Once again, Leipzig group Onyon convince me by virtue of their adaptability and solid Craftsmanship rather than novelty, reproducing a number of tried and tested formulas that firmly click into spec on their second LP. Post punk that ain't trying anything funny, you could say. This time we get just a smidge of eggpunk weirdness added to the mix. Songs like Dogman then have more of a garage punk edge to them. There's a touch of Wire in Egg Machine, oldschool goth-/deathrock vibes in Invisible Spook and bits and pieces of Gun Club are sprinkled throughout the whole of it. Needless to say, echoes of other more or less recent artifacts of the Leipzig scene like Ambulanz, Lassie and Laff Box are to be found in there aswell.
This LP by Vancouver's Chain Whip, now available via Drunken Sailor and Neon Taste, is hardcore punk done right, simple as that - a huge bucket bursting at the seams full of catchy septic oldschool fun, spiked with a subtle touch of '77 spirit in no-frills smashers á la Hate Wave. If you dislike groups of the Imploders, Headcheese, Illiterates, Fried E/m or Cement Shoes type, you're sure gonna hate this one too!
Did i ever mention i've been a christian once? Yeah i know. True story and i hope y'all had a good laugh. Nowadays i'm only worshipping Satan though. Huge fan! The music's a lot better too. The Devil's australian, as everyone knows and so are his togas, who have as of yet utterly failed to ever shred a single tune that doesn't fucking rip. Their newest extended play has more of their signature blend of garage-/synth-/eggpunk and power pop goodness burning fast and brightly with obvious similarities to other recent shit á la Research Reactor Corp., Ghoulies, Gee Tee, Daughter Bat & The Lip Stings, Alien Nosjob, Buck Biloxi, Set-Top Box and Eric Nervous.
Just weeks after their recent tape on Iron Lung Records here's a new one already by this, presumably, icelandic group, this time again coming to us courtesy of dungeon-/blackened-/experimental specialist label Grime Stone Records and it's their strongest, most fully realized one so far if you ask me. Take the rough specs and traits of black metal, noisy synth-, hardcore- and electro punk, complement that unrelenting force with a slightly eggpunk-y aesthetic that just seems a little too cute and quirky in face of all that grimness and you just might end up with something similar to what these folks are going for.
These folks have been around for a good bit longer than this blog and also have been a constant part of my life's background hum all the way, although things have gone a bit quiet around them in recent years. Their first new LP in five years once again presents the Seattle group in peak form though. Their secret weapons have always been their simplicity, tons of quirky charm and a unique knack for churning out catchy-as-fuck little slacker hymns that just grow on you, presented in an unpretentious, straightforward garage punk and fuzz pop sound.
On their second LP - once again brought to us by the tasteful folks of Total Punk Records - Orlando group Cherry Cheeks present themselves at their straightest and simplest, dumbest and catchiest so far making for yet another gloriously fuzzy lump of joyful high-calory power pop, garage- and synth punk fluff with abundant echoes of classy shit á la Smirk, Set-Top Box, Prison Affair, Gee Tee, Ghoulies and ISS.
This Kaloomps, British Columbia group's second LP now sees their kickass 2022 EP Best Before 2022 expanded into a full length, carrying more of that same kind of unpredictable chaotic hardcore mayhem - often rather simplistic at first glance but rich in elaborate detail once you take a closer look, enhanced with some appropriately rowdy garage- and KBD vibes which i'd say place them in relative proximity to such groups as, say, Cement Shoes, Fried E/m, Mystic Inane, Tarantüla, G.U.N., Cheap Heat or Imploders.
A new EP by Drew Owen aka Sick Thoughts and if you didn't expect sheer garage punk excellence at this point, better think again 'cos this record fucking delivers! The opening salvo Sick Thoughts is kind of a hardcore smasher suddenly taking a sharp turn into some distinct Ramones-meet-Cheap Trick territory. Hellraiser is pure '77-drenched power pop ecstasy with a thin icing of Hüsker Dü or Moving Targets on top. The seventy-seven-ish vibes then reach their apex in Schoolgirls in Chains, while My Heart is Breaking Over You is exactly the kind of unhealthy sugar rush that might just become a bit too much of everything in the hands of lesser songwriters and performers but shines here all the brighter by virtue of the rock-solid songcraft evident.
Montreal group New Vogue follow-up their excellent self-titled 2020 mini LP with another batch of kickass tunes - way more synth-heavy this time yet every bit as infectious as before, radiating a constantly shapeshifting kind of vibe calling to mind bits and pieces of Freak Genes, Useless Eaters, Powerplant, Andy Human and The Reptoids, Lost Sounds, Mononegatives and Alien Nosejob, to name just a few high-profile references.
Chicago trio Luggage have, over the course of the past eight years, proven to be a true bulwark in the sector of unapologetically excentric, dissonant and unwieldy noise rock, postcore and math rock which they usually happen to throttle down to a sluggish crawl. If anything, they've just grown ever more uncompromising over the years, culminating in their newest deformed lump of an LP, yet another challenging outburst of noise heavily indebted to the likes of Slint, Tar, Shellac and if i had to name something more contemporary, i'd say the first two Behavior albums (especially the spectacular second one Bitter Bitter) make a close enough comparison as well.
