No wonder this shit feels familiar. The Wind-Ups is a new solo project of none other than Jake Sprecher of Terry Malts and Smokescreens fame. Much rawer and louder than any of his other groups have dared to sound recently (albeit not quite reaching early Terry Malts levels of speed and fuzzyness), this at times sounds like a fusion of Terry Malts' melodicity with slightly post punk-leaning garage groups like Tyvek or Parquet Courts, while in other moments you can sense a breeze of The Spits, Ricky Hell or anything Reatard(s)-related. Yet when he goes all-in on power pop, there are some undeniable british invasion vibes emanating from his arrangements and compositions.
Phew… this thing must've been mixed/mastered by a deaf person. I'm pretty much used to all kinds of sonic extremes by now but this must be the first time ever that i can't bear listening to a thing without at least applying some heavy EQ. Maybe the actual cassette release is less painful to listen to though…
Otherwise this thing kicks butt with unerring precision. Don't know how i managed to overlook this so far but somehow stupid me needed another reminder in the form of a (digital only?) reissue on Goodbye Boozy to finally notice its qualities. These texans play some pretty wild and unpredictable amalgamation of post- and garage punk, noise rock and postcore which you might, at different points, compare to groups like Patti, Cutie, Rolex, Mystic Inane or Brandy.
Another kickass EP by this Philadelphia group. This time they crank up the garage factor considerably while maintaining their taste for oldschool proto-noise rock and -sludge. Think of a curious mix between NY's Cutie and aussie garage groups like Mini Skirt, Pist Idiots on a collision course with old-timey noisemakers of the U-Men, Scientists, X (Sydney, not L.A.) variety plus a slight touch of Mudhoney.
Whoosh! The second EP by Stockholm group Wails holds yet another perfectly solid batch of noise-infused high-octane straightforward garage punk tracks, a sound somewhere inbetween the sonic virtues of powerhouses such as The Cowboy, Sauna Youth, Ex-Cult and True Sons Of Thunder.
Pretty awesome noisecore shit is flushing out the ear canals on this debut EP by a group with members strewn all across Berlin, Leipzig and Bonn. This certainly has some touches of Acrylics, Vulture Shit, Soupcans and Stinkhole… or maybe of an alternate universe incarnation of No Trend, Flipper and Broken Talent played at triple speed.
Roughly four years after their last sign of life we quite unexpectedly get another fine EP from this Vancouver group, who pulled off a flawless first EP in 2016/17, followed by a somewhat disappointing, slightly undercooked second effort. On this one, however, they're back in their zone and alternate between two excellent in-your-face rippers and another pair of slower, more melancholic songs demanding a bit more patience from the listener but culminating in a worthy payoff. As before, they remind me a lot of a more melancholic, subdued and melodic incarnation of Rank Xerox, Sarcasm or Sievehead.
