I had a bit of a hard time warming up to more recent entries in that increasinly scrappy and loose sounding line of tapes of this Portland group fronted by Matt Radosevich of Honey Bucket fame. Now on their first acutal LP though, they mean business it appears and indeed they come across as focused as they haven't sounded for quite some time. Less is more seems to be the maxim here with what basically amounts to five prolonged, equally monotonous and playful one-chord wonders (well, almost), in which texture and rhythm do most of the heavy lifting instead. Really, this is the kind of minimalism that makes early The Fall sound like progressive rock in comparison. Paradoxically, for a record making so few concession to preconceived notions of what a "song" goes like, the whole thing is radiating infectiously upbeat vibes throughout in what is probably gonna be the most joyous piece of abstract art punk you'll hear this summer.
A fucking dream team of the current eggpunk wave joins forces on this new split EP in the form of two very unique and distinct groups, which have both already left quite a mark on the scene in just a couple years. Heck, you actually and reasonably might consider both groups' sounds as having kickstarted their own little egg-subgenres. Altogether, this is a killer collection of hits, as you already might have suspected!
Here's yet another quality artifact of a smartypants garage-/post punk hybrid that does nothing too new or groundbreaking yet delights with plenty of well-constructed odditiy, just the right amount of randomness coupled with an abundance of super-catchy hooks. All of that puts them roughly in the neighborhood of, say, a slowed-down Uranium Club, Vintage Crop, Dumb, Aborted Tortoise, Lithics or Pinch Points.
Now that's an impressive debut LP by this London group, who've apparently been around for many years already but took until now to come up with a full length record. Right out of the gate, the opening tracks has some vibe á la early Saccharine Trust with a touch of Flipper. Outsude Looking In kinds plays out like a forgotten Wire track colliding with the likes of Volcano Suns, Mission af Burma in addition to more recent stuff by Institute, Peace de Résistance. Animals Eat For Free then starts out loosely resembling eighties The Fall before taking a quite melodic turn in the chorus. And so it goes on, this eclectic and testeful war chest of ideas and influences, among which you might also consider X (AUS), Membranes, Cravats, Fungus Brains, early, pre-dub-influence Swell Maps and many more old DIY (post-)punk greats, just as much as contemporary groups like Shark Toys, The Cowboy, Society, earlier Sleepies, weirdo frenchies Subtle Turnhips, other London groups like 2010s garage powerhouse Sauna Youth - of whom i'm reminded mostly in the more straightforward second half of this record - or maybe Tense Men, whose swan-song album, released post-breakup in 2018, bears some striking similarities to this thing. There's absolutely no room for boredom inbetween these endless flashes of unhinged inspiration and creativity.
Now goth-infused minimalist synthwave is by no means among the genres i'm naturally inclined to get excited about, mostly due to its usually pretty formulaic and uninspired nature, but the newest LP by this Zagreb, Croatia dude, who already made a glorious impression opening for Nag in 2022, makes for a thoroughly pleasant exception to the rule. Admittedly, there's nothing exactly new and unheard to these Songs either, but in spite of their kinda simple, tried and tested essence, they are undeniably well-balanced and always hit the spot, bursting with catchy hooks and melodies, plenty of energy and an eerily familiar yet incredibly effective sense of melancholia. Maybe that's just my own bias, but rather than your average synth wave act i'm reminded way more of punk/garage-related acts like Digital Leather (yeah, that's the very obvious one), O-D-EX and, most of all, the totally one-of-a-kind 2017 Sex Tourists LP.
Incredible full length debut by this St. Petersburg, Florida group that kinda plays out like a comprehensive roundup of pretty much anything that refused to fit into any of the neat categories of eighties to early nineties hard- and postcore. So much great shit echoed here, from the more left-field segment of the early '80s scene... think like, Minutemen, Saccharine Trust, Crucifucks, Really Red, Dicks and Flipper, also spanning the classic eras of both '80s (Gray Matter, Embrace, Rites Of Spring, One Last Wish) and '90s Dischord-related sounds (Crownhate Ruin, most of all...), also taking some cues from the Touch & Go camp (say, Rapeman, Scratch Acid, early Shellac) and last but not least, freely plundering the legacy of Drive Like Jehu. And that's just barely scratching the surface here. In the current landscape, i'd say groups like Deodorant, Optic Nerve, Big Bopper and Straw Man Army are of a similar spirit. All the while, Work Stress are considerably dialing up the unpredictability and apparent randomness even compared with most of the mentioned acts (though actually i think they're acting quite deliberately here), a trait that pays off spectacularly in songs like Building From Abject Failure, in which dissonant, slow-crawl staccatto rhythms alternate with unexpectedly catchy punk hooks.
So... it appears Neutrals have a new drummer bass player. Otherwise, thankfully not a whole lot has changed for this uncannily british sounding group from Oakland, California. It's their most melodic and mellow effort to date, leaning in heavy on the jangle-/power pop side of things with the post punk elements, while still clearly present, taking a back seat here and what can i say... these folks still have the tunes to make it stick, remaining an endlessly charming, singular treasure among the humble circle of Television Personalities- and Mekons worshippers, and this time, i'd even say threr's just a hint of The Wedding Present to be found in songs like Stop The Bypass.
The excellent debut by this group from Jackson, Mississippi delivers a couple fun and deranged little bangers made up of rocket-propelled, garage-enhanced, fuzz-infested hard- and postcore shit that's shure to get the approval of seasoned connoisseurs in the realm of other more-or-less recent quirky hardcore phenomena á la Fried E/m, Mystic Inane, Crisis Man, Rolex, Headcheese, ALF and so many more!
The second tape of this supposedly Tokyo-based group delivers the goods of simple and effective, garage-flavoured synth- and post punk that makes me first of all think of frenchmen and -women Catalogue and Belgium's Le Prince Harry, but might just as well be compared to the likes of Spyroids, O-D-EX, Mind Spiders, Powerplant, Crime Wave and Liquid Face... a less quirky Freak Genes maybe? Dunno, what's important is this shit just works!
The demo of this group from Jakarta, Indonesia delights with two kickass blasts of melodic DIY noise pop, pretty much in line with groups á la UV-TV, Feature, Joanna Gruesome, Slowcoaches and Star Party, who in turn might have drawn inspiration from the likes of Fastbacks, the early works of eighties fuzz pop greats The Primitives, as well as a bunch of C86-ish artifacts and the whole Slumberland and Sarah Records-spawned universe of oldschool noise- and indie pop.
