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!
