Chris Pal – New Weird

There's nothing particularly smart or new about this record to tell you, yet there's plenty of enjoyment to get out of this oldschool garage punk racket, simple and effective, being pulled off by some dude out of Rennes, France. On the genre map, you might locate this shit somewhere in the neighborhood of bands like The Spits, Buck Biloxi, Sick Thoughts, Die TV, Erik Nervous, Stalins Of Sound, Giorgio Murderer and Bart And The Brats.

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Deletions – STETS

It took the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania group a few years to tie up the loose ends and finish the production of this LP but here it finally is, giving us more of their synth-, garage- and post punk that will once again elicit comparisons to Digital Leather - especially the similarity of the singer's voice to DL's Shawn Foree always strikes me as uncanny - although Deletions at this point sound more like a cruder, yet simultaneously pretty straightforward and catchy-as-fuck version of that. In the second half things lean heavier towards the post punk, slightly goth end of things, bearing some similarity to, say, Powerplant, Isotope Soap, Why Bother? or early The Faint as well as some flourishes of Devo and Desparate Bicycles… even a touch of Morricone in Diffuse and Confuse. Not every single effort on here pays off equally well but when they hit the spot, they do it with bravado.

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Bad/Dreems – See You Tomorrow

Hoo Ha! releases May 19th via Farmer & The Owl.

Shop Talk – Camp Hero

The Offering releases April 21st via Mon Amie Records.

Why Bother? – Self Indulgent Ways

A City of Unsolved Miseries releases March 31st via Feel It Records.

During – Cache Blasted

During releases April 28th via Chunklet Industries.

The Toads – Nationalsville

In The Wilderness releases June 9th via Zenith Records.

Verspannungskassette #52 (C-60)

Dan Melchior Band The Right Influencer
Heavy Mother Friday Night (Blackout!)
Gee Tee Bad Egg
Teo Wise Amigo
Toilet Rats Sensory Overload
Pringue Bicis Necesita
Heartbeeps Sick In Your Head
The Covids Bust To Bits
Muck C.F.B.
Killer The Bar

Obedient Black Out and Block
Axed Never Goin Back
Illiterates Chip Away
Spewed Brain No Sleep
Snooper Waste
Bart and the Brats Fake Bands
Anteater Daily Fantasy
Pyr Kata Voulisi Σκάβεις Τον Λάκκο Σου
Opsec Controlled Delivery

O.R.C Disemboweled At The Tavern
Home Front Real Eyes
Ubiquitous Meh! I Identified the Ufo
Emitter Smaller
Soft Shoulder Door (Pass)
Affordable Repayments Gills
Waste Man Changes

Dregs Lights Out
The Unknowns Deleted
Scam Likely Staring at the Sun
Outtacontroller Less Is More
Hinin Déjà mort
Litovsk Cerises Et Grenades
Beta Máximo. Hornos de ladrillo

Electric Prawns 2 – Prawn Static For Porn Addicts

…now that's kind of an insane move, dumping four to six LPs worth of material in a single album on bandcamp. Didn't see that coming at all, good thing we like insane shit here at 12XU HQ. With this album the group from Moffat Beach, Australia seriously earned the title "The Guided by Voices of space egg punk". Amazingly, most of this stuff is pretty freakin' awesome too, although a fair bit of fat and redundancy sure could've been trimmed off this 2-hour release for an even stronger 80-minute album to emerge in the process. Their high egg-factor mixture of Psychedelic-/Space Rock, Post- and Garage Punk might draw comparisons to the likes of Mononegatives, Neo Neos, Liquids, The Gobs, Set-Top Box, Print Head or Useless Eaters in its more high-energy moments while in the more relaxed and/or downbeat songs, groups like Die TV, Cool Sorcery, Snooper might come to mind or even an extra Lo-Fi version of the Woolen Men!

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Dregs – Enemy Not Me

Following up on their already quite awesome 2019 demo, Austin group Dregs shift their sound a good bit away from a more garage- and fuzz punk leaning sound, further towards a harder to pin-down mix of influences on the fringes of 80s-to-mid-90s hard- and postcore, among others suggesting the likes of X (US), Dicks or Flipper at some points, postcore groups like Gray Matter or Drive Like Jehu at others while more recent bands like Vexx, Cel Ray, Gen Pop or Little Ugly Girls wouldn't sound too far off either.

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Waste Man – Waste Man

Apparently, formerly New Orleans-based group Waste Man have relocated to New York City recently. Sound-wise though, they stay true to themselves on their newest EP, by which i mean they stay unpredictable as ever and keep the listeners on their toes every second in their very own mixture on the intersection of Post Punk, Postcore and slight touches of Americana (the latter are less obvious here though…). Especially notable this time is the six-minute slow-burn track White Horse that plays out kinda like a fusion of early Shellac, Slint, Jawbox & Fugazi.

Affordable Repayments – Can’t Win For Losing Some Days

This group from Portarlington, Australia creates a droning, sprawling and nonetheless absolutely ripping soundscape that combines the traits of such timeless greats as Wipers, 80s Sonic Youth, U-Men or Live Skull, just as much as a fuzzy clump of AUS and NZ groups like The Gordons, Fungus Brains, X and Feedtime.

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