The second LP of this group from Antwerp, Belgium featuring at the very least one Member of Itches plus former members of Star Visitors and The Queefs, takes their kinda basic garage punk formula into a somewhat more eleborate and polished direction having a bit of a Vintage Crop, early Patti, Reality Group or Yammerer vibe to them, while also retaining much of the previous album’s qualities reminiscent both of euro acts like Dadar, Shitty Life and US acts of the previous decade á la Shark Toys, Ex-Cult and Tyvek. So, nothing too new or groundbreaking going on here but plenty of demented fun to be had anyway whith this collection of thoroughly competent and well-crafted garage tunes.
The successor to last year’s kickass second EP of this Cincinnati, Ohio group makes no attempt at fixing what ain’t broken and instead delivers four new blows of that very same awesomness incorporating elements of noise rock, post-, garage- and synth punk with various bits and pieces reminding me of the likes of Busted Head Racket, Brandy, R.Clown, ISS, Spyroids and Knowso, De()t, Toy Brigade or Nervous Tick and the Zipper Lips.
Five insanely pleasing new bursts of straightforward garage punk from yet another belgian group exquisitely executing a no-frills basic strategy that combines traits of a bunch of other european acts (think of the likes of Itches, Mitraille, Dadar and Shitty Life) with a hint of nested grooves á la early Uranium Club, Dumb and Reality Group on one hand, counterbalenced by some shit reminiscent of groups located on the rougher ends of the garage punk spectrum like Easers, Crisis Man, Cruelster or Curleys.
New Jersey garage freak Reckless Randy first came into my sight with 2022’s neat self-titled debut LP and has since then released another strong EP. On this new (mini-)LP he once again ups the game considerably for what is hands down his most fully realized record to date as is best exemplified by the couple of tracks already known from previous releases, being given a thorough makeover and adding lots of punch on this one. An invigorating caffeine boost of super catchy garage- and synth punk alternating somewhere inbetween the sonics of the classic The Spits school, Die TV (who previously also played the drums on Randy’s records, it appears), Sick Thoughts, Buck Bilixi and Kid Chrome.
Almost exactly six years after their debut LP, we finally get to hear some new shit from Houston’s The Hammer Party which, sadly, is also group’s swan song. Or rather, the band appears to have been disbanded years ago already and these are their final recordings which have been re-mixed and put up on bandcamp at long last, documenting the group at the height of their powers. On here, their songs have acquired more of an earthy and sinister quality imposing a new layer of muck even on the couple of tracks previously known from their first LP. There’s no lack of propulsion and compelling hooks either, as exemplified by the the 1-2-punch of Antidepressants and E.M.B.R.Y.O. in which lots of folk-y strumming lays the foundation for an impressive explosion of catchy melodies. As before i sense a similar melancholy quality to Atlanta groups Mothers Milk, Wymyns Prysyn and Uniform while in other moments, the likes of Sievehead and early Low Life don’t seem too far off either.
What’s there left to say about, like, the only german-language band that matters right now pretty much? The guilty conscience of german DIY punk has released yet another batch of excellent and excentric new tracks in their one-of-a-kind fusion of equally pissed and quirky post-, garage- and synth punk, unceremoniously dumped on Bandcamp as has always kinda been their modus operandi, but also slated for a vinyl release via Phantom Records pretty fucking soon™.
Since last year’s already perfectly enjoyable self-titled EP, this L.A. group or project has definitely consolidated and streamlined their operation into a decidedly more impactful, concentrated attack of electrified punk inbetween the parameters of garage-, hardcore- and eggpunk that feels to me like a weird frankenstein bastard fusing together the relentless forces of, say, Arse and 2 Stroke, the noisy fuzz-/garage punk of S.B.F. and whatever weirdness that Zhoop/Djinn/Brundle/RONi etc. guy is up to right now.
The second EP by Berlin duo Lohn Der Angst is pretty much a seamless continuation, if gradually refined, of what we’ve heard on their first cassette already which is a glorious celebration of repetitive synth punk that on one hand distills the core ingredients of Screamers, Units, Visitors, Nervous Gender, Minimal Man or the unavoidable DAF down to their bones, while also having a constant kraut-y motorik foundation to them over which the spirit of Conny Plank looms large, all of it consolidating into some weird sort of alternate-universe krautrock Suicide.
The New York group follows up on their brilliant 2023 demo with a no less exciting new digital single whose two songs are hardly enough to satisfy my thirst for more of their melancholia-soaked post punk blown-up into a wide open landscape of delicate and complex structural foundations under a rich surface layer saturated with colorful, shimmering texture and detail. Just as on their demo, the closest comparison i can come up with is NYC’s very own post punk sensation Straw Man Army but there’s more than that going on here, especially in the second track Onde Eu Estou? which is carving out its own path forward with a folky undertone kinda reminiscent of both oldschool Angst and more recent NZ group Trust Punks or their Berlin-based quasi-successor Dead Finks.
Having already tasted some of their new LP in the form of a perfect teaser EP a couple weeks ago, we finally get to hear the full debut LP by the dungeon punk wizards of Karlsruhe, Germany and oh boy, we’re in for a fucking treat that combines a couple of new recordings of tunes already heard on their 2023 demo with plenty of equally strong new material into a breathless thrill ride that’s further helped along by a perfectly fitting and outright filthy lo-to-mid-fi production that sounds as if the whole thing had been recorded in some fucking parking garage. There’s tons of sparkly psychedelia to the garage rock of the opening track Locket, a primitive proto punk punch and simplicity in Tear it Up while tracks such as As Loud As Me and My Dawn lighten things up with unexpected flashes of melodicism, the latter of the two having a distinct vibe of early The Men to itself. Contrast to that the hardcore-meets-motörpunk attacks of Give Me Beat and All This Heat, the oldschool Sabbath leftovers fused with the space rock abandon of late Destruction Unit in Supression, which is simultaneously being embedded into some vague post punk context á la Nag. The dungeon punk hymn Fomo Boy remains every bit a destructive force as we’ve already gleaned from the demo and the new track Inte Mer Hem following that one has much of the same momentum and qualities. Fuck me, this thing slaps.
