Don’t expect anything groundbreaking here ‘cos with Power Pants you always know exactly what you’re gonna get and even the freakin’ early Ramones arguably had more stylistic breadth than this group. Yet, their songs never miss the mark and this entirely unfussy formula of catchy garage punk remains insanely appealing to me and as long as we continually get delivered tunes as potent as May I Rest or You’re Invited, i’m gonna gratefully devour each new sugary health hazard Power Pants throw at me. Woof!
The third EP of this Brooklyn, NY group is hands down their most ripe effort to date and strikes a delicate balance between more blunt and straightforward garage-infused hardcore punk smashers and more eleborate postcore tunes which call to mind such weirdo acts as Mystic Inane, Launcher or Rolex, keeping us on on the edge of our seats with a constant sense of unpredictability.
This Montreal group featuring Members of Puffer and Béton Armé unveils a fully evolved and classy vision on their second Tape following up on their admirable, if still a bit rough-around-the-edges 2023 Demo. The opener Insoutenable comes dashing right out of the gate with a pronounced Radio Birdman and early New Christs kind of energy which is joined by more contemporary sounding elements of melodic post punk á la The Estranged and Dead Finks, having much of a folk-ish, roots-y quality to it. Another standout is Rien ne t’empêchera, which strikes me as a perfect fusion of a catchy oldschool Oi! singalong with jangly power pop.
Cologne’s longstanding art punk bastion Tics are at it again and on their latest 7″ via local label Mörtel Sounds they come across the most well-defined and focused we’ve heard of them in quite a while. All the moving parts are interlocking admirably here, with the opening track Clad Faun being the closest thing here to the heavily Minutemen and Gang Of Four-indebted funky post punk of their earlier works. Simultaneously though, it also sees them opening up their sound to a variety of influences i might roughly locate in the ’90s Dischord universe and particularly the more melodic outliers of Fire Party and Autoclave in this case, while the remainder of this EP leans more into the somewhat rougher, slightly math-y flipside of that same coin with the likes of Jawbox, Hoover, Smart Went Crazy, Bluetip and Kerosene 454 sure having made their mark on these songs in addition to further ’90s mainstays such as Polvo, Unwound and Chavez. Just as well though, i can also smell the distinct odor of more recent australian and NZ acts á la Die! Die! Die!, Batpiss and Bench Press in there, or of US groups like Stuck and Rip Room.
Video game themed punk is not exactly a predictor of great creativity and artistic merit but thankfully, this Fresno, California group’s second EP bucks the trend of toothless chiptune sounds and instead delivers some delicious treats of fuzzy lo-fi electro punk with plenty of bite which at different points you might find vaguely reminiscent of groups á la S.B.F., ISIS, Exit Mould, Penance Hall, Kerozine, Giorgio Murderer or that Zhoop/Djinn/etc.-dude’s more electronically leaning alter egos Nightman and Brundle.
A delightfully strange little beast, this Florida group’s second EP which kinda plays out like a mix-and-match version of early Siouxie, B-52’s and Delta Five being transformed into some kind of shambolic Urinals aesthetic while also having plenty of a contemporary eggpunk flourish to it, with another comparison coming to mind being the Lo-Fi art punk of NY group Exo.
This neat little tape by some Leicester, UK based weirdo excites with a rowdy aesthetic blown-out within an inch of its life that rapidly alternates between wonderfully shambolic hardcore parts and more garage-leaning fuzz punk sketches almost conjuring up some sort of oldschool Lumpy & The Dumpers-like quality. Music to my ears!
Less than a week into the new year, Erste Theke Tonträger has already put out 2025’s first blockbuster release… digitally, at least. The Ghoulies from Perth, Australia are among those groups where it feels like they’ve been around for much longer than they actually were, having conquered their own little space inside the garage-/synth-/eggpunk gamut – not at all by considerably shaking up its foundations but rather by perfecting existing playbooks to their maximum sophistication and impact, plus, they always have the bewitching tunes to make it all stick. At many points, their sound is vaguely reminiscent somewhat oldschool-ish artifacts predating the whole eggpunk umbrella term á la early Ausmuteants, Quitter, Drug Sweat, while perfectly fitting in with more recent shit like Cherry Cheeks, Satanic Togas, Research Reactor Corp., Gee Tee, Kitchen People or Tommy Cossack & The Degenerators all the same.
An incredible three-way split tape bringing together some groups you should definitely keep your eye on in the forseeable future. Chicago’s Answering Machines start things off with a remarkable bang in the form of catchy pop tunes that seem to combine many of the most striking qualities of the late-aughts to early 2010’s fuzz punk excesses by the likes of Wavves, No Age with the propulsive power pop by groups such as Bad Sports, Warm Soda, Sonic Avenues or Scupper, while the overall fuzzed-out aesthetics and production values call to mind stuff on the rougher end of that same spectrum á la Violent Change, The Wind-Ups, Famous Mammals, Honey Bucket, Germ House, Far Corners and maybe also early Chronophage. Good Flying Birds from Indianapolis, who’ve also released an absolutely stunning debut tape just a day prior to this, then present three smashers occupying some of the whitespace inbetween the worlds of eighties jangle pop, C86-related pop goodness and plenty of late-eighties Sarah Records indie pop vibes. Pulling Hair is a tune for the ages i’d say. Rounding out things is St Louis art rock outfit Soup Activists whom i’ve admittedly had kind of a difficult time warming up to at first and still think are best enjoyed in small doses. Well, what we get here is certainly a suitably small dose of their craft and i have to concede there probably couldn’t have been a more perfect, relaxed and low-key conclusion to this amazing little cassette.
Krystian Quint may be best known in association with Detroit garage punks The Stools. On his full-band debut under the Quitters moniker however, his tunes take a way more catchy and melancholy direction, largely alternating between two distinct modes of operation, one of ’em radiating the vibes of melodic garage punk acts like Sonic Avenues, Cheap Whine, Marked Men, Bad Sports, Sweet Reaper or, most recently, Eye Ball and The Dumpies. The other one is more reminiscent of moderately emo-ish nineties indie rock á la early Superchunk, Archers of Loaf, Sebadoh, Lync and Seam as far as the old guard is concerned, or of more recent stuff like Tape/Off, Treehouse and Pardoner.
