Some chicago dude's latest EP delivers four and a half short & sweet bursts of extra blown-out krauty spacerockin' psychedelic garage fuzz ecstasy. Destruction Unit-meet-Chrome, Draggs collide with Dr. Mix & The Remix. Turn on, tune in and... run to your stereo and hit play again 'cos the whole thing is only nine minutes long.
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I tried hard to dismiss this Orlando, Florida project as just another cookie cutter DIY synth punk/-garage artifact of our times... with the first EP that was. The second one was able to sow some mistrust in my own judgement. Number three finally served as a reminder on how full of runny shit my dysfunctional lump of grey matter can be sometimes - so bad i wish someone would transplant an anus onto my head. Evolution, you're such a terrible disappointment... These twelve songs are an incredibly fun synth punk ride overall, the kinda pop oriented variety, just getting progressively better with each new EP. Take a juicy bite if you can stand stuff like Trashdog, Warm Exit, Dot.com, Set Top Box, Power Plant, T.L.B.M., Spyroids.
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Just a quick announcement: Instead of taking care of this blog as i should, i recently procrastinated my own mastodon instance into existence. Or more specifically, it's actually a pleroma instance. Or for those who still don't get what the fuck all that gibberish is supposed to mean: Mastodon and Pleroma are two compatible server implementations of the ActivityPub protocol, which quite a few decentral social platforms are based on, mastodon being the most popular of those at this moment.
Also in the works is a Hubzilla instance, which is supposed to bridge the gap for me between Mastodon/ActivityPub and the incompatible Diaspora network. In the long term, my aim is to go fully independent of the big commercial platforms. I'd be delighted if a few of you dip their toes in the warm fediverse waters too, simply because the corporate web sucks so hard at this point anyway and i'd like to accelerate its death a little bit.
So right now you can find me at these additional places:
@groschi@elefant.onetwoxu.de
@12xu@elefant.onetwoxu.de
If you want a user account on elefant.onetwoxu.de, just tell me via the contact form... but be aware that this piece of shit might not be 100% stable yet, definitely needs a bit of fine tuning and you're basically becoming my guinea pig if you dare to register. That thing could explode at any moment.
Thus, until i have that stuff under control, i'd rather recommend you register an account on the music-themed linernotes.club instance - or any other inctance whose user base, themes and policies appeal to you. Mastodon allows you to move your account somewhere else at any point, just in case stuff didn't work out for you.
New tunes by Sudbury, Canada's Tommy and the Commies. You should know what to expect by now: A bright and colorful spectacle made up of top notch quality power pop, a bit of garage and a whole truckload of buzzcocks-style straight and melodic punk rock, elevated by a punchy performance as well as some unerring songwriting skill.
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Promising and fun shit, this first digital single by some San Francisco group. Post-/art punk of the particularly quirky, playful kind that admirers of bands like Patti, Rolex, Reality Group or Emergency Contact will surely appreciate.
Already having a bunch of strong EPs under their belt, Mini Skirt of Byron Bay, Australia are now delivering their first LP. Of course they do have a few more bones to pick, finding expression in some of their most pissed off lyrics to date, while on the musical side of things, we get all the goodness familiar from their EPs and more... Garage Punk/Pub Rock somewhat similar to Dumb Punts, Pissed Idiots or WOD, that counterbalances its comparatively relaxed pace with a vigorous performance, this time even reluctantly expanding their stylistic palette with occasional flashes of oldschool late 80's/early 90s indie rock.
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Melbourne group Moth already had a decent demo out not too long ago, but this new set of tunes is so much stronger. This is your typical contemporary garage-/synth punk stuff, plain and simple… but also quite competently done, packing some serious punch and adding a slight psychedelic touch to the mix - otherwise roughly adhering to the Useless Eaters, Pow!, Flat Worms and Ex-Cult core formulas. You can't go wrong with these.
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On album number three Ventura, California garage punks Sweet Reaper seamlessly pick things up where they left off roughly two years ago with another strong batch of bittersweet, melodic bangers of some Wipers-esque flavor as well as varying degrees of similarity to more current acts, the likes of Cheap Whine, Radioactivity, Red Dons, Dadar.
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Atlanta's Nag have been a constant presence in the contemporary post punk scene for quite a while now, so i'm kinda surprised it took them this long to come up with their first long player. The surprises don't end here. Having been kind of the genre's bad boys - always a bit more rough and unkempt than most of their peers - we finally get to hear them in a comparatively hi-fi sound, stripping away some layers of fuzz and noise, instead revealing a sharpened rhythmical focus and a much diversified set of stylistic choices, drawing comparisons to various household names à la Negative Space, Rank/Xerox, Pretty Hurts, Diät, Knowso, Bruised or Exit Group.
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Now that's™ some potent shit coming out of poland, presumably. Equal parts hardcore- and garage punk, efficiently propelled forward by an ultra-simplistic drumming style giving the whole thing an almost cowpunk vibe, but also leaving plenty of room for the noise-laden sonic textures by the string torturing division to spread out - kinda like you might have heard in the past from Bands like Leche, Murderer, Yambag, Lux… maybe even a bit of Wymyns Prysyn hidden in there.
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Another eight snappy punches of straightfoward garage punk on this Portland three-piece's sophomore EP/mini-LP, worthy of carrying the Iron Lung seal of quality and reminding me at times of Sauna Youth, Ex-Cult, Teenanger… complemented by certain '77 vibe á la Amyl and the Sniffers.
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Two reliable german/austrian labels have another blast in store for the discerning garage afficinado, made by some Vienna folks who have figured it out quite nicely where to simultaneously touch their instruments at all the right times, in just the right way and intensity, in order to have them emit noises pleasing to my ears.
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Didn't expect this to happen... A whopping seven years after his last EP, Oakland's Jason Hendardy aka Permanent Collection is reactivating his old musical endeavor and delivers a brilliant new album which - in spite of its rather fatalistic sounding title - dials back the sonic doom and gloom of his previous efforts, the dark post punk tone taking the back seat while the melodic noise pop & shoegaze aspects take center stage - a consistantly fun high energy ride from start to finish. If you ever wished acts like A Place To Bury Strangers or Ceremony (VA) woud spend less time less time spacing out and cut straight to the chase instead, this record ist for you.
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Here's some quality no-frills ass-whoppin', hip-shakin' straight-ahead garage punk by a Melbourne group whose ruckus kinda sounds like the result of crossbreeding some Mini Skirt with early Teenanger or maybe Obits. Then you feed the resulting breed a diet consisting of a tolerably small amount of Oi!, some early 80s US Westcoast Punk, even a slight hint of Crass maybe. The grown up beast might resemble what Tony Dork are doing here and i think it's quite a beauty to behold.
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Another lovely treat from Austin label Digital Hotdogs. The rather quirky kind, rough around the edges and full of sweetness inside, strange and familiar at the same time. Just like you've probably come to expect of anything released by this outlet. There's barely any info on the actual band in question. I found two bands of this name listed on bandcamp, but i don't think we're dealing with either of those here. What we get instead is a sheer wealth of catchy as fuck tunes wrapped into dreamy, yet powerful soundscapes somewhere in the realm of post punk, noise pop, shoegaze and 90s Indie Rock, somewhat reminiscent of the early Lo-Fi adventures by Eric's Trip, Guided By Voices, Flying Saucer Attack, maybe even a bit of Sebadoh. Or you may choose to draw comparisons to more contemporary acts in the vein of The Molds, Treehouse, Pardoner, Rat Columns or Teardrop Factory. Whatever your viewpoint on this, you've got impeccable taste, sir. You are made for this record.
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