Six years have passed now since Taulard of Grenoble, France put out their utterly enchanting, otherworldly debut album Les Abords Du Lycée. Even after such a long time, there’s still no other Band quite like them and their guitar-less, organ-centric, deeply melancholy and eccentric (post-)punk sound that on paper looks like it could never work, but somehow it does.
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Cleveland, Ohio’s Knowso already had 7″s out on both Total Punk and Neck Chop Records in the past, which kind of amounts to the ultimate seal of quality in today’s garage landscape. Their newest EP contiues all the goodness and carefully branches out from there. At times they remind of a mix between Nag, more recent Useless Eaters and Constant Mongrel. Other times i can draw parallels to the weirdo post punk of Patti or the unruly noise-/garage hybrids of Brandy and Hash Redactor – boiled down to their bare skeleton. Also, Turning Point has some Wire thing going on and you know that kind of shit will always be appreciated here.
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Somehow i must’ve overlooked this Chicago quartet’s first EP two years ago… gotta catch up on that now, since their new 7″ immediately won me over with its first-rate blend of somewhat garage- and hardcore-infused no-fuss punk rock not too far off from Negative Scanner (whose designated guitar user Matt Revers is also among the perpetrators at work here), Vexx and rounded off by a measured dose of Amyl & The Sniffers-esque ’77 style riffing.
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Sad to hear that not long after their genre-defying/destroying/fucking/deconstructing/exploding album of last year, this EP is already the swan song of North Carolina’s hottest address in contemporary hardcore. So take this last chance to marvel at Das Drip’s ambitious hardcore/postcore/artcore/weirdcore… certainly never boringcore.
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Now this one’s a curious beast. Nashville group Donors already won my attention two years ago with their first EP and a somewhat more conventional mix of garage- and post punk, but this is a different level of weirdness altogether, as they infuse their sound with increasing amounts of dissonant no wave havoc and proto noise rock á la Flipper, No Trend. What in the world could i compare this stuff to? Tyvek or Constant Mongrel reimagined as a no wave act? Spray Paint as a garage band? I’m not entirely sure what they actually set out to do but there’s no doubt they’re succeeding with flying colors. Just when you thought you made sense of the whole thing, the closing track Fine Print manages to surprise once again by adding some Haunted Horses-style industrial flavor to the mix.
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The cologne scene appears to be picking up steam in recent months. Newest piece of evidence is this thoroughly enjoyable demo of quirky one-man DIY garage punk somewhat in the vein of acts like Prison Affair, Set-Top Box, T.L.B.M, Dot.Com, Dee Bee Rich… maybe even a bit of early Erik Nervous. Fine stuff!
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An unrelenting storm of raw KBD-meets-stoner punk kicked loose by the Freaks of Philadelphia, enforced with loads of hardcore propulsion. Starts out kinda like an amalgamation of early Milk Music or Dinosaur Jr. with Everything Falls Apart-era Hüsker Dü, then settles into a mode that comes across like a mix of Tarantüla/Cülo, Fried Egg, a hint of Launcher and some added sludge and death rock vibes, the latter reminding me of Beta Boys.
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The debut album by Chicago group Stuck is pretty much everything you could hope for and a massive leap in sophistication over their already rock solid debut EP. Just like back then, Stuck still have no intention of reinventing the postcore wheel, but instead exhibit a thorough understanding of their genre’s ins and outs and the skillful usage of its grammar and vocabulary to quite thrilling effect. While there’s undeniably some influence of their hometown scene of yesteryear – as well as the obligatory traces of 90s Washington – their sound mostly reminds me of current acts such as USA Nails and even more of the recent wave of australian bands like Batpiss, Bench Press and Noughts.
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Following two strong demo tapes and the flawless ripper that was last year’s debut album via Emotional Response Records, Oakland’s Neutrals already have another EP out on which they seemlessly resume their remarkable winning spree. No other band right now so effortlessly nails this specific subgenre of endlessly charming, qirky heart-on-its-sleeve style DIY post-/art punk surely inspired by the likes of Television Personalities, early Mekons or Desperate Bicycles, while still seeming firmly rooted in this day and age.
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Their third LP – once again released via the tastefully named label 12XU Records (which i’m totally not involved with, i promise!) – presents Austin punks Xetas’ sound in its most mature incarnation yet, most noticeable in terms of its more confident, varied and always rock solid songcraft. Still riding the fine line between straightforward punk rock and energetic post punk/-core, with the needle pointing a bit more in the latter direction this time, you might describe this shit as a curious mix between Red Dons, Video, Meat Wave and Daylight Robbery. In other words: Quality Stuff!
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