Having made somewhat of a splash with their unpredictable 2019 demo and a more conventinally hardcore-leaning EP in 2021, the Richmond, Virginia group is shaking things up once again with their first full-length effort, significantly slowing things down and seemingly taking plenty of cues from left-field 80s acts on the experimental intersection of hardcore punk and (proto-)noise rock in the vein of, among others, Flipper, No Trend, Spike in Vain or Broken Talent, while also not entirely dissimilar to more recent groups like Soupcans, Vulture Shit, C-Krit or Stinkhole.
It took the Bristol group just shy of a year to come up with the newest installment in their, so far, absolutely spectacular and flawless run of (digital) singles. I'm glad to announce that i've got nothing new to say about this one - these two tunes are yet another masterclass of melodic post punk and power pop songcraft with clear echoes of Buzzcocks, Television Personalities, Mekons and many more artefacts of predominantly british DIY punk history.
This neat little EP by St. Louis, Missouri dude Nick G and friends delivers seven blasts of dark yet melodic, heavily song-based post punk - admittedly not a terribly original thing at this point but not too predictable either, solidly constructed throughout. A definitive treat for fans of stuff á la Criminal Code, Public Eye, VHS, Sievehead or Bruised… with occasional flashes of Trauma Harness or The Estranged to boot.
A thoroughly high quality new batch of 7"s and even a CD from the ever reliable italian garage punk institution Goodbye Boozy Records. Tee Vee Repairman is yet another project of Ishka Edmeades who you might also know from acts such as Satanic Togas, Set-Top Box, Research Reactor Corp., Gee Tee, Remote Control, Mainframe… this dude seems to be in pretty much anything out of the Warttman orbit and beyond that. Let's just say dude's been's a constant fixture on this blog in recent years and will sure crop up many more times because everything he touches tends to become instant garage punk and power pop gold. A different beast altogether is the 7" by Wayne Pain & The Shit Stains, a simple & stupid attack of decidedly oldschool fuzzed-out garage punk with that classic rockabilly edge to it. Speaking of rockabilly… Qinqs have a touch of that going on too, although in their case it reeks less of The Cramps and more of The Fall - The Great White Wonder might as well be called How i re-wrote Elastic Man - as well as more recent occurrences á la Shark Toys, Ex Cult, Parquet Courts or The UV Race. The newest tape by the mysterious Zoids then is another endearingly eccentric treat of minimalist electro-/space-/garage punk transporting more than just a little bit of a Suicide-meets-Metal Urbain / Dr. Mix and the Remix vibe. Also: Yeah, fuck vinyl 'cos the future belongs to the compact disc bro. Dadgad's tracks then serve as the perfect transition between the aforementioned electric space punk stylings and the opposite half of a 7" featuring - yet again - that dude known as Zhoop… or was it Feed? Djinn? Brundle maybe? I don't care really it's all good shit!
An overflowing bucket of joy, the newest LP(ette) by some duo from Montreuil, France, generating a mixture melodic of garage punk, oldschool indie rock, fuzz- and jangle pop reminding me of a diverse group of more-or-less recent acts á la Dumb Punts, Woolen Men, Hermetic, Landlines, The Exbats, Tape/Off… or maybe a more down-to-earth P.S. I Love You, aswell as old indie rockers of the Superchunk, Archers Of Loaf variety. This record serves as a perfect reminder that you don't need to stage a huge spectacle if you just deliver on the melodies that stick.
A new mini LP by Atlanta's post punk force of nature Nag - i guess everybody knows what to expect at this point and i'm totally okay with that as there still ain't a whole lot of groups quite like them. Despite the raw ingredients of their sound being as old as post punk itself, there's a unique quality to their vision, about as simplistic as you can get away with in some places while amazingly elaborate where it counts in others, with the occasional touch of psychedelia and hammered home with a rough and unrelenting force.
More great fodder by synth-/electro viking punk maestro Klint on this nice compilation available either digitally or dubbed onto pre-loved cassette stock, if you're so inclined - i do certainly approve of that, giving old cassettes a new home! So what we got here is a mix of old shit you might have heard already, old shit you probably haven't heard yet and new shit you definitely haven't. Oh and then apparently there's also the matter a of a couple of recently unearthed ancient wax cylinders, gloriously rough around the edges and unplayed since approximately 1904-1912. Neat!
When it comes to contemporary noise rock, i'm notoriously hard to please but this L.A. group easily does the trick for me, playing a variant of the genre approaching Big Black levels of dissonant shredding while also reminding me a bit of oldschool acts like Distorted Pony, Bastro, Drunks With Guns as well as more recent stuff á la Spray Paint… or, maybe, an ultra-straightforward version of Multicult, driven along by vicious, at times almost Gang of Four-esque grooves.
A quick and painless attack of garage- and synth punk equally catchy and noisy by some group or person from Simi Valley, California. This is more than a little reminiscent to contemporary genre powerhouses such as S.B.F., The Gobs, Slimex, Ghoulies, Quitter or C.H.I.M.P., among many others and every bit as good.
The newest EP by this group from Antwerp, Belgium is a flawless butt-kicker made up of fairly traditional yet, thankfully, always soundly constructed garage punk stylings, thorougly based on an excellent underlying song substance with some added british invasion touches á la Resonars, otherwise to be located in a similar orbit as Dadar, Shitty Life, Mitraille, Big Baby or Sauna Youth.