Brilliantly simple anarcho-flavored post punk is what we get on this Demo by a group from Perth, Australia, working a decidedly rough, unpolished aesthetic of minimal means towards maximum impact, along the way reminding me of a bunch groups ranging from more obvious references like Institute, Impotentie and early Rank/Xerox to a significantly slowed-down variant of either Nag or recent Pyrex.
Album-Stream →
I don't think i've ever given Media Puzzle from Lismore, Australia the full blog post spotlight here so far which is a freakin' crime really, as this dude has by now been a constant presence on the eggpunk periphery for close to two years and, despite keeping relatively close to a well-established genre formula at the surface-level at least, has since developed a voice pretty much of his own after all and it's just pretty fucking hard to escape the gravitational pull of his super catchy and instantly likeable make of garage punk, stuffed to the brim with contagious hooks.
Album-Stream →
This New York group has just dropped an insanely strong debut cassette via Popular Affliction Records bursting at the seams from all the equally punishing and vitalizing energy, compacted into eleven bursts of garage-, electro- and synth punk with a bit of a dissonant noise rock edge to them but also some of that sci-fi b-movie obsessed Spits- or Stalins Of Sound vibe. A distinct knack for sometimes basic but always exceedingly potent punk hooks and noisy textures which occasionally may even evoke some vaguely Big Black-ish spirit, coupled with a sprinkling of somewhat cheesy, (just barely) egg-ish flourishes most noticeable in Faith in Football, plus slight catchy hints of The Gobs and Sex Mex respectively later on in Accelerate and ADHD make for a thoroughly flammable concoction that doesn't have to shy away from comparisons with some of the best shit the genre had to offer in the past decade-plus like Exit Mould, Kerozine, Cthtr, De()t, Quitter, Broken Prayer, Molbo, C57BL/6, STDees, The Q-Tips and Spyroids, just to name a few that immediately spring to mind.
Album-Stream →
Austin, Texas group D.A.R.Y.L. had made a strong impression already with last year's Rock N Roll High School mini-LP and now build on that same foundation of synth-enhanced fuzz punk, noise pop and garage punk to even greater effect with their second release. Below the thick layer of blown-out, sledghammer sound aesthetics you'll find a perfect track record of simple, dangerously catchy tunes and melodies, a way broader stylistic variety and much improved songwriting qualities compared to the, at times, still somewhat one-dimensional vibes of the debut. This now kinda sounds like only one half Buck Biloxi / Giorgio Murderer and the other half smelling of Gobs and Exwhite... or Booji Boys, Dadgad maybe? Everyhing about that mixture sounds so fucking right to me!
Album-Stream →
England's Noise Merchant Records just reissued this Spokane, Washington group's debut tape which i've somehow either missed or stupidly ignored last winter. On it, they inject some slight hint of early Superchunk or Dinosaur Jr into an overall sound more in alignment with 1st- and 2nd-wave emocore, getting all the basics right at reproducing the genre's tropes and conventions that made it awesome in the first place while avoiding all the pitfalls that would make it a fucking joke and a tired cliché later on, while the songwriting chops on display here are somewhat basic but confident and sure-footed enough to keep you engaged, even if Puddy Knife won't add anything new to the genre here rather than reminding us of how much fun and joy you could get out of it in its earlier days and still can to this day, once you strip it of its acquired baggage of clownish mall punk cosplay and performative self-pity.
Album-Stream →
Typically excellent new fodder from some of my favorite post punk weirdos. The first track Optimism on this new Cassingle by the Cleveland, Ohio group encapsulates all the hallmarks of their angular brand of post punk into a compact and super-catchy little package while Foot Of Pride is a somewhat more ambitious, sprawling affair which - with its mid-tempo pace and uncharactaristically expansive length of over five minutes - still doesn't ever come close to overstaying its welcome thanks to its understated but effective slow-burn dramaturgy and a performance every bit as sharp and precise as anything this one-of-a-kind group has done before.
Their rather Lo-Fi 2024 Demo was pure bliss already and now we get to behold the first more polished recordings of the NYC group on this new digital 2-track single, presenting them in a somewhat different light with less of a pronounced garage vibe, instead being more reminiscent of the more indie rock-ish, melodic leaning ends of the '80s SST Records spectrum and loosely related shit, somewhere inbetween the likes of mid-career Hüsker Dü, early Dinosaur Jr., Man Sized Action, a hint of Angst maybe too. In that regard, and especially strongly in the undeniable über-hit Combat Zone (Left For Dead), these tunes remind me a lot of the incredible first Milk Music EP.
Big Break of Sheffield, UK previously made some waves with two excellent EPs of both pissed and quirky garage punk in 2021/'22, later compiled and expanded into a full LP in 2023. Their newest EP now consolidates that strong impression with another neat grab bag of tunes of an overall slightly more quirky and uplifting quality. While the opening track Prototype excells as a straightforward no-frills punk tune, The Goon is pretty much the opposite, having a bit of an egg-ish vibe goin' on. Wearing a Wire then reminds me of the garage punk minimalism of acts like The UV Race, Eddy Current Supprission Ring, Sauna Youth and Tyvek. Then at last, the closing track The Eunuch, with its sleazy growls right at the beginning and some ultra cheesy synth action feels kinda like a quirked-up Ex-Cult gone gloriously off the rails.
Album-Stream →
Toronto group Eye Ball had made myself - and probably everyone else listening - hungry for more of their shit with their two digital 2-track singles last year, which then got compiled into a four-track tape pretty soon after that. Now we get their first full LP worth of material and the previous comparisons to the likes of Marked Men, Radioactivity, Sonic Avenues and maybe early Sweet Reaper still hold mostly true, but there's so much more going on here too with most of these tunes having a lot more grit and a rougher edge to them, a more determined attack. Don't worry, there's still plenty of hooks and melodies to go around and the thing is packed with hits, but you know something's cooking when right out of the gate the album greets us with a pretty hardcore-ish title tune and subsequently, sometimes seems to channel the the vigorous thrust of previous-decade garage punk acts like Sauna Youth and early Tyvek. The one-two punch consisting of Road Pig and Bruise for a Birthmark almost has a bit of a Cruelster-esque energy and of even more recent stuff, these sogs had me thinking of The Dumpies a lot. Quality shit, no doubt!
Album-Stream →
This Copenhagen-based group once again channels that same widescreen thrill and excitement that already made their 2023 debut LP stand out from the great bulk of ambitious post punk acts and all of it is still in place here - the desperate, existential drama reminiscent of early Iceage, Lower and other groups that cropped up in their wake, the omnipresent cowpunk undercurrents, the equally melodic and elaborate arrangements and structures that call to mind the first couple of Protomartyr EPs, coupled with the urgency and immediacy of early White Lung - while at the same time, these tunes come across as ever-so-slightly more streamlined, refined in a careful, gradual way resulting in yet another quite unique and miles-above-average punk record.
Album-Stream →