A new LP by that finnish group with way to many guitar players… dunno, i think 666 was the number last time i counted. Here, the band is shifting their sound increasingly into a psych rock direction. Especially in TJ they're diving headfirst into Space Rock territory and the effort pays of admirably. In other places, they stay true to their brand of melodic indie rock, fuzz punk and noise pop with echoes of No Age, Wavves, California X, Happy Diving and some early The Men, which they then infuse with sprawling guitar drones reminiscent of Glenn Branca and 80s Sonic Youth.
It took me a while to notice but the newest LP by Marseille group Catalogue turns out to be their strongest effort to date. Where their sound could still be a little tiring on their previous LP, they show a lot more variety on their newest one keeping things interesting throughout. Their noisy post punk, as usual being driven forward by eighties-style drum machine beats, may owe a little to Big Black in some parts, Live Skull in others or some no-wave dissonance gets loaded up with catchy hooks. In Houseplants we even get to hear some almost synth-/new wave stylings.
Much stronger than i figured at first glance, the debut tape by Chicago group Cel Ray. This shit is carrying similar vibes to some of the great female-fronted punk groups of our time like Vexx, Negative Scanner, Judy & The Jerks, Amyl and the Sniffers, All Hits, The Neuros, BB and the Blips… while also apparently taking cues from a larger cluster of groups on the intersection of post- and garage punk á la Patti, Reality Group, Uranium Club, Ex-Cult or Mystic Inane.
Three hardcore releases especially stuck out this week, all of 'em more or less treading off the genre's beaten paths. The most conventionally sounding - relatively speaking of course - is the EP by People's Temple on NY label RoachLeg Records, giving us an extremely tuneful variation on 80s hardcore, at times coming across like a blend of Circle Jerks with early-to-middle-era Naked Raygun and with occasional flourishes of Hüsker Dü to boot. Of more recend Bands, Fried E/m might also fit the bill. Hickey's tape on Archfiend records then infuses contemporary strands of garage-, synth- and eggpunk weirdness with plenty of oldschool hardcore energy, along the way also evoking the some vibes of Flipper, Spike in Vain, Broken Talent… With this release, we might just be entering the eggcore era! Montreal's Hood Rats operate in a vaguely similar territory, also having a sound grounded in garage punk brimming with lo-fi eggpunk quirkyness just as much as with an unkempt KBD energy and the tunes to make it stick.
Synth punk maestro Klint doesn't need an introduction here at this point, i guess. His half of this awesome split cassette gives us another three artifacts skimmed off the top of that bottomless pit of pure creativity that dude seems to magically conjure up as soon as someone allows him to plug a cable into anything. Orrendo Subotnik from Pisa, Italy then craft a very different, yet no less exciting soundscape. Having sent some shockwaves already with their ultra-rough second tape last year, their sound comes into much sharper focus here. A weird mixture that is, charging up the noise pop and fuzz punk of acts like early No Age, Male Bonding or Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger!, noisy and darkly melodic post punk á la Die! Die! Die!, Piles or Times Beach, with a decidedly hard-/postcore kind of energy and a sense of widescreen drama you might expect of Lower or early Iceage… among tons of other stuff i've yet to unpack.
On this unbelievably un-british sounding LP - kind of an expanded version of last year's Happy Bank Holiday EP - Sheffield group Big Break set up twelve furious bursts of undiluted garage punk thrust in a way that most often reminds me of both australian and US acts such as Hank Wood and the Hammerheads, Split System, Easers, Jackson Reid Briggs & The Heaters and The Cowboy, to name just a few.
A kickass EP of this Glasgow group originally released roughly a year ago, now hopefully getting saved from relative obscurity by local label Gold Mold Records who've just reissued this beauty digitally and on cassette. On it, we get fresh supply from the realm of dungeon punk-ajacent noise reminiscent of a whole range of groups like, naturally, the current genre overlords Poison Ruïn, the heavily motörized/sleazified garage punk of Cheap Heat, Golden Pelicans and Polute, hard-/postcore-leaning acts like Tarantüla, Bloody Gears and Video.
On their second full length, Malbourne group Civic continue hold up the banner of oldschool garage punk of the heavily Birdman-indebted variety while still cautiously expanding on their sonic spectrum. Blood Rushes, for example, has some power pop vibe to it, reminiscent of early Scientists while in Trick of the Light, a touch of mid-eighties Wipers in the verses leads into some serious New Christs-like riffing in the chorus.
Here's your obligatory weekly fix of melodic garage-/egg-/synth punk shit, this time coming from a Winchester, Virginia outfit whose quirky noises will surely satisfy the needs of afficinados primarily of the austalian scene including acts such as Ausmuteants, Research Reactor Corp., R.M.F.C., Set-Top Box, Tee Vee Repairman, Eugh, Daughter Bat & The Lip Stings… as well as some US acts á la Eric Nervous, Sex Mex and Liquids.
Punter came up with an excellent demo in 2020. Their new EP on Drunken Sailor Records elevates their sound to a whole different level though, combining the strengths of "heavy" metal- and hard rock-infused garage acts á la Polute, Cheap Heat, Cement Shoes or Stiff Richards, the hard rockin' hardcore attack of, say, Cutters and Cülo, postcore of the Dollhouse, Acrylics, Flea Collar variety and all the drama, rage and melancholy of Pist Idiots, Jackson Reid Briggs & The Heaters.
