey Young and oh boy does it show, resulting in a record whose sound kinda encapsulates the best of both worlds, the quirky energy of a vibrant contemporary scene just as much as the playful catchyness of first-wave DIY punk.
