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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
