Their third LP - once again released via the tastefully named label 12XU Records (which i'm totally not involved with, i promise!) - presents Austin punks Xetas' sound in its most mature incarnation yet, most noticeable in terms of its more confident, varied and always rock solid songcraft. Still riding the fine line between straightforward punk rock and energetic post punk/-core, with the needle pointing a bit more in the latter direction this time, you might describe this shit as a curious mix between Red Dons, Video, Meat Wave and Daylight Robbery. In other words: Quality Stuff!
On their recent 7" via Iron Lung, Oakland's Shrinkwrap Killers blow a pretty little hole in your speakers by way of a flawless one-two punch made up of fuzzy, melodic garage punk and bearing some similarity to The Stalins Of Sounds, S.B.F. or Kid Chrome. Nuff said.
Not too long after their recent 7" suggested some amount of relaxation in the Cleveland trio's sound, they fall right back into their tense and gritty old ways on their second album - even double down on them compared to the already rough blast of their debut album three years ago - amounting to another perfect round of fuzzed out garage noise glory, this time reminding me of early Greenberg-era The Men in all their uncompromising force.
So far, the synth-/garage punk project Isotope Soap a.k.a. swedisch punk veteran Peter Swedenhamar has released nothing but top quality stuff in the form of three EPs, all of them were reissued last year on a compilation album via Emotional Response. His first longplayer doesn't dissappoint either. On it, Swedenhamar considerably expands his eclectic raid of obscure punk history, resulting in his most varied and playful release yet, incorporating among other things moments of trippy space punk, pure synth pop, dreamy krautscapes. And of course also a lot of his more straightforward signature Devo-meet-Ausmuteasnts style that made up the bulk of his EPs.
San Francisco's Modern Needs let off one delicious fart after another into the atmosphere, consisting of straight, simple & effective Fuzz reminiscent of early 80s westcoast punk & hardcore as well as plenty of crude KBD-vibes. As such, they make good company to other contamporary bands like Launcher, Freakees, Beast Fiend or Liquid Assets.
This London trio delivers some new high quality bursts of decidedly crude garage punk with a clear post punk edge. Admirers of bands like Constant Mongrel, Ex Cult, Tyvek, Useless Eaters or Shark Toys will know to appreciate this.
On their recent EP some Cleveland, Ohio based group serves us ten flawlessly executed deep brown puddles of filthy and contageous hard-/noisecore, boiled down to less than ten minutes of quirky, messy joy.
Whoa… didn't really expect to hear from those Minneapolis folks again, as five years have already passed since their strong debut EP. On their first long player we get more of that stuff - times 10, thanks to noticeably refined songcraft and forceful performances. This is plain old unpretentious, melodic Punkrock with a clear early 90's bent at its very best. Kinda like a Fusion of Daylight Robbery and Superchunk, but you might also hear some Echoes of Jawbreaker, Samiam, even a very slight trace of Leatherface every now and then…
New recorded material by Hank Wood & his crew has become a somewhat rare occurence in recent years… but whenever some new tunes crop up, you're instantly reminded why you fell in love with his soul-infused Garage Punk in the first place - more than ever, i'd say. Songwriting and arrangements are just as spot-on here as we've seen on past releases, propelled forward by razor sharp performances. Those hammers keep hitting every nail with impressive precision.
On their second EP, New York punks Signal brew up a strong potion consisting of raw noise-/fuzz punk and post punk/-core. To me it sounds a bit like an amalgamation of earlier Lié and Littly Ugly girls, but also contains quite some of the rough, garagey vibes similar to Warp or Vexxx.
