This Milan, Italy group has already made some smaller ripples in the garage punk scene with a constant drip of singles and EPs starting in 2022, but i’m gonna say they’re really coming into their own on their newest EP on which they streamline the old records’ comparatively blunt force into a more compact and wieldy vision overall, their high-impact garage-/synth punk mixture holding an ultra-stable balance of catchyness and relentless propulsion while still leaving plenty of room for experimentation and general weirdness, most notable here being the title track which may qualify as a contender for the most unhinged Village People cover tune ever, transferring that old sock about touching and feeling everyone’s bodies into a kind of sonic insanity that reminds me more than just a little of the early works of Skull Cult.
I can’t ever have enough snooper tunes in my life so this new tour EP is more than welcome even if it feels like a little bit of a cheat, consisting only like 60% of actual new songs while the other 40% are made up of two rather inessential instances of experimentation and fucking around. The two “actual” tunes are high-octane rippers though, driven by electric beats a bit like we’ve kinda already heard in the track Subdivision from their 2022 Town Topic EP, although the energy level here is almost brutal in direct comparison, catapulting their sound into some straight electro punk territory with the songs themselves striking me as pretty classic, first-rate Snooper material. Now if these folks just could make up their minds to actually play a show or two in the western parts of germany on their next tour, that would make me a very happy boy. There are egg punk afficinados living in places other than Berlin, you know…
There’s just no other way to put it: Sophisticated oldschool-ish noise rock is going through kind of a rough patch right now with unique and outstanding releases in the genre being precious few and far between. Even in these times though, Germany’s genre overlords Trigger Cut just keep delivering the goods, reminding of – and hopefully also paving a way toward – better times. As usual this shit covers a wide range of the hallmarks of golden age groups such as Bastro, Cows, Rapeman, Distorted Pony, Drunks With Guns and Dazzling Killmen, even some slight hints of Tragic Mulatto in Crash Crew for example. Of more recent groups you may find similarities to the likes of Multicult, STNNG, Leaves, Body House, Elephant Rifle, Help and Overtime. All that said, more than ever – as has already been an increasing tendency on their previous LPs, – they absolutely transcend the obvious influences towards an unmistakable voice very much of their own while keeping us on our toes at all times, with each of these songs incorporating more unique decisions, twists and turns than your average contemporary noise rock/postcore act would come up with for a whole LP – you just can’t ever predict where they’re gonna go next!
Now that’s some first rate shit, the second LP of this group based in the little town of Domodossola in Italy’s Piedmont region. On it, they create a thorougly captivating high-energy sound between the worlds of garage- and art punk that appears to be just as much inspired by oldschool KBD-style oddities as by way artsier post punk acts like Mission Of Burma, Volcano Suns and Moving Targets, held together by the nuts and bolts of unwavering song construction. In tunes like Ping Pong, Punching Me and Licking Nipples we also get some brief little hardcore attacks. I gotta say, should it actually be the case that, as according to the title, these dudes suck, then i love everything about the way they do it, sucking in all the right ways for my deranged tastes.
Milwaukee’s Necron 9 already made an awesome impression with a number of demos and EPs so far and their debut “long”-player now consolidates all that greatness into a neat chain of explosives, sounding the most compact and impactful they ever have. Their approach to moderately motörpunk- and garage-infused hardcore on one hand has a decidedly minimalist, oldschool aesthetic, yet simultaneously feels perfectly contemporary in the way that tried-and-tested hardcore riffs and tropes get fused with plenty of inventive, unexpected turns and a way-above-average frequency of infectious hooks, well balanced out with a beautifully sweaty, rough, unhinged performance.
A similar affair but even a good bit more primitive and rough is the new EP by Kelowna, British Columbia group SSIK, who mostly adhere to well-trodden oldschool formulas yet always hit the bulls-eye with their simple tunes and elevate their craft by way of relentless energy and a super-tight presentation.
