A hefty charge of synth-enhanced in-your-face hardcore and garage punk driving straight into the abyss in an act of blissful defiance, that's what we're geting on the debut tape of Buffalo NY group Havana Syndrome. On one hand this shit has a bit of an unhinged Lumpy And The Dumpers energy and a straightforward attack akin to that Feed/Zhoop/Brundle/Nightman/etc dude but just as much i feel reminded of a number of varyingly egg-leaning groups like Baltomore's Quitter, Italy's own The Bad Plug, the greek eggpunk pest that is Μπριτζολιτσεσ and there's also an undeniable hint of early Skull Cult or Research Reactor Corp at play here.
The newest three minutes of Snarewaves noise may be the first time we witness some cautious tweaking of their winning fuzz punk formula, insofar as the first three tracks not only slow things down just a notch but also see them de-cluttering their sonics just enough to make the underlying toolset almost discernable, like, for the first time i'm like 80% confident that we're hearing an actual guitar here rather than (as i previously suspected) oldschool bit-crushed samples and the good news is that their tunes are more capable than ever of carrying that shit along even when forced through somewhat less of a sonic meatgrinder, slightly less reliant on the obscuring and flattering qualities of that super-crunchy aesthetic, though it certainly helps nonetheless.
The past couple weeks had quite an abundance of incredible short-form 2-track releases and i'm even shorter on time than i anticipated as, on top of my infamously unreliable brain chemistry, this week also came up with a family emergency for me to help mitigate, so i'm gonna take the liberty of just dumping the four strongest of the batch in a single post.
The most surprising of thiose was certainly the debut (?) single of Atlanta, Georgia group Assembly, covering a pretty wide and eclectic stylistic spectrum in the postcore, noise- and math rock field ranging from classic '90s and early '00s Dischord-flavored sounds of the Faraquet, Bluetip and Q And Not U variety over other '90s phenomena like Polvo, Braniac and Chavez to more recent noise rock and art punk acts like Wax Chattels, Solderer, Body House, Haunted Horses and, most of all, Spray Paint and assiciated later acts Rider/Horse and During.
Australia's Tee Vee Repairman - yeah, of course it's another group of Gee Tee's Ishka Edmeades - follows up a bunch of previous EPs and a brilliant LP with a new 7" whose two songs can easily be counted as among the finest in a discography that's never been lacking in infectious power pop melodies to begin with.
In a similar vein, there's a new Smirk (aka Nick Vicario, also of Public Eye, Crisis Man und Cemento) 7" that also sees the dude considerably upping his songwriting game, going places we haven't seen of him before with Domestic Dog kinda fusing oldschool anarcho and post punk flourishes with a pronounced 77-ish melodicity and an almost Television-like spaciousness that also permeates the other tune Manhunt in Paradise, the whole of which sounds a bit like the most recent Institute LP being taken a step further in its art punk elegance.
And finally, in contrast to the previous bands, we have an example of a group plainly serving up more of the same and what a brilliant kind of "same" that is, the new 7" of Brooklyn power pop group Shop Talk who've so far always blown me away with every new release and the new one can do no wrong either, with Museum Of Sex being another flawless instance of catchy and straightforward '77-ish punk with that distinct Dickies flavor while the more intricately constructed Gaslight slows things down a bit, adds a more melancholy vibe and equal parts of a Buzzcocks- and Replacements quality to the mix. A knockout tune to say the least.
I like to fool myself into thinking that i actually don't have much a natural inclination towards raving fanboy-isms and try to avoid these kind of things here as good as i can, but this is one of the rare occasions where i'm just plainly unable to contain my euphoria for such a singular group that has sent such insane waves through the garage punk scene and basically set new benchmarks for catchy pop tunes with a deep and unique sense of melancholy, and all that that after the group's Jeff Burke and Mark Ryan had previously already established themselves as invaluable garage punk luminaries by fronting another essential genre mainstay, The Marked Men. Right from the start, Time Won't Bring Me Down strikes me as yet another instant classic of the ultra-classic Radioactivity school and Watch Me Bleed radiates that same familiar and unique feel before This One Time slows things down for the first time and sets the tone for much of what's to come on this record, which more than ever leans into the group's calmer, moodier side and an almost classic power pop vibe that in parts should feel familiar already to those acquainted with the Jeff Burke-penned tunes on the two Lost Balloons LPs while there's still enough high energy rockin' out goin' on to also please all fans of previous Radioactivity records. Now, for most lesser groups, going slow for much of an album is usually a bad idea and a recipe for boredom and it truly takes some superior capabilities in songwriting and arrangement to pull that shit off successfully. Well, cue Jeff Burke, one of the the most accomplished songwriters of the punk scene alive today, whose unreal craftsmanship never falters even once on what might actually be the greatest Radioactivity record to date. But honestly, in a discography as immaculate as theirs, it's actually kinda futile trying to pick a favorite.
