Less than a year after this New Jersy dude's first record as a full-band incarnation overloaded the senses and blasted a respectable hole in the floor, the plain album title "Reckless Randy 2" now denotes the second longplaying artifact as a solo artist again and just like on his 2022 self-titled (solo-) debut LP, the overall pace on here is a good bit more relaxed and leisurely than than the mayhem of his united wrecking crew and you know what, that doesn't matter much 'cos the dude knows a thing or two about crafting kinda simple but wickedly catchy and effective garage tunes that hit hard enough just by themselves and could easily withstand an even more sleepy presentation. That said, i do hope to hear at some point what the whole crew is gonna transform this material into.
A curious little creature, this new tape coming to us courtesy of the reliably weird and brilliant - and if you ask me, wildly under-appreciated - NY label Fuzzy Warbles Cassettes. The second tape by this act of mysterious origin is some gloriously old-fashioned minimalist synth punk action that on one hand channels some of the old '80s underground greats like Nervous Gender, Units, Visitors, Screamers, Primitive Calculators or Marginal Man, but also the hypnotic, scrappy charm of early John Carpenter soundtracks and in the current landscape, they kinda fit in with such groups as Lost Packages, Abscam or some particular incarnations of Freak Genes.
Yet another kickass split 7" coming to us via Goodbye Boozy records. On it, Leipzig, Germany group Autobahns set off one oldschool hardcore smasher followed by an angular garage punk hit with a slightly southern-ish flavor. Speaking of southern-ish - that is exactly one of the garage punk sub-niches Elvis 2 have been occupying for just over a year now and the two new songs of the australian garage-/fuzz punk group are more of that addictive shit that had us begging for more pretty much ever since their first digital single cropped up on bandcamp, an Elvis 2-shaped hole in our hearts which their recent debut LP still ain't nearly enough to fully occupy.
Eight explosive bursts of equally rough and smart, inventive and versatile hardcore punk are what we're in for on this californian group's debut EP, which on one hand bears some similarity to such oldschool-HC-meets-garage-punk groups like Strutter, Headcheese, early Electric Chair, Insane Urge and Necron 9 but then fuses that aesthetic with the unpredictability and structured chaos of more quirky out-of-the-box thinking groups á la Mystic Inane, Cucuy, Acrylics, Big Bopper and Rolex.
Two titans of contemporary garage-/synth-/eggpunk join forces once again for a new Goodbye Boozy 7" that combines three new tunes with the tracks from 2023's Genetic Southern Hemisphere Christmas EP and what can i say, that shit sounds pretty much like what you'd imagine a Busted Head Racket & Billiam collaboration to sound like which is to say absolutely glorious like the best of both worlds squared and bearing the unique signatures of two of the australian garage underground's brightest creative spirits.
This sheffield dude delighted in 2020/'21 with three excellent EPs of covid lockdown-spawned melodic garage punk and it appears these four tunes have also been languishing on some hard drive in half-finished form since back then and have only recently been given the finishing touches. So no surprises here really - these songs feel like a seamless continuation of that same greatness, once again taking the form of super-catchy no-frills punk tunes that seem to have equal amounts of Buzzcocks and solo-era Jay Reatard in them as well as the high-impact garage blasts of Kid Chrome and, most recently, the simple, fuzzed-out garage-/noise pop hymns of Sex Mex.
I think the demo of this NYC group is some pretty fucking brilliant shit. The charmingly rustic Lo-Fi recording can't do anything really to obscure the obvious qualities of their spin on equally catchy and hard-hitting fuzz- and garage punk that at first glance radiates a pronounced Wipers-meet-KBD-esque vibe with some added Saints, Buzzcocks and Dead Boys flair but there's more under the hood than first meets the eye as some closer observation reveals some neat little flourishes and details, like a bit of a southern rock flavor, the kind we've recently heard on that Elvis 2 LP while the forceful, tight-ass presentation and the vocalist's pissed of bark call to mind the likes of Split System and Punter. In other moments, you may draw some plausible comparisons to the frantic post punk of Nevosas or the rougher end of the Booji Boys spectrum.
Here's yet another bucket of egg-ish garage-/synth punk in the form of this Melbourne group's charming collection of demo recordings of which some "proper" recordings are rumored to exist by now as well, which we're hopefully gonna get to hear quite soon. Just as on their debut EP earlier this year this shit ain't gonna redefine the genre but delivers some quite infectious tunes staying within the specifications and tropes of contemporary garage-/eggpunk while also showing some massive improvement over the debut in terms of consistency and sheer catchyness.
Dallax, Texas punks Thyroids have been fucking around with different styles and vibes for quite a few years already but they really started to hit their stride with last year's excellent EP Toppings and Droppings. Now, for their first full LP, they've once again shaken up and diversified their sound considerably, with only traces left of the heavy synth punk leanings of the predecessor. The opening track ABCs of Assimilation delights with a variation on angular post-meets-garage punk shit á la Reality Group, Uranium Club, Exit Group and also quite a bit of Skull Cult - even more so in tunes like Static/Dynamic or The New Poor, which also have a bit of an undeniable Knowso vibe to them. The Loot and Don't Ask, Dumbass are no-frills borderline-hardcore gut punches. Daily Habits reimagines the group in a somewhat egg-ish guise while Enterview and Suited & Tied have something of a math-y postcore edge, vaguely reminiscent of the likes of Big Bopper, Rolex, Brandy or Mystic Inane. Check Engine Light conjures up some oldschool Useless Eaters or Ex-Cult energy. Cop Out is a hyper-focused and compact garage smasher getting maximum mileage out of an old-fashioned riff and the closing tune !!! Click Now To Claim Your Reward !!! once again goes all-in on the afrementioned Skull Cult and Uranium Club vibes to utterly hypnotic results.
A pretty fucking stunning debut LP from an Alamance, North Carolina duo excelling in a hazy and hypnotic mixture of noise rock, post punk, oldschool indie rock and the darkest alleys of the americana spectrum. The latter tendency often come across like a more vicious and propulsive take on the muddy southern gothic charm of (quite paradoxically) NYC based group Weak Signal but also, at certain points, you may find traces of the blues-y proto-noise rock of Feedtime and Scratch Acid, the swamp rock of eighties Scientists. The overarching melancholy of the whole affair then again reminds me of somewhat indie rock-leaning groups like Australia's Kitchen's Floor, Treehouse and earlier stuff of London's Witching Waves on one hand, the moody, eccentric post punk of acts like Auckland/Berlin-based groups Trust Punks, Dead Finks on the other, with further similarities to the deep abysses of Atlanta's Uniform, Glittering Insects, Mother's Milk or the folk-ish Angst- and Meat Puppets-indebted neo-proto-grunge of Bellingham, Washington group Pig Earth and Madison, Wisconsin's Dharma Dogs. All of that is being rolled expertly into ten all-killer-no-filler widescreen melodramas here with perfect sonic architectures marked by super effective buildups and payoffs.