Rounding out a great week of hardcore releases is a new 2-track single (and either future or under-the-radar past 7″) of Montreal’s Hood Rats, which as usual stresses out the connective tissue between garage- and hardcore punk in their unmistakably ripping own way. The tunes themselves appear to be not exactly new as, as far as i can tell, these recordings have already appeared on an older tape via Girlsville. Still, these are certainly new to me and more Hood Rats tunes are always a nice thing to have.
Now i suddenly remember that, like, two weeks ago, i was thrilled as hell to see a new Nourishment EP being released and then apparently failed to bookmark it and forgot about it in the last couple weeks’ relentless flood of new releases. Happens to me all the time. Well, better late the never i guess. The sonic parameters on this one stay roughly the same for the US-based blackened-/dungeon punk group, althought the production values appear to have been improved a tiny bit here. As before, the new record captivates with a distinct spin on the genre that once again appears to take plenty of inspiration from contemporary, dark goth-infused post punk and oldschool death rock.
The world’s beerest eggpunks from Charleston, South Carolina have done yet another essential release for genre aficinados and i have absolutely nothing new to say about it other than, like its predecessors, this shit – though not exactly breaking any new ground here – is really freakin’ good and shouldn’t be missed by fans of stuff in the same lane as Prison Affair, Set-Top Box and Winky Frown, Raya, Möney and Goblin Daycare.
While their debut LP from 2023 had the character of a colorful grab bag of different styles and flavors, the sophomore album of this Cincinnati, Ohio group featuring members of, among others, The Drin, The Serfs, Vacation and Crime Of Passing, comes across as a good bit more homogenous with the common thread here being a comparatively sleazy, hard-rockin’ garage punk sound occasionally bordering on dungeon- and motörpunk territory with strong similarities to the likes of Cement Shoes, Golden Pelicans, Cheap Heat, Pïss Bäth as well as AUS/NZ groups like Hög, Polute, Split System or maybe Alien Nosejob’s sleaze rock record Stained Glass a while back, yet there is still plenty of nuance and variety crammed into in these tunes regardless. Currency has a strong feel of classic Saints, Radio Birdman and Scientists while Afraid of Guns melds propulsive power pop harmonies with psychedelic undercurrents and textures. Speaking of which, the band members’ connections to The Drin and The Serfs become quite obvious for a change in the spaced-out, kraut-ish Gears Never Dry. Quite Nice and to a lesser extent, What Have I Done radiate a hazy, cowpunk-ish heartland rock vibe, Nie Wrócimy has a bit of an MX-80-esque proto-/art punk bent to itself and i totally shouldn’t fail to point out the four bonus tracks of the digital edition, among which the record’s most catchy, power pop-ish tunes Error, Flowers and the Wire-esque Ffion deserve special mention.
The newest release on the consistently brilliant Total Punk sublabel Mind Meld is yet another stunning achievement from the outer fringes of the garage punk-related universe created by a Sydney group featuring members of Shrapnel, Gee Tee and Satanic Togas among their ranks, although of these, Shrapnel are the obvious comparison for these elegant and accomplished compositions of timeless, jangly-ass power pop and art rock with vague and fleeting echoes of The Soft Boys, The Bevis Frond and Television among many others, in addition to a diverse cluster more recent shit by the likes of Treehouse, Honey Radar, Good Flying Birds, Kitchen’s Floor, Chronophage or Violent Change.
Following a short fuck-around phase as evidenced by their first EP, New Jersey group Nylon really kicked into gear with their tracks on a split EP with Operants and another strong, subsequent 2-track single. On their newest one, they once again raise the bar for their own mix of egg-ish garage punk and angular post punk which never before came across this confident and effortless, calling to mind a bunch of similar agents of chaos such as early Skull Cult, Pressure Pin, Trashdog, Checkpoint, Titanium Exposé, Reality Group, Patti, Big Bopper and Belly Jelly.