Now this London group is kind of a rare beast in this day and age in that they not only lean all-in on early postcore and first-wave emocore circa mid-eighties to mid-nineties with groups such as Rites Of Spring, Moss Icon, Drive Like Jehu, eary Unwound, Squirrel Bait... you name it, while also absolutely holding their own in the present with well-balanced and fleshed-out song structures and arrangements rather than coming off as yet another bloodless rehash of the genre's most basic signifiers. Now there's two possible ways you're gonna react to these words. Either you've long ago acquired a compulsive dislike for anything even remotely touching on *mo subgenres, which is very likely if you've first encountered the genre in the late '90s or later and i can't really fault you for that, given what terrible things that were gonna come out of it roughly from then on. Or maybe you are well aware that there's been a lot more to the divisive subgenre in its early days, long before it entered its now thoroughly meme-ified cliché era. And in case all of that sounds just like latin to you now, i'm gonna invite you to maybe discover a bit of the unlikely creative spark and unleashed energy much of the pioneering generation had in common. Anyway, this is good shit right there and may be as good a segue as anything towards discovering the mostly still untarnished *mo and *core shit of the olden days.
A ridiculously impressive debut LP from this Tokyo-based group that unleashes a perfect storm of melodic but equally prouplsive noise pop and garage punk with an unpredictable, freewheeling creative energy at its core with no two songs sounding quite alike but everything feels as if made of one piece nonetheless, cycling through nine iterations of catchy noise that kinda alternates between the more straightforward sonic spaces of, say, Dark Thoughts, Sonic Avenues, Bad Sports or early Terry Malts on one hand and the way more incalculable and freakish bursts of melodic ruckus most recently heard from Eye Ball and The Dumpies on the other side of that equation.
If you're yearning for more of the awesomeness brought about by Stunted Youth's tracks on the all-around incredible Save Our Children / Stunted Youth split LP, there's some good news for you as this debut LP by Memory Ward of Phoenix, Arizona scratches a quite similar itch of artsy and unpredictable hardcore punk very much at odds with the kinda meh standards often associated with the genre. Maybe Memory Ward don't (yet?) reach quite the adventurousness and subtle melodic brilliance in direct comparison, but most of the goods are in place and look pretty fucking good - the eccentric song structures, the abrasive buzzsaw guitars soaring over an unhinged performance... this is quality shit! Not satisfied with just playing very hard and fast, these folks put some actual freakin' musical ideas into their songs, which by itself already sets them apart from 99% of hardcore acts anyway.
Considering the rave reactions i've heard so far about this Melbourne group's shows, their good-not-great 2024 debut EP so far had convinced me that their probably incredible live sound has been struggling a bit to translate into recorded form. Well, i can certainly say that this is less of an issue for much of their new mini LP which makes an overall much stronger impression for their sparkling sound that at times kinda reminds me of the psychedelic and variably surf-infused garage rock of Crsytal Stilts and Disappears mixed with a hint of early No Age and maybe White Fence, in addition to the eccentric monotonous fuzz escapades of City Yelps and the ethereal, abstract post punk melancholia of Kitchen's Floor and Mother's Milk... A quirky mixture that is for sure but it works quite admirably. Even when the band runs an acute risk of overstretching their most airy qualities in the record's slow middle stretch, the bet pays off and shit just refuses to come apart, however precarious it might look at first glance..
Just a couple weeks after their debut, the second EP of the Beta Máximo dude's new synth punk project simply picks up the strands right where they left them on the predecessor, yet there's also some neat experimentation and surprise to be found in there which we haven't heard before like the airy synth polyrhythms in the verses of El Fin De Los Días showing SYT at their most aloof so far but also rewarding the patience by segueing into some of their most catchy moments in the chorus.
I found it a bit difficult warming up to last year's debut LP by this group featuring, among others, Chris Natividad of Marbled Eye and Public Interest, as that record still struck as a bit too glassy, overindulgent and underdeveloped, severely lacking in direction and contour in an era where that's kinda symptomatic of the sad state the current wave of shoegaze-y groups is operating in. Well, i can't say that about their newest EP though, on which they've considerably sharpened the edges and reinforced the structural integrity of their compositions. Did i just say Shoegaze? Yeah that's right! There's relatively little in common here sound-wise with the slightly ethereal, dreamy post punk of the aforementioned groups. Rather, Blue Zero are distinctly channeling a certain strain from the more straightforward and direct edges of the old-timey Shoegaze spectrum with the likes of Swervedriver, Bailterspace, Pale Saints and early Ride springing to mind immediately.
