New shit by Midgee? Awesome, i'll have two. Wait what, it also has new tunes by Electric Prawns 2? Just shut up and take my money! Melbourne's Midgee once again prove to be a safe bet for fans of quirky synth-/garage-/eggpunk goodness in the vein of Prison Affair, Nuts, Set-Top Box or Beer. Quite a bit more ambitious and varied then are the four tunes by Moffat Beach garage sensation Electric Prawns 2, although on this one they mostly act on the sunnier side of their musical spectrum in a set of compact and catchy-as-hell smashers that exhibit many of the virtues of recent Billiam or Alien Nosejob.
The fourth EP of Melbourne's Piss Wizard combines their least crappy production values so far with their strongest set of tunes to date in their trademark rough-as-fuck mixture of garage-flavored fuzz- and hardcore punk imbued with plenty of surf twang, rockabilly leads and noise-infested texture. That shit feels sickly, smelly, perverted and contagious in the best possible way!
The Debut EP of this Brisbane group delights with four energetic blasts of no-frills garage punk/-core, a hint of death rock in the opening- and closing tracks, some distinct proto punk feel and constant flourishes of sleazy '70s and '80s cock rock - a somewhat unreal sounding mix that reminds me a lot of groups like Cement Shoes, Golden Pelicans, Tarantüla, Flea Collar, Polute and the early days of Electric Chair.
Quality shit from a Salt Lake City, Utah group on their second tape. Fuzzed-out Lo-Fi hardcore punk whose rough parameters feel kinda predestined for a cassette release on Impotent Fetus or Deluxe Bias, having as much of an oldschool west coast tendency to it as a rough and shambolic KBD vibe, a bit of a Flipper and Broken Talent-style eccentricity and further similarities to more recent groups ranging from the more garage-leaning Launcher, Liquid Assets and Freakees to hardcore artifacts by the likes of Insane Urge, Youth Regiment, Motor Corp und Tupperware.
Astoria, Oregon group The Dumpies have been around for a bit already and have been a thoroughly lovable force ever since, yet their recent split EP with Night Court (of which most songs are also included here) signaled a huge leap forward in terms of energy, stylistic diversity and songwriting potency - a promise they certainly make good on with this incredible new LP, cycling through endless iterations of power pop-infused (garage-)punk, melancholy indie rockers and also numerous attacks of straight-up hardcore punk in a single impressive burst of uncontainable creativity, crude humor and eccentricity. There's not a trace of filler to be found on this record. Every song hits home without fail.
While the previous LP of this Cincinnati, Ohio group - sharing a bunch of members with The Drin of all things - was already an outstanding, albeit not terribly original post punk record, their newest one sees them ascend to a whole new level as their songs and arrangements come accross a lot more focused, eleborate and deliberately built than before, the somewhat overwhelming barrage of the predecessor giving way to a newfound clarity, concise structures and a whole new sense of melody and melancholy most noticeable in tunes like Distant Dawn, Dependency and Nothing in None. Overall, this record is somewhat akin to the most recent Marbled Eye LP, which similarly saw an already pretty fucking awesome group transcend the confines of their genre surroundings. Given all that, it feels a bit cheap and reductive to come up with comparisons but for the sake of orientation i'm just gonna say this is mandatory listening for fans of groups like the aforementioned Marbled Eye, Waste Man, Negative Gears, Rank/Xerox, Tube Alloys, Nag, VR Sex and Public Eye.
This exquisitely butt-whooping debut album by Austin, Texas dude Bryan Alchamaa aka Outside View has a whole 15-song all-killer-no-filler package of catchy, partly synth-enhanced and just slightly '77-leaning garage tunes in store for us of which some kinda resemble the straightforward simplicity of Buck Biloxi, The Spits, Bart and the Brats, while others channel the sparkling hymns by the likes of Why Bother?, Deletions, Digital Leather and Lost Sounds.
Now that's some fucking brilliant shit! On their debut EP, this swedish group creates the sort of monotonous oldschool post punk that doesn't invent anything new but instead excells all the way in anything they do, with every song on this thing perfectly hitting the spot in a manner equally straightforward and elegant, expertly propelled forward, taking cues from Wire, MX-80 and Crass when it comes to old genre royalty and groups like Nag, Institute from more recent times... also, a hint of The Estranged in the closing track. Simple as that and so, so good!
After the overflowing bucket of catchy power pop fun that was the debut LP of this australian dude who's also playing in such high caliber acts as R.M.F.C. and Gee Tee, his newest album delivers more of the same basic goodness while improving on it in all aspects across the board and where previously his tunes may have come across as a bit too uniform, samey and clincal at times, on this one his impeccable songwriting chops shine all the brighter helped along by a perfectly fitting production (also: actual drums, finally!) striking just the right balance between gunk and polish to make his simple garage-/fuzz pop tunes sparkle with joy and energy.
The six tracks of this Leeds, UK group's debut LP take themselves plenty of time to allow for their cold and analytic post punk grooves and textures to sink in and do their work with steady, sprawling, kraut-ish repetition, poured into an overall sonic form that sorta reminds me of postcore- and noise rock leaning acts like John (timestwo), Metz, Cool Jerks and early Greys as much as post punk groups of the Criminal Code and The Cowboy kind, but most of all i'm sensing a lot of kinship with the recent Machiavellian Art LP with these songs kinda playing out like a sped-up, streamlined version of that shit.
