Guadalajara, Mexico group Mess recently put out yet another EP whose totally unashamed oi!-ness is, to be perfectly honest, a bit too much for me to bear. This more post punk-leaning two-track digital single they released just a week earlier is pure gold though.
In my bumbling quest to get some at least some shit done, here are three posts worth of recent hardcore punk standouts rolled into one. First there are five bursts of rather quirky, unconventional noisemaking courtesey of Chicago's Deodorant, who had already released a fun little album via Not Normal Tapes in 2018. On their newest EP, they cover a lot of ground ranging from oldschool hard-/postcore weirdos like Saccharine Trust, Beefeater, Really Red or early Minutemen, to more recent groups á la Optic Nerve and Mystic Inane, rounded out by a few subtle cowpunk vibes like in King Samo. If all of that shit's way to smartypants artsy for that tiny brain of yours to handle, you might prefer the way more straightforward ruckus of slightly garage-infused no-frills oldschool mayhem as presented by Dye of Kansas City. But then again, in case that sounds like way too much fun and you prefer a bit more death, despair and insanity in your punk rock, we've got you covered too in the form of Dallas group Urn's latest EP whose relentless attack comes off about as dark and muddy as a pot of stale burnt coffee... disgusting and vitalizing at the same same time.
Having released a somewhat hit-and-miss debut tape last year, the Berlin group's newest LP shows off a considerably matured, heavily roots- and folk-influenced flavor of post punk whose overall vibe echoes the americana-/cowpunk of Angst while also evoking with a bit of post-Miami Gun Club and solo Rikk Agnew. Among their contemporaries, you might compare them to groups such as Jackson Reid Briggs & The Heaters and Low Life. Other times, like in Reanimation, Pissing and Look Of Disgust you can sense a certain british invasion-style melancholia with hints of The Resonars or The Bevis Frond. So in a nutshell, this ain't quite your average selection of ingredients for a punk album… which kinda makes this a perfect fit for Erste Theke Tonträger who, as i just learned, are gonna be handling the european vinyl release of this beauty.