South Carolina group The UTI's appear to move ahead blazingly fast recently, already leaving behind the spaced-out psychedelia of their This Has To Be Hell EP and the more quirky, synth-enhanced egg-isms of Migraine Music - both released earlier this year - and make room instead for a much rougher full-band incarnation of their sound in the realm of pleasantly brainless, noisy fuzz punk that doesn't try anything smart or new yet punches way above its weight through the sheer force of ther performance as much as as solid, functional song foundations to their simple but catchy-ass little tunes.
A thoroughly convincing debut EP we got here from this Providence, Rhode Island group who infuse lots of KBD-drenched garage punk roughness into a sound dominated by more of an overall hardcore energy with simple, effective early '80s-style hooks. A well of delightful chaos that gets the balance just right between unkempt shambolic noise and mayhem on one hand and an insanely catchy quality on the other that gets you hooked immediately.
A number of recent releases heavy on re-recorded tunes already hinted that Lansing, Michigan's prolific creators of fuzzed-out noise pop, fuzz- and garage punk miniatures were due for a bit of a sonic overhaul and in keeping with that direction, their newest EP starts out with yet another reimagining - maybe their most drastic one so far - of their old staple ABV, stretching things out and slowing 'em down a bit to better bring out the catchy melodic qualities of the tune without losing any their special magic. This shit still sounds unmistakably like a Snarewaves record, just a gently uncluttered and less hurried one with more breathing room granted by both its performances and production aesthetics. Love it, looking forward to more of it as always!
When the Carp released their first demo 2021 it was love at first sight but still the group felt a bit like a fifth wheel as far as Nathan Ward-Fronted bands are concerned, kinda like a slightly too logical middle ground between the jaggy post punk efficiency of Knowso, the wild off-the-rails energy of Cruelster and the rougher garage edge of Perverts Again. Their excellent debut LP in 2024 then saw them branch out a little, though still sounding kinda noncommittal to any clear direction that would differentiate them from the established Cruelster and Knowso blueprints. Now this new one for the first time sounds to me like the group is slowly starting to develop an identity of their own marked by a more rustic, wilfully dumbed-down garage punk undercurrent and a way less brainy and detached, more earnest and unfiltered heart-on-your-sleeve approach to their tunes. Anyway, as pretty much anything these dudes have touched so far, this yet another essential nugget for admirers of their particular strain of highly structured and sturdy post punk cubism with a fuzzy garage edge.
Two bands from the greater Los Angeles area have pooled their resources for a true god-tier hardcore split here that shall one day be regarded as one of the great roaring '20s split releases in a leage with, say, last year's Stunted Youth & Save Our Children LP. Naturally, the Animated Violence tunes garner most of my initial attention for not only did these dudes already catch my ear with two kickass tapes since 2022 but also considerably upped their craft and insanity on here with a sound as eclectic, playful and inventive as it's catchy, melodic and noisy-as-fuck nonetheless, making for a wild and bumpy unpredictable ride. But as much as this shit is right up my alley, that should by no means lead me to discount the Total Vacation tracks here which on the surface revel in a simpler early '80s oldschool direction yet are in no way less thrilling and packed with bright ideas and weird flourishes, only these tend to be more spread out here over roughly double the amount of shorter tunes and there's absolutely no arguing with instant hits like Chimera and Perspective / For Once.
This Victoria, British Columbia group is generating tons of fun and eccentric post-/art punk bliss that partly, but not quite, fits the common mold of late '70s / early '80s Siouxsie, Pylon, Delta 5 or B-52s inspired groups… there's a similar catchy quirkines to these but you also can't deny a strong garage-y proto punk thing goin' here and a rougher, more anarchic UK-bred DIY vibe, the kind you'd rather expect from the likes of Cravats, Membranes, Fatal Microbes or Flowers In The Dustbin or hidden away in the depths of some old Messthetics compilation, while there's still some plausible connection you can draw to more recent post punk phenomena of the Spread Joy and Marcel Wave variety and even some 2010s weirdcore phenomena loke Warm Bodies and Vexx. That's some appealing shit right there.
Dammo does that Domo demo kablammo. This presumably Winnipeg based group excites my synapses in a way that surely does feel kinda egg-related in this day and age but also stands apart thanks to more of an oldschool vibe that harkens back to the more innocent pre- and proto-egg days of the 2010s and the hook-laden no-frills garage punk explosions by the likes of Kid Chrome, S.B.F. and, a little later, Set-Top Box, Crown Moulding, Liquid Face or the earliest works of Science Man.
Featuring Mickey Marie of Nervosas, The Missed and, most recently, Xanny Stars fame along with a whole mess of other notable participants in the current Cleveland punk scene, this group kicks loose some confident and soundly constructed garage punk mayhem with a slight Wipers, Saints or Dead Boys undercurrent at first but also gaining a bit of a Strike Under or Really Red quality along the way. Gotta admit the whole thing sags a little in the middle, me having an especially hard time warming up to the somewhat cookie-cutter dad punk stylings of Fortunate Few, but otherwise this thing is a thoroughly thrilling affair that only gets better from there, the other tune sung by Marie Sit and Stare already growing on me much better and then there's no denying that the final two songs sung by Jake, formerly playing drums for Bad Noids, are a couple of instant classics in their own right that kinda remind me of peak Piss Test energy and once the NWOBHM-style metal shredding puts in the final touches for the closing track Vestigestability, you just know these folks know exactly what the fuck they're going for.
It's been a running theme with french garage punks Bart And The Brats that whenever i get a sense that their wilfully dumbed-down and minimalist oldschool approach to the genre is running out of ideas and into the law of diminishing returns, they come up with a fresh set of tunes that up their game in some subtle, hard to pin down way and so they do on their newest EP once again, containing some of their strongest tunes in a good while and showing all the strengths of their brilliant 2025 Missed Hits LP and then some, after their most recent, somewhat bloodless tunes on the Jacket Burner split just kinda failed to convince me that this band has some bullets left. But what can i say, they're so back baby!
This english group's debut tape is a welcome little distraction made of surface-level egg-ish shit that can rely on a solid foundation of actually pretty rough and propulsive, fuzzed-out garage punk at its core, kept afloat by a reliable wealth of quite well-trodden and by no means new or original, though always perfectly functional hooks and riffs. A record that knows exactly what it sets out to do and then delivers just that. Nothing more, nothing less.
