Excellent garage-leaning horror punk from yet another Minneapolis group. I gotta admit i wasn't too thrilled at first as directionless is probably the right word to describe the opening track Lobotomized of their first long-playing effort, but thankfully after that, they quickly find their footing with pretty much everything that follows being on a different level altogether as flourishes of eighties early goth- and death rock collide with elements of early west coast punk and hardcore, plus riffs and solos straight out of the '70s metal and motörpunk playbook in an inventive and tight-as-fuck explosion of highly addictive hooks.
This Minneapolis group sets off some fine little blasts of quite classic-sounding postcore that roughly follows the old blueprints set out by Drive Like Jehu and - even more so - Hot Snakes, subsequently carried over into later punk eras by more recent groups like Wymyns Prysyn and Bloody Gears, though in this particular case i think it especially warrants a mention of shit like Ascot Stabber or Flowers of Evil as the way rougher side of that same coin so to speak, which reigns supreme especially in the second half of this EP. Now that i'm thinking of it, i also hear a bit of Video and early Bad Breeding.
New fodder for dungeon dwellers and other medieval punk scum. Sword Breaker of Utrecht, Netherlands made a strong impression with their Demo in 2022 and their full-length debut now delivers more of that same kind of headsplitting fun which can easily be categorized as "Poison Ruïn and their ripple effects", although that doesn't mean that their tunes won't deliver some exquisite thrills in their own right, approaching the microgenre from a way rougher and simpler angle (despite an ever-so-slightly cleaner production aesthetic) which feels way more '70s hard rock- than '80s heavy metal-inspired while also leaning harder into classic Oi!- and garage territory with addidional traces of Wipers and subtle touches of british psychedelia.
Now this is some equally appealing and pleasantly out-there shit right here, coming from a group of unknown origin that might be a duo or just a single split-personality being, so yeah, everything is appropriately nebulous and undefined here. The first three tracks start out like something of an eggpunk version of that whole Feed/Zhoop/Brundle/etc. clusterfuck with further flourishes from the funked-up ends of '80s post punk and no wave while also channeling a distinct vibe of eggpunk's early proto-genre days. 1 + 6 + 2 + 9 + 8 Milligrams then takes an unexpected detour into quirky electro punk somewhat reminiscent of Freak Genes, whose earlier works are also reflected in Sallywagger for example, plus an additional touch of Skull Cult. To round things out, some of the more no-frills guitar-centric tunes such as Big Man have some distinctly old-fashioned Neo Neos- or very early Erik Nervous-like qualities seeping in.
Here's an absolutely neato little debut EP of some Cleveland, Ohio Group who thrill and delight with a kinda shapeshifting approach to garage punk, which on one hand has a bit of a '77-style flavor with the opening track appropriately being a pretty fucking rad Black Randy and the Metrosquad cover version and what follows is a quite diverse succession of first-rate punk projectiles with varying degrees of KBD- and Devo-fication that at different points may also bear some resemblance to a colorful bunch present-day acts of the Tyvek, Skull Cult, Jean Mignon, Parquet Curts, Sick Thoughts and D. Sablu variety.
The second EPs of danes Missvnaries Ov Charity is certainly a curious anomaly in this day and age - their post punk sound stuffed with heavily eighties-leaning drum machines plus period-appropriate production flourishes and an overall quite new wave-ish flavor reminds me of pretty much nothing contemporary and instead of a number of 80s Homestead Records and Touch and Go-affiliated acts such as Breaking Circus, Flour and Nice Strong Arm, all of which i consider more of the deep cut variety (though especially Nice Strong Arm should get a lot more respect if you ask me) which is to say: Yeah i think this is a beautiful deviation from your average post punk routine business. Love it.
I gotta admit, after very much enjoying their 2019 debut EP, i had some serious difficulty warming up in particular to the 2023 Big Mess LP by this Brighton group which complied a bit too rigidly for my taste to the hip, ultra-processed middle-of-the-road formula of current british post punk chic, complete with its just-a-bit-too-slick production style, overuse of polyrhythmic leads and appregios, annoying zoomer count-your-syllables sprechgesang - ya know, not the most original building blocks these days. Their newest longplayer is a whole different beast altogether though, having regained much the group's previous edge and at times an almost postcore and noise rock-ish energy being poured into tunes that sound organically developed and whole this time - rather than forced, artificially cobbled together, processed and quantized within an inch of their life in a pro tools post production hell. No, this here is clearly the sound of a capable band being somehow shocked out of their complacency, a breathing, pulsing organism propelled forward with considerable momentum by real righteous anger while the tunes themselves are the most soundly and carefully composed and balanced we've heard of them so far, the synths being another subject of further refinement, sounding more properly anchored and seamlessly embedded than ever before on this record, which overall reminds me of a number of pretty diverse groups á la Beef, Dr. Sure's Unusual Practice, Broken Prayer, Wristwatch and Patti, among many others.
Laxisme are a group from Leipzig, Germany yet there's a lot more than just their french lyrics to evoke comparisons to a certain breed of frenchie groups playing that particular mix of straightforward, super catchy garage- and post punk with just a subtle hint of Oi! mixed in, as we've previously heard similarly from such groups as Telecult, Distance, Stalled Minds, Nightwatchers, Litovsk and early Bleakness, though you may also in part compare them to stronger garage-leaning euro acts like belgian groups Mitraille, Pedigree and Itches, the Netherlands' Achterlicht or Dadar, Shitty Life from Italy. So yeah, nothing groundbreaking or novel about this record but the formula certainly still hits hard when executed well and the execution is top notch here - presented with excellent drive, energy and a bit of a '77 edge to it and a couple of certified rippers like Grands Cerveaux and 7 Secondes absolutely seal the deal here.
Newcastle, Australia based garage punk goofball Robbie Thunder's shit remains a thoroughly charming affair on his seventh LP in just over two years and holy cow, has this one reached a new level with its strikingly simple and minimalist, somewhat Ramones-ish fuzzed out punk smashers as the hits just keep coming here and where previous releases sometimes could feel a little samey, this one just strikes the perfect balance of familiarity, sufficient variety and brevity - with its barely 15 minutes long duration feeling like the perfect length for a crunchy little potato chip of a record like this.
Reactivated old-timey australian punk veterans The Vacant Lot have a new 7" out on Iron Lung Records and it's a special one in multiple ways - to begin with, these are a bunch of formerly lost classics written in '78-'79, now pulled from their stash of unrecorded gems and given a proper new recording for the first time. The current incarnation of the band has Ausmutents and Alien Nosejob front magician Jake Robertson handling the guitar, who also appears to share production duties with another indespensable central piller of the australien garage punk scene, Mikey Young and oh boy does it show, resulting in a record whose sound kinda encapsulates the best of both worlds, the quirky energy of a vibrant contemporary scene just as much as the playful catchyness of first-wave DIY punk.
