Not long after the kickass Schedule 1 EP we get to hear yet another group reviving the spirit of late 2000's / early 2010's melodic post punk, once again brought to us by the punk powerhouse that is Dirt Cult Records. This time the folks responsible are from, lemme see… Bielefeld, Germany?!? Are you fuckin' kidding me? No, no, no this can't be right. Musically this is your familiar, somewhat oldschool Wipers-influenced, song-driven approach and the songwriting chops on display here are more than able to pull that shit off. This is a hell of a treat for fans of stuff á la The Estranged, Anxious Living, Daylight Robbery, Xetas, Red Dons or, more recently DDR and the aforementioned Schedule 1.
Their recent Skeleton/Runaway digital single was some quality shit already and a huge step up from previous releases. With their newest EP, the Austin, Texas group keeps the good stuff coming, clear highlights this time being the perfect power pop one-two punch The Amazing Super Ultra Spiderman & Shit Me Out but the rest is great fun too, coming across a bit like an amazing super ultra holy trinity of Ausmuteants, S.B.F. and Set-Top Box.
A highly appetizing first taste that is, the debut EP of this London group playing a somewhat hard to pin down, adequately rough-edged yet also kinda catchy style that's like 60% garage punk and 40% postcore, overall reminding me of a rather diverse cluster of groups among which are the likes of The Abandos, Obits, Golden Pelicans, Mass Lines, Dumb Punts and Ascot Stabber.
I gotta say i'm more than delighted with the versatile and smart and weird ways in which garage punk has evolved over more recent years but, you know, sometimes i'm just craving for something more oldschool and primal. Detroit duo 208's new cassette on Painters Tapes does a fabulous job scratching that particular itch, containing the raw, primitive, sweaty and drunken blues variety of garage punk, the kind you need to have a soul but no brain to appreciate. Yeah, i'm aware that the soul is a purely religious construct that has zero evidence going for it in real life. So let's say instead that you need a broken soulful brain to appreciate it, or something like that, okay?. The fidelity of this is just perfect, the kind of production where heavy clipping both digital and analog is a feature, not a bug - a fuzz-saw mangler of jams which might evoke comparisons to mostly older shit like Oblivians, Gories, Pussy Galore, Feedtime, Reatards and whatnot.
The spanish garage scene is full of gold lately (and speaking of el diablo… have you all heard that fabulous Hogar LP yet?) - latest piece of evidence is this nice little EP by a group from… Barcelona, i guess? At least that's one of the few words i'm able to recognise in their lyrics. They're playing a fun variety of garage punk that mostly alternates between straight and stupid '77-ish simplicity and a more contemporary, angular groove á la Uranium Club, Pinch Points.
For his second 7" on Goodbye Boozy Records, Cal Donald aka Liquid Face increases both the energy- and distortion levels considerably, making his special sauce of garage-/synth-/post punk come across kinda like a weird crossbreed between Powerplant, Mononegatives and the noise punk of Brandy.
I somehow managed to overlook this enchanting album of not-your-average post punk fare when it first came out as a cassette on Future Shock and damn, i should totally hang for that. Here's my second chance however, as this thing has now been reissued on vinyl by Drunken Sailor Records. The Drin is a solo project of Dylan McCartney with whom you might already be familiar as part of groups such as Vacation, The Serfs, Crime Of Passing and The Switzerlands, among others. The record starts off with a Joy Division-esque beat getting drenched in drones that have a certain Suicide-meets-Chrome vibe to them. Next up is a track that sounds kinda as if early Ride had reached dub-enlightenment. Subsequently, this shit appears to cycle through random iterations of early british DIY post punk, more than once conjuring up the spirit of The Membranes, Desperate Bicycles and Swell Maps. Of more recent acts, you might draw some comparisons to Exek at its more dub-heavy outgrowths as well as the neo kraut and space rock explorations of Moon Duo. The whole thing's such a beauty all the way through.
Wow, i didn't expect this vancouver group's debut record to be such a perfect smasher. It should also turn out to be quite the crowdpleaser as far as contemporary post punk is concerned, turning back the clocks by a decade or two with its decidedly melodic approach, refined songwriting and tons of catchy hooks, combining the strengths of several strands of the genre. The most obvious comparison would be early 2010's bands like The Estranged, Criminal Code, Holograms, Autobahn or the more recent Girls In Synthesis… but i also pick up some echoes of the more straightforward punk side of things á la Xetas, Daylight Robbery or Anxious Living. And last but not least, groups bordering on noise pop territory in the vein of Piles, Wild Moth or Die! Die! Die! have sure left their mark here aswell.
My favorite british punk group of the moment has yet to write a song that isn't as infectious as fuck and their most recent digital (?) single release delivers another two of their strongest so far and once again will effortlessly conquer the hearts of every connoiseur of Television Personalities-influenced strumming á la Suburban Homes, Neutrals or Freak Genes.
Zoids keep things classy and weird on their newest tape, which will soon be physically available via Goodbye Boozy. Still clearly operating on the outer fringes of crude and dissonant garage-/post punk and highly demented space rock, this group or person of mysterious whereabouts remains a charmingly broken machine that doesn't need any fixing.
