Oh look, London garage-/synth punk solo crusader Tommy Cossack has expanded operations into a full band line-up and the result sounds absolutely brilliant and so much bigger, shedding some of its Lo-Fi eggpunk quirks in favor of a more potent, dense and focused attack while never lacking in terms of thrilling hooks, of which these songs are stuffed to the brim with, making for a compact and incredibly entertaining half hour of breathless energy and exitement that may rightfully be compared to the likes of Set-Top Box, Powerplant, Ausmuteants and Satanic Togas.
I was actually expecting that, at this point, i'd be through with these veterans of the current UK post punk scene as i thought their kinda sterile, synthetic (hah!) and overproduced sounding 2022 album and other bits and pieces released since then carried all the hallmarks of a group imminently to be swallowed whole by their own ambitions, like so many other UK groups who've at some point started biting off way more than they could chew. As it turns out though, Girls In Synthesis have plenty of chewing power to spare and their newest LP is a fucking excellent piece of dark, atmospheric, smart and epic post punk equilibrium. From the very first note of the Wire-esque album opener Lights Out to the monotone closing track A Damning Lesson, these songs are boiling down this group's unique qualities to their very essence like never before while coming up with a good deal of variety and neat ideas along the way to keep things engaging and thrilling all the way through.
Eggpunk's eggiest idiot group's long-playing debut consists mostly of re-recordings of songs already known from his previous two EPs, with the added benefit of somewhat improved production values and thus lots of added oomph to their sound, making this the definitive collection of Egg Idiot tunes so far and certainly the most infectious dose of brain damaged fun you're gonna experience in the next thirty minutes or so... Awesome shit!
Yet another thoroughly compelling load of new egg-ish garage- and synth punk goodness comes to us by way of this crunchy split cassette featuring two Providence, Rhode Island groups. Jimsobbins are a duo comprised of Adam and Lucy. Is that the same Adam who's also in Balloon Thief? Plausible but unconfirmed. With the addition of vocalist Ella, they then transform into the trio Cindy7. Jimsobbins are the more typically eggpunk-sounding of the two groups, calling to mind stuff like Daughter Bat and the Lip Stings, Gee Gee, Billiam and Toe Ring... plus a slight shambolic touch of Neo Neos in Leopard. The latter tendency then persists throughout Cindy7's side, exhibiting even more of that scrappy DIY charm, with their opening track Gonna Break! even evoking a bit of an oldschool no wave vibe while the final two tracks charge things up with an increasing amount of chaotic hardcore energy.
A kickass debut EP by this Brooklyn, NY group. The opener No Recourse evokes a distinct mid-'80s to early '90s Dischord vibe á la Rites Of Spring, Nation Of Ulysses, Gray Matter... plus a hint of Drive Like Jehu or more recent groups like Wymyns Prysyn, Beast Fiend and Launcher. Fixate comes with a hard change of pace, mostly resembling the spirit of old australian punk and garage legends like X, Saints and God. Scraping Away then returns to the postcore stylings, somehow combining a bit of early Saccharine Trust with the proto-noise rock of Flipper.
Even in a busy week like this one (ya know, bandcamp friday and whatnot...), i just gotta mention this new digital two-track single by Tel Aviv synth-/eggpunk act Paulo Vicious ''cos if these two songs don't fuckin' rip then i don't know what does, mastering the neat trick of considerably slowing down things without ever evoking boredom, effectively filling the new gaps between the thumps and beeps with plenty more of interesting squeeks, groans and kablowies to an altogether animating overall effect.
Another quality release from that bastion of off-kilter punk and noise, Erste Theke Tonträger. Busted Head Racket is a group based in Newcastle, Australia centering around vocalist / multi-instrumentalist Arden Guff and in the past year has already made waves with a number of EPs, compilation appearances and split releases. Their long-playing debut now delivers another strong batch of odd little tunes of distinctly egg-ish qualities which manage to come across as equally catchy, quirky, rough and energic, kinda combining the traits of, say, Billiam and the hardcore attack of last year's Snooper LP, with further parallels to be drawn to such acts as Slimex, Daughter Bat and the Lip Stings, Set-Top Box and Ghoulies.
Following a quite stunning debut EP last year, this israeli group just keeps up the energy level of their very own brand of exquisite structured chaos on their first full length record. This is yet another unmitigated, noisy kick in the balls being performed somwhere inbetween the rough specs of noise rock, post punk, hard- and postcore, bearing some very slight similarity to groups such as Cutie, Big Bopper, Brandy, early Patti... add to that a generous helping of Big Black on top!
This neat cassette out on Weather Vane Records by a group sharing members with Vintage Crop among others, immediately captivates with an absolutely timeless make of elegant and well-rounded power pop, supported by way above-average songwriting chops. Think of a couple of more or less contemporary groups like Bed Wettin' Bad Boys, Tommy and the Commies, Bad Sports, The Wind-Ups, Datenight, Ex-Gold, Vacation, Mr. Teenage, Yups, Frozen Teens... pick your poison! Though the whole thing may be a bit too front-loaded with most of the hits residing on side a, which leads to a bit of a slump in the second half... kinda like like a meandering Twin Peaks season 2 it still manages to work itself back up to a glorious finale in the closing track Hold Music.
These New Yorkers' latest LP is basically just an expanded version of their 2021 EP Triangulation by way of Strangulation, though i'm gonna say the addition of the four opening tracks elevates the whole thing to another level altogether, counterbalancing the kinda rigid, somewhat more late-eighties noise rock-leaning tracks of said EP with a fresh infusion of chaos that really seals the deal here, quite obviously taking cues from local no wave history - both the unstructured noisy kind and the funky James Chance-isms - as well as a bunch of other early eighties proto noise rock acts á la Flipper, Primitive Calculators and, most of all, No Trend.
