Always great fun, a new EP courtesy of Ukraine’s best address for quirky and catchy eggpunk goodness that evokes the aesthetic pillars of Prison Affair, Beer, Set-Top Box, Autobahns, Goblin Daycare, Midgee… yeah, this particular sub-branch of the genre is shaping up to become a remarkably international affair and it’s such a joy to watch it all play out over time.
Now if you thought the 2022 EP of this Montreal group was kinda weird and bananas, Pressure Pin be like: “Hold my beer” ‘cos you’ve seen nothing yet! For their second EP, they considerably raise the bar both in terms of sophistication and of unpredictable chaos and mayhem in their totally nuts compositions whose rough characteristics hover somewhere around the spheres of garage-, synth-, art- and eggpunk with a pronounced element of devocore, all the while being hellbent on nuking the confines of those genres respectively. This kind of eclectic anything-goes approach reminds me most of recent works by Trashdog and Checkpoint, though if you take it one stylistic ingredient at a time, you might also find bits and pieces of the ’90s-midi-style pop excursions of Metdog, the Devo-isms of recent Isotope Soap, the sparkling joy of Snooper and the quirky, catchy garage-/art punk explosions of Smirk and Cherry Cheeks. These dudes put more ideas and inspiration in a single tune than your average garage act does in a whole album.
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Another awesome EP by that that completely off-the-rails Los Angeles hair punk / egg metal act cementing their status as the severely brain damaged evil cousins of electro punk greats ISS and Heavy Metal, combining an absurd stylistic premise with lyrical contents of only the most deranged quiet-part-out-loud / “Did he really just say that?” variety into a thoroughly ridiculous and fun bit of delightful chaos.
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The restless Berlin post punk scene delivers yet another high-class artifact – brought to us by Cincinnati, Ohio specialists Future Shock Recordings – on which they masterfully balance a good deal of dark abysses and atmospheric expanse against an endless succession of concentrated, precise impacts. On one hand, this stuff unmistakably carries the signature of the Berlin scene and groups like Pigeon, Glaas, Clock Of Time, Pretty Hurts, Kalte Hand and Liiek. Yet, i also sense a close kinship to such anarcho-influenced US groups like Kaleidoscope, Straw Man Army and Fantasma, the recent LP of british punks Subdued, Sydney’s Negative Gears… and a bit of Criminal Code maybe? Anyway, this is some first rate shit right here!
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More brainfuck and brain fog than brainwash, this kinda baffling new EP by italian gentleman Leonardo Carlacchiani aka Purp, an immersive flood of Lo-Fi DIY noise and psychedelia hellbent of clouding and overwhelming, rather than breaking, your headspace. The opener Mind Space comes across like the anthemic folk-y power pop of Vaguess being transplanted into the blown-out fuzz pop context of fellow italians Mustard/Metal Guru or of Dadgad’s most recent EP, then morphing towards a more relaxed midtempo indie rocker reminiscent of Treehouse or early Tape/Off in Labyrinthorama. Reminder Demons With Gufo Mangia Sale is pure psyched-out space blues abandon. Astral Angel sounds a bit like early Pixies slowed down to a depressing crawl with a distinct taste of ’90s Chokebore. Ladybug’s Ballata With Bobby Chombo pulls a kind of No-Fi My Bloody Valentine and Dinosaur Jr. pastiche through a psychedelic Flying Saucer Attack meatgrinder, followed by I-Ching sorta bridging the gap between early Japandroids and late 2000s / early 2010s noise-/fuzz pop shredders á la No Age, Wavves and Male Bonding.
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Another Achterlicht EP, another high-octane blast from these dutchmen who have no doubt delivered their best set of tunes so far on this new cassette. The group has never sounded this tight on record before and the songs themselves also show a huge leap forward, delivering a non-stop barrage of dangeruous hooks and catchy tunes roughly in the vein of such garage-/synth-/eggpunk heavyweights as Dadar, Satanic Togas, Research Reactor Corp. and Gee Tee.
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Wow, now that’s is one marvellous debut EP by this Philadelphia group dealing in a kind of earthy, dissonant and eccentric, yet equally graceful blend of art- and post punk. The monotonous no wave-ish strumming of the opening track The Shield calls to mind the minimalism of Shop Regulars or Honey Bucket while Green Man has more of an early eighties The Fall vibe with further commonalities to, say, fellow philadelphians Toe Ring and B.E.E.F. 39X. The vicious grooves of Gangstalker, holding a delicate balance of dissonance and catchyness, are then approximately channeling some more spiky version of Lithics coupled with some dissonant Glenn Branca- and eighties Sonic Youth guitar work, a bit like we’ve more recently heard from Self Improvement, for example.
This Leipzig group could quite easily end up filed away right next to other german-language post punk acts like Hyäne, early L’apell Du Vide, Kalte Hand and Die Wärme… you know, the genre’s – mostly berlin-based – usual suspects and as natural as this comparison feels at first glance, there’s quite a bit more more going on here than just another competent rehash of the tried-and-tested formula and i see just as much similarity to a bunch of international acts – Criminal Code first and foremost but also comparisons to the likes of Negative Gears, Sievehead, recent Longings and Pyrex don’t seem all that far-fetched to me.
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With each new Alien Nosejob release, you never quite know what you’re gonna get. An oldschool hardcore attack? Sad-sack power pop? A straight-up Ausmuteants throwback? Relentlessly hammering industrial punk? Heavily eurotrash/italo disco-informed synth pop? A full LP of AC/DC cock rock worship? I’m just gonna say all of this, and more, has happened before with Jake Robertson’s constantly shape-shifting project. Yet, there’s always an unmistakable signature to anything the garage punk auteur does and if there is such a thing as a “classic” Alien Nosejob sound, this new record is about as close as it’s gonna get while still giving us plenty of stylistic variety molded into a super catchy set of new tunes never being let down by Robertson’s unimpeachable songwriting chops.
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Finally, here’s the debut album of Cleveland, Ohio art punks The Carp, a group comprised of folks also connected to acts like Perverts Again, Knowso and Cruelster. With most of these songs already having made an appearance on their 2022 demo, here they’re given some final polish here with the increased production values adding plenty of punch, while their sound overall kinda bridges the gap between the sonic traits of Knowso and Cruelster, combining the elaborate yet rigid structures of the former with the straght-ahead fun and energy of the latter, with even a bit of a cowpunk vibe á la Murderer in The Old Ways.
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