I'm not sure if Alien Nosejob currently exist as a full blown band, but at least for their second long playing effort, Jake Robertson (Ausmuteants, School Damage, Leather Towel, Hierophants, etc.) has been recording everything on his own. While the last few releases turned out to be a rather wild and unpredictable ride - touching on Power-/Jangele Pop, Synth Pop and Hardcore Punk among other things - Alien Nosejob's newest album is an unexpectedly consistent work mostly operating in a spectrum of sad power pop and more familiar Ausmuteants style garage fare, wrapped in a warm and fuzzy analog aesthetic varying from mid- to high fidelity. Without exception, these songs are top rate stuff, just classic Robertson at his best.
On their newest EP, Washington's Iron Cages give us three excellent new blasts of garagified hardcore punk which indicate massive step forward for the band, towards a more compact and coherent sound friends of stuff along the lines of Fried Egg, Punk Guitars, Cülo, Anxiety or Electric Chair will surely appreciate.
What a beautifully deranged kind of mess, the second Album by Trashdog a.k.a. Andrew Jackson, the dude also responsible for Austin, Texas label Digital Hotdogs. I didn't expect a lot of normalcy here to begin with, but nonetheless i'm kind of astonished by the massive amount of top notch goodness scattered wildly across this record, especially after i found Trashdog's first effort to be of somewhat inconsistent quality. Roughly one third here consists of dumb jokes and various shades of fucking around. Another third turns out to be brilliantly weird and inventive songcraft in a spectrum of garage punk, power pop, synth-/electro punk and a tiny hint of glam. And as for the remaining third, i'm somewhat undecided in which of the first two categories i should file that stuff. The whole of it makes for an awesome, if at times overwhelming, disorienting roller coaster ride. Some kind of white album on stupid pills.
Moist Boy from New Bedford, Massachusetts are one of the rare cases in which a band comes somewhat close to what you could call pop punk without immediately pissing me off. But for me, that's having most to do with incredibly low standards in that particular genre rather than an aversion to simple, straightforward melodies. Pop punk bands just tend to fuck up even the most basic, fundamental components of decent punk rock. Moist Boy don't suck in the slightest and that's thanks to first rate songwriting abilities, an adequately tight and punchy performance and - to counter the sweet catchyness of their melodies - a distinct garage edge as well as some rather dark lyrical content. Quality stuff throughout and required listening if you appreciate bands like Cheap Whine, Dark Thoughts, Steve Adamyk Band… maybe even The Marked Men!
This already marks the second time these two bands from Indianapolis are pooling their, um… resources for a split release - this time it's a 7" on Goodbye Boozy Records. Not only is the recording quality a little bit less rough than last time; both bands have also significantly diversified their musical vocabulary. The Resource Network alternate between smartypants garage punk of the Uranium Club & Yammerer variety, a post punk/-core thingy you could imagine as a weird mix of Rites Of Spring and early Slovenly, and finally a straight punk rocker radiating a Launcher-style KBD Vibe. Quite a bit of the latter you can also find on Big Hog's side and there's less of a hardcore edge to their new songs - instead you'll find a wild post punk ride you might describe as Patti-meet-early-Minutemen, surrounded by two blasts of noise punk resembling what Lumpy & The Dumpers could have sounded like on some sort of sludge/doom trip.
At first listen, i can't help but think of the texan (neo) no wave/chaotic noise rock connection around bands like Flesh Narc, Gay Cum Daddies and a few other projects sharing much of the same personnel. However, this band is from Philadelphia, making any association with those rather unlikely. Also, on closer inspection, their sound and songs come across a lot more structured, compared with the kinda semi-improvised feel of the Denton scene's output. Soundwise, this is somewhat less in the no wave camp, leaning more into the noise rock side of things and now that i'm thinking of it… I also see quite some similarities to their geographically much closer New York contemporaries Spray Paint and Big Neck Police, as well as a hint of canadian noise punks Sopcans.
On their demo, Brussels outfit Warm Exit come up with a flawless little dose of synth-enhanced garage punk, alternately reminding me of contemporary genre powerhouses like Ausmuteants, Dumb, Erik Nervous or Powerplant.
The australian Scene always finds new ways to surprise, sometimes outright baffle me. This time it's done by a melbourne group featuring members of, among others, Kids Of Zoo, profoundly unsettling my sense of geography by way of having their lyrics sung in japanese. Sound-wise, i'm reminded of more-or-less gloomy post punk stuff by acts like Institute, Diät, Criminal Code, Pretty Hurts or Acrylics - combined with some noisy and rough DIY punk in the vein of Lumpy & The Dumpers, Launcher or Beast Fiend, as well as a faint echo of Hot Snakes.
This tape by Melbourne group Super-X isn't exactly new stuff, but that shit is way to strong not to be mentioned here. Witness a sonic spectacle unfold, fusing the old garage-/proto punk fuzz of Fun House-era Stooges with spaced out vibes not unlike Destruction Unit or early Telescopes, all the while dragging along with it some traces of contemporary post punk.
It's business as usual for Atlanta's Nag on their newest EP, on which they're staying clear of new experiments and bright ideas. I'm perfectly fine with that. Instead, their sound made from fragments of post-, fuzz- and noise punk once again manages to convince me, crafted into three rock solid songs that aren't even trying to look smarter than they actually are - and that's exactly why they work so well.
