One of Spain's best kept secrets has finally made it into the garage punk big league as evidenced by their new 7" on Slovenly Recordings, containing what is without doubt their strongest set of tunes yet, confident and catchy as fuck while keeping their distinct weirdo edge intact, finding a perfect middle ground between the particular eccentricities of acts like Erik Nervous, Reality Group, R.M.F.C. or Neo Neos.
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It's been a whopping five years since this Paris group's debut EP but the wait has paid off handsomely on their first full length release, delivering an endless stream of high-octane melodic (garage-)punk smashers in the vein of groups like Cheap Whine, Short Days, Red Dons and Telecult… you might also sense a hint of Marked Men, Royal Headache or The Thermals. In a few instances, the songwriting doesn't quite cut it and that's when they veer dagerously close to shallow pop punk territory. However, when they hit, they hit hard and even manage to evoke a subtle retro 60s power pop vibe along the way.
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A spectacular first impression of a Copenhagen group playing a rather unconventional mix of post punk, hard- and postcore incorporating a rare sense of melody and a strong psychedelic, almost shoegaze-y undercurrent. Also, thinking of the Copenhagen scene, you can't help but register a faint echo of early Iceage and Lower.
Metdog's fourth extended play is yet another treasure trove of playful and easygoing garage punk… let's not talk about eggs again here. Admirers of R.M.F.C., Research Reactor Corp. or Satanic Togas will aprove of this, just as i'm gonna make an exception here and give my full approval for the use of auto-tune or vocoder or whatever that shit in the closing track is… fucking art, i guess.
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Pinch Points are now joining the Exploding In Sound roster, eh? Not the most obvious choice i'd say but who cares… as long as they're gonna stay as razor sharp as on their latest 7", once again coming across like a more straightforward Reality Group or a no-bullshit variant of Uranium Club.
Last year's Health EP was some quality shit already but their newest release is just so ridiculously appealing i wasn't at all prepared for that kind of mayhem. This trio is from Nashville and i suspect that Connor and Sean are the very same dudes best known as Skull Cult otherwise - not a fuckin' clue who Cam is. Oh, and there's one more thing: Being in charge of mixing and mastering, none other than Erik Nervous left his own trademark beer stains all over this cassette whose sound is just as wild and eclectic as consistently catchy. Some echoey garage surf twang? Spaced out psychedelic freakouts? Wire & Mission of Burma vibin' on Benzos? You name it! And hovering even a notch above all that shit, there's the downright perfect 70s power pop-meets-80s hair metal masterpiece Be With You, a knockout punch of the most pleasant kind.
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Um… what meaningful thing is there left to say about a new Alien Nosejob record at this point? They kinda come in two shapes: The grab bag style ones where Mr. Robertson branches out in every direction possible and the hyperfocussed monoculture ones where he doubles down on a single genre - like his hardcore 7"s for example or that synth pop/eurotrash 12" maxi a while ago. Well, this one's another grab bag record and apart from that, it's just the plain old usual awesomeness we've all come to expect from this dude who seems utterly unable to write a dull tune.
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I've been way late to the party when it comes to noticing this Perth group but since i first did, they just kept outdoing themselves with every new release, their latest LP easily quailfying as a top-tier bucket of fun for the discerning garage punk connoisseur and especially for admirers of Uranium Club, Pinch Points, Dumb or Vintage Crop.
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Garage punk from Spain that hits all the right spots dead-on and conveys exactly that kind of explosive momentum of a band hungry to play - the kind of vibe that's been a bit scarce recently, owing to obvious circumstances. To me, their sound calls to mind bits and pieces of Dadar, Sauna Youth, Ex-Cult, Constant Mongrel, Jackson Reid Briggs or Pedigree while also revealing a strong post punk vibe at times, kinda like Berlin groups such as Pigeon, Diät, Pretty Hurts crossbred with the melancholic moods of Red Dons, Telecult or Nightwatchers.
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Yay! New shit by that person or group who might or might not be based in Hicksville, NY and whose 2020 garage-/post-/eggpunk borderline-masterpiece Happyhappy made me exactly that. So now we get a new short playing Hi-Fi experience as well as some other, slightly less short and ever-so-slightly less Hi-Fi thing. Boring this certainly ain't and as for that other thing… i think i have some basic idea what they don't think they know the fuck they're doing and they're doing it just fine and it's fucking glorious and i love every fucking second of it!
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