Following a not so terribly original debut LP in '22 and two increasingly more promising, if still kinda spotty EPs in '23-'24, everything seems to naturally fall into place on this Nashville, Tennessee group's latest LP on which their vision finally locks into razor sharp focus and the stars align just right for its propulsive mid-fi production magic to do its work with everything seeming just a little bit off by the exact right amount for a pronounced KBD-esque feel. Though their sound is still easy to describe as fairly oldschool garage punk with some '77 and proto punk influences, they actually cover quite a bit of stylistic ground here. The slightly psychedelic undercurrents of the opening track Somebody Help Me give off some strong vibe of Useless Eaters, Pow! and Spits while in the case of Full Time Asshole, i'm gonna add a good deal of Sick Thoughts to the pack as a comparison. Jail Again, already known as the definite highlight of their '23 EP, has some post punk-ish quality to itself with more than a small hint of Cruelster i'd say. Fight On The Internet has some serious Detroit & NY proto punk energy going on and Spy is probably the most contemporary sounding tune on here with its synth-supported catchy hooks and a sonic cross-section between, say, Mononegatives and recent Strange Attractor. The latter may hold even more true as a comparison for the basic but perfect 60s-ish garage tune that is Grieving. I could continue endlessly but you get the gist: This is a devilishly fun garage punk record of surprising variety that stays perfectly true to its own vision all the same, relatively oldschool, yet you'd be hard-pressed to find a single dull or stale moment on it.
This Budapest, Hungary goup really took me by surprise with their unkempt 2022 diamond-in-the-rough debut EP. Here we get to hear the successor which manages to ever-so-subtly refine their sound without losing any of their charming, quirky edge in their strummy approach to melodic DIY punk and indie rock - a mixture that balances out a knack for catchy hooks with a sense of deliberately unresolved drama in their compositions, the latter of which reminds me most of groups like Treehouse, Kitchen's Floor and City Yelps with somewhat weaker similarities to the likes of early Tape/Off, Monda, Pardoner and The Molds.
Y'all haven't been worshiping the mighty frown of wink quite hard enough! On their EP number iii, the Ottawa, Ontario group once again goes way above and beyond the efforts you'd expect to be put in your average eggpunk record. Is it their best yet? Their worst? I don't know and i don't care 'cos everything tha group has delivered so far is just really, really fucking good. Another insanely creative Winky Frown record. Highly recommended for fans of: Winky Frown. And everyone else reading this dumb shit, too.
The excellent 2-song demo by this Philadelphia group has me hooked already with Head Full Of Glue being a deliciously spiky and abrasive lump of noisy dungeon-esque, blackened hardcore punk with vague similarities to groups like Piss Wizard, Dick Hick and Jeg Hüsker, wrapped in a thick layer of white noise. The second track Stone Fruit is even better - a clearer sound lets even more weirdness bubble up to the surface in a post punk-ish tune seamlessly fusing the aesthetics of egg- and dungeon punk, which among other thinks i'm pretty sure will thrill fans of that recent Molbo comp on ETT.
This Madrid group's third short-form artifact is their strongest one yet i'd say, delivering two explosive new charges of what you could describe as textbook eggpunk in the vein of Beta Máximo, Beer, Pringue, Prison Affair, Möney, Goblin Daycare and Hugayz, that has the aesthetics down perfectly while bringing enough substance of its own to the table to stand on its own two feet. Niebla is the true standout track here though, which dares to go just a little harder to places a little darker than we're used to in this genre, in what amounts to a perfect miniature post punk assault.
A new Split System release is always a major event here in the 12XU sphere even if it's "just" another 7". Speaking of which, while their LPs always strike me as their more substantial works making room for more intricate compositions and a greater sense of melancholy, their short-form artifacts are overflowing wells of delight in their own right, usually presenting a more straightforward version of their craft that just wants to rock out and no doubt works best on that particular format. And they keep it that way here as well, the a-side On The Edge being a forceful streamroller of a track built around a single rock'n'roll riff as old-fashioned as it's ever gonna get, all of which would be kinda easy to shrug off if it weren't for that absolutely unforgiving, vigorous and tight-as-fuck performance plus the always brilliant, heartfelt barking of vocalist Jackson Reid Briggs, coming across as equally defiant and vulnerable and adding an even greater sense of urgency to the tune. An equally simplistic and compelling counterpart is the flipside On The Lose, a faster, more uplifting track that perfectly balances out this neat little package.
Bristol's Möney took their time to find their bearings as a band but after their 2023 demo showing lots of promise and last year's tape with SPRGRS serving as evidence of further progress, everything perfectly clicks into place on their newest EP thanks to the most carefully fleshed-out set of tunes so far, their both psychedelic- and post-punk-leaning take on contemporary eggpunk really shining here with a forceful performance and comparatively slick production values, at long last propelling them into the genre's big league in a sonic sub-niche that sounds like very much their own little thing. That said, i'm pretty sure admirers of grops like Molbo, Prison Affair, Winky Frown, Electric Prawns 2 and Beta Máximo will get a lot of joy out of this record as well.
The sound of this Ciudad López Mateos, Mexico group remains kind of a singular, curious mixture on their third demo even in the colorful anything-goes context of the current eggpunk scene, feeling a bit like a flashback to the more melodic ends of the mid-to-late eighties punk rock spectrum - early pop punk artifacts that hadn't lost their abrasive edge yet, being given a thorough and fuzzed-out lo-fi makeover here and enriched with a perfectly measured dose of quirky, charming synth action altogether making for an irresistable bundle of pure sugary bliss.
This Sydney group has an embarrassment of riches in store for us that's being poured into a sonic guise of timeless elegance here - heavy duty power pop songwriting chops take on the shapes of Byrds-inspired, relaxed garage rock, british invasion- and first wave british psychedelia-fueled jangle pop anthems which often come across like a less sarcastic variant of The Soft Boys, a more retro-minded Guided By Voices or the more powerpop-ish corners of the Bevis Frond galaxy, though you may just as well compare them to more recent, mostly US-based groups like The Resonars, White Fence, Honey Radar, Good Flying Birds, Chronophage, Violent Change, Scupper, Germ House or Mo Troper, while in more indie rock-leaning tunes like Winston you can sense just a little hint of fellow australians Treehouse.
The first half of this Austin, Texas group's newest LP succeeds mostly by way of sheer force and momentum in what admittedly ain't the most subtle or sophisticated thing you've ever heard, a kinda classic riff- and shred-heavy brute force approach to garage punk we've previously heard from acts like Jean Mignon, Sauna Youth, Hamer, D. Sablu, Clamm or Sweet Reaper. It's in the second half that this record really comes into its own though. Just right on time when the magic of rocket-fueled riffing starts to run into the realm of diminishing returns, they shake things up a quite bit and pull some of the album's biggest standouts out of their hats like the the hymnic, catchy melancholia of Slacker's Prom, the off-the-shelf-psychedelia-colliding-with-cowpunk explosion Beautiful Delilah, while the midtempo ballad What The Freaks Say offers something of a Vaguess vibe and the closing track Sympathy For Sunday shamelessly revels in drugged-out devil-worshipping acid rock excess.
