If you feel like you've heard these songs before, you're not going nuts 'cos indeed every single tune on album number 3 by this Madison, Wisconsin-based group has already been on one of their previous two LPs. So on one hand this thing plays out like some kind of best of comp but then again, everything has been re-recorded here, polished up and given a new layer of paint and especially those tunes from the first record - which still left some things to be desired in the production department - have gained a lot of punch and sparkle in what i'll call their definitive versions now. So basically we've got kind of a "first Snooper LP" situation on our hands here and the strongest representation so far of their quite unique blend of super catchy garage- and post punk with psychedelic undercurrents and additional sprinkles of glam and goth, a combination that often reminds me of Powerplant, De()t or Isotope Soap minus the Synths, of Mononegatives, Shrudd or Electric Prawns 2 on the more psychedelic side of the equation and, in their lighter moments, the likes of Erik Nervous, Andy Human & The Reptoids, SGATV, Freak Genes or Cthtr.
Now this Brooklyn group kicks up an excellent fuss on what appears to be their second EP so far, churning out eight concise and catchy eruptions of fuzz-heavy garage- and old-fashioned DIY punk that evokes quite a bit of an early 2010s feel reminiscent of Tyvek, Parquet Court or maybe a quite Lo-Fi, rustic incarnation of Wimps, though you could just as well draw comparisons to oldschool KBD-adjacent Acts like The Endtables or The Mentally Ill. There's an undeniable Desperate Bicycles energy to it aswell and when it comes to more recent shit, i'm sure enjoyers of that fairly recent Winston Hytwrs Perfect Harmony EP might get a kick out of this one too.
Judging from the title, this Boston group featuring half the lineup of The Monsieurs has just found some recordings and dumped them on bandcamp, so no clue how old this shit actually is, but reading the tea leaves i'll say it's fairly recent actually. Anyway, where The Monsieurs have, for my own taste, often been adhering just a bit too closely to an ultra-oldschool, rather basic and well-trodden garage punk retro formula, this shit right here - while still not exactly new or original - has a lot more muscle to it, delivering its old school thrills with plenty of oomph, relying on heavy-duty, resiliant hooks and rock-solid song substance all the way through.
Insanely appealing shit, this demo by Sydney group The Moids. What starts out with your kinda standard lo-fi electric beats propelling forward a subliminally egg-ish garage punk sound á la S.B.F., 3D & the Holograms or Witch Piss, gains way more of a rough oldschool KBD quality from the second track Maitland Man going forward, reminiscent more of such groups as Launcher, Liquid Assets, Freakees and Mystic Inane, while Long Week has a stripped-down art rock feel not unlike the earliest Peace de Résistance releases.
This Chicago-based one-man band really upped their game on their 2025 Sunk EP after the dude's previous releases still sounded more like fleeting snapshots of a developing act still in search of its own voice. This new tape released via the good folks at Knuckles On Stun now once again sounds like he means business, delivering four super-compact, simple and catchy treats of power pop-infused, melodic DIY garage punk with a subtle hint of Wipers that never misses a beat and always gets straight to the point.
These folks from Rye, Australia have been around for a couple years already but i can't remember them ever hitting it quite as hard as they do on their newest 7" on Legless Records, on which they retain their previous releases' catchy songwriting prowess but enrich them with a bit more of a primal garage vibe and some melancholy overtones that - despite no current members of that band playing in this incarnation of Doe St, i think - certainly expose ther personal and geographical proximity to Melbourne's garage punk dynamos Split System. If you're into that shit, don't miss out on this either!
So here we have the debut EP of a new group from Berlin featuring members of Les Lullies and Slander Tonge among others, confidently acing their way through four flawless tunes of jangly power pop elegance. This is a genre that lives and dies by the quality of the songwriting and these folks pull out all the stop to make it work... the tunes, the arrangements, the performances. Simple as that.
This Baltimore group features members of Nag and Quitter, which already raises expectations and it appears that on their first EP, they're pulling every lever to subvert rather than fulfill those. This record certainly has a split personality of some kind with every tune sounding like it originates from a different Group entirely and i'm gonna say it fucking rips! Carte Blance is four minutes of math-y noise rock, the kind you'd expect from such groups like John (timestwo), Luggage, the earlier works of Tunic or Help. Vertices then feels a tiny bit closer to the bleak and monotonous post punk vibes you'd have expected at first but there's also a dusty americana vibe goin' on kinda like what we've heart on that recent The III tape. Cranberry is a dissonant and noisy burst of hardcore, followed by three minutes of experimental drone/noise in The Gate. Then at last in Kept Bread, a doom-/drone-ish beginning leads into what probably bears the most resemblence here to the aforementioned Nag, if maybe Played at two-thirds the speed. A puzzling release that is and i can't wait to find out where they're gonna end up going with all this!
Sex Mex have been a constant for the past couple years as my go-to act for straight-ahead fuzzy and melodic no-frills garage punk that doesn't evolve much beyond its time-tested formula but so far hasn't ever disappointed either, always kept afloat by the quality of the song material and this newest EP is without doubt among the strongest sets of new tunes they've let loose so far, another no-frills treat of synth-enhanced, euphoric garage pop to lift the spirits when we desperately need it.
Here's another quick rundown of worthy hardcore releases that have accumulated here in tha past couple weeks. Dublin's Flower Power already had a kickass EP out last year and on their newest one, they subtly dial down the (still quite prominent, mind you) garage foundations of their hardcore ruckus that's alternately strikingly simple and unexpectedly elaborate in other places, channeled into a perfectly dialed-in fuzzy lo-fi aesthetic that sounds like a mixture between Stunted Youth, a touch of Lumpy and the Dumpers and that whole Stucco/Impotent Fetus and Delux Bias school of quality filth. Next up are Ultimatum from Pittsburgh, who adhere a bit more to a fairly classic sounding hardcore formula but spike that whole thing with some seemingly NWOBHM-inspired riffing that wouldn't feel out of place on a Poison Ruïn record, which in combination with an undeniable knack for catchy hooks makes for a neat sonic jackhammer indeed. Third addition to our growing collection of power tools is Boston group Feeble Minds who take the oldschool vibes even further here while never failing to massage the synapses with plenty of catchy ear candy that serves as the basis for their rabid band performance. If all of that is still a bit too clever and newfangled for your tastes, maybe give the demo of Glasgow's Attest a spin, which does indeed sound like something stuck in a classic-era early eighties timeloop and i'll say dog bless 'em for that!
