The artwork appears to not very subtly hint at a dungeon-related thing and this almost sounds plausible with the riff-heavy opening track, though after that, the spanish group's newest EP settles into that familiar sound of dreamy, egg-ish noise pop and synthpunk we all know and love them for, albeit with a few unexpected nuances like the aformentioned opening, occasional emo-ish sprinkles, some hints at straightforward, classic indie rock and moments channeling some C86-by-way-of-early shoegaze kind of aesthetic in El Valle De La Muerte and the closing track Sesos En Bandeja.
Okay, so here we have yet another Berlin based post punk group, though i'm just gonna say these folks sound at best 50% berlin-like and the other fifty lean towards a charmingly antiquated sounding style i'm associating most with the early 2010s Stuttgart scene and the early Karies records in particular, as well as their Ruhr valley contemporaries Nuage and - somewhat more recently, just maybe - Chemnitz's own L'appel Du Vide.
These New Yorkers' new longplaying cassette is quite a stunner, showing incredible growth from its already thorougly enjoyable predecessor, 2022's Fancy! EP. While that one still had a kinda cute power pop and new wave-ish quality to itself, this one manages to come across as simultaneously more abstract and more mature. Less Television Personalities and more eighties The Fall in its minimalism and repetition, yet at all times feeling very deliberately put together, this further channels the aesthetic traits of old british DIY á la Desperate Bicycles, Membranes, Swell Maps or early Mekons, while a thick load-bearing layer of melancholy interconnects some of the album's most memorable tunes and reminds me quite a bit of a certain strain of aussie groups like Wireheads, Kitchen's Floor and the more downbeat moments of Eddy Current Suppression Ring. Another decent reference point would be yet another not-so-famous famous group - Philadelphia's Famous Mammals - along with a number of other US-based shambolic post- and art punk acts like Society, Germ House, Spiral Rash and Toe Ring.
On their debut cassette carrying the quality seal of the ever-reliable Detroit label Painters Tapes, what this Ohio group pulls off here is nothing short of some top-notch weapons-grade guitar-less synth punk excellence that kinda bridges the gap between oldschool '70s-'80s acts like Nervous Gender, Units, Visitors and Screamers on one hand and some more recent, varyingly egg-ish groups running the gamut from the unpredictable, hyperactive approach of, say, Checkpoint, Titanium Exposé, Pressure Pin to the more minimalist attacks of Beef, Busted Head Racket and some shit right inbetween those worlds like Quitter, Slimex, Isotope Soap, earlier Freak Genes or Billiam's synth punk project NTSC>PAL.
I didn't ever think i'd need another instrumental surf rock record in my life, a genre that seemingly never expanded its stylistic vocabulary too much since its '50s/60s gold rush or, even worse, often feels kinda like a dumbed-down, ultra-codified and risk-averse retread of its initial phase. This group from La Cisterna, Chile, however, pulls off that miracle of getting me invested in another surf-ish LP with a sound that makes me feel like goin' surfin' in... well, fuckin' hell i'd say, tackling the genre from an angle of noisy, goth-infused post punk and death rock that infuses tons of energy and much needed fresh air into its ancient ways and in contrast to so much instrumental rock'n'roll (surf or otherwise) feeling in desperate need of a vocal line to bind together the moving parts, the arrangements on this record are perfectly capable to stand on their own - the dramaturgically dense compositions and guitar leads, brimming with energy, are masterfully telling their own stories, no words needed here.
An insanely fun debut EP by this St. Louis, Missouri group that sounds like... no one group in particular really, which in our heavily genre-codified times may be among the best compliments you can make. Rather, this is some freewheeling choose-your-own-adventure-style shit mixing-and-matching an abundance of synth-enhanced garage punk influences with varying degrees of egg-ishness into a super catchy, coherent whole that at different points may call to mind the likes of Skull Cult, Print Head, Warm Bodies, Rearranged Face, Snooper or Wax Minds.
Can't ever go wrong with a Sorry State / Drunken Sailor co-release. Cleveland's The Hell create some insanely rippin' hardcore that at first glance sounds like a fairly generically oldschool brand, combining the siginifiers of both the early '80s east- and westcoast scenes. But at closer inspection, these tunes go way above and beyond your standard retro hardcore fare, being densely packed with catchy hooks and unexpected twists and turns culminating in the five minute closing track Dirt Nap which at first appears to abandon the propulsive energy for more of a sludge-y, Flipper-esque proto-noise rock crawl, but when it abruptly kicks into gear around the 2-mintue mak mark, the payoff is freakin' epic.
This group from Bordeaux, France at first glance appears pretty much in line with that omnipresent background hiss of french groups playing rather basic, mildly Oi!- and Post Punk-infused catchy punk hymns but damn, do these folks just hit the bullseye with their debut EP, getting pretty much the optimum bang out of a subgenre as restricted und ubiquitous as this. Friends of such groups as Telecult, Litovsk, Bleakness or Nightwatchers absolutely shouldn't miss this one!
Speaking of Pyrex... This record is pretty close to what i'd originally have expected their new album to sound like - moderately angular post punk pretty much in line with the genre's last two decades' traditions and groups like early Marbled Eye, Rank Xerox, Institute, Bruised, Negative Gears, Tube Alloys, Public Interest, Corker, Sarcasm or, most recently, NRG - so yeah, this sure ain't breaking any new ground here yet this LP is perfectly succeeding as a rock-solid genre entry in its own right with super-robust, soundly constructed song foundations and a decent amount of variety - most notably the electronically inclined middle section and the comparatively raw and high-energy final stretch hammering home what you might describe as one of the most effortlessly functional albums of recent times.
In a musical niche where your typical expectation of a post punk group is to get ever more sophisticated with every new release, NYC group Pyrex mark a notable exception by taking the complete opposite route for their second LP, going all-in on the rawest, most primitive sounding tunes they've done so far - decent production values notwithstanding - and the best comparison i can think of right now would be the filthy noise attacks of early Nag. This LP's winning formula is based on sheer overwhelming force and desperate energy, sustaining itself on a bare minimum of musical substance and what can i say, this shit just works!
