A delightful batch of laid-back, off-kilter psychedelic- and garage punk goodness by a Toronto group. These tunes do have some slight US proto punk vibe to them in addition to pretty unmistakable space-/acid rock leanings, kinda like a mix between recent LPs by Jean Mignon, Peace de Résistance or older stuff like Faux Ferocious, even some early White Fence - with plenty of eggpunk weirdness on top. What's not to like?
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A smart and intricately constructed mixture of Post Punk, Noise Rock and Postcore is being set off by this New York group on this plainly phenomenal demo. There's no way around addressing the elephant in the room though: This reminds me a lot of Straw Man Army - especially of their first LP - but you could do a lot worse than being compared to a band of such stature, right? Friends of Bloody Gears, Faraquet, Meat Wave and such will also get a kick out of this.
Following a thorougly fun demo and first EP in '21/'22 respectively, this Leipzig, Halle and Berlin-based group's debut LP packs some considerable punch which is no surprise really, given that we've got folks of Liiek, Ambulanz, Dee Bee Rich, Lassie, Exwhite at work here, of which the latter three groups would make for the most obvious reference points here. That is to say, playful but energetic garage punk you could further compare to a bunch of predominantly european bands including the likes of Dadar, The Dirtiest, Shitty Life, Mitraille, The Gobs, Finale… possibly even a bit of Booji Boys in their most melodic moments.
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As i understand, Brick Head is the solo project of Sarah Hardiman who's also playing in Deaf Wish, Moon Rituals and a bunch of other groups you might've heard of. Following a still somewhat shaky debut album, the overall vision comes into much sharper focus here as all the parts just click into place on this one, interweaving familiar styles and flourishes into an ultimately quite unique experience. Carriying the hallmarks of a number of australian groups, the first things to come to mind are various incarnations of Alien Nosejob, the straightforward garage punk of Eddy Current Suppression Ring, the minimalism of The UV Race while over the course of the record, a kinda hazy, melancholic melodicism á la Kitchen's Floor increasingly takes center stage.
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In recent years there's never been a shortage of solid oldschool hardcore punk releases but rarely do they ever feel as refreshing and charming to me as these NYC kids' debut LP, paradoxically channeling the spirit and youthful energy of Washington DC in the early-to-mid-eighties, kinda bridging the gap from the scene's humble beginnings to the rawer side of first-wave emocore groups - think less Rites of Spring and more along the lines of Gray Matter, Government Issue and you're on the right track, more or less.
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Excellent shit as usual via Total Punk. This New York group's debut LP certainly won't open a new chapter for pitch black post punk, yet it manages to captivate nonetheless, by means of sheer force and intensity rather than finesse, charging up a sound familiar to fans of, say, Criminal Code, Sievehead or Rank/Xerox with a raw energy akin to Atlanta groups Nag and Predator, some of the psychedelic undercurrents of stuff á la Public Interest, Waste Man or Public Eye.
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Funny what a few years of eggpunk-related insanity do to your brain. When Channel 83's previous EP dropped in 2019, i considered this shit to be pretty far out there and totally bonkers while in '23, i can't help but think they fit right in with the current wave of quirky synthpunk acts. I don't consider that a bad thing at all though. These new songs rip!
Sadly overshadowed by the death of their their guitar player Darrell, the Sydney group's first LP via Erste Theke signifies a major leap in quality after their already quite enjoyable previous E.T.A. EP, showcasing the band as a much tighter unit delivering their simple but effective, always catchy and danceable blend of timeless post punk with impressive precision and confidence. As before, there's plenty of Pylon groove and energy contained in here while at different points you might also find similarities to contemporary acts such as Lithics, Pinch Points, Rank/Xerox, Slumb Party or Nots, with occasional flashes of Pixies-esque surf-ish guitar leads.
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A whole barrage of digital singles in recent weeks already appeared to foreshadow a new record by the London, Ontario group and indeed here it is, their second LP in all its glory, carrying an excellent new batch of their quite distinct, catchy as hell, always slightly off-kilter and quirky genre mixture containing elements of garage-, post- and synth punk, space- and psychedelic rock. You might compare some bits and pieces here to such groups as Pow!, Useless Eaters and of course the recent collaboration Telegenic Pleasures which also features some of the band members at work here - at this point though, i'd say they're pretty much carved out their own, instantly recognizable little niche.
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It took a good while for this group's debut LP to finally materialize after the the label Chunklet Industries already promised this longplayer around the release of the Birds Of Juneau 7" in the summer of 2021… I suspect you can once again blame the challenges of the current vinyl economy for that. It's another strong record though, on which the group featuring members of such powerhouses as Spray Paint, Wilful Boys, Brandy, Pampers and Pyrex admirably manages to keep things exciting with quite a bit of eclectic variety. For example, we get a kind of Swell Maps-go-Synthwave vibes in HoloLens, a strong dub feel in Mallman, kinda like a sped-up variant of Exek. That all said, you can't really deny their sound obviously having inherited the largest chunk of its DNA from Spray Paint, especially their later work (although, speaking of DNA, a certain no wave vibe is ever present on here aswell). Further i've also got a suspicion though that there'll be some quite familiar sounding echoes of this record to be heard on the upcoming Pyrex LP on Total Punk!
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