Excellent and quirky shit sitting inbetween the worlds of oldschool british DIY punk, post punk, hard- and postcore on this Watford, UK dude's third EP, of which the first couple tunes in particular remind me of a version of Landowner-style clean-ish guitar hardcore mixed with some distinctly Mission Of Burma-esque guitar work and even a hint of Television Personalities and Mekons which gets further expanded on over the course of the remaining songs, but also a touch of early Minutemen is tucked in there somewhere and echoes of a bunch of more recent bands like Zhoop (or whatever alias that dude is operating under right now), post punkers á la Big Bopper, Lamictal, Patti and further some of that contemporary breed of strummy part time punks as exemplified by the likes of Silicone Values, Famous Logs In History and the early works of Neutrals.
The successor to the Astoria, Oregon group's incredible 2024 Gay Bordom LP doesn't quite reach the same level of originality and playful creativity, playing it a bit safer and at times veering a bit too close to pop punk territory for my taste, but for what it is, this is actually a pretty neat record in its own right still, the songs ranging between servicable and pretty freakin' good and still spanning a good deal of sonic variety so yeah... this is a strong enough follow-up to a larger-than-life record that would've been kind of a tough act to follow for pretty much anyone and it almost feels a bit unfair to not judge this new one on its own merits. It is what it is and that's still pretty fucking good, even if we know this group can do much better.
This Fort Collins, Colorado group delivers six blows of rough as fuck hardcore punk whose rustic aesthetics can’t do anything to obscure the catchy garage punk foundations underlying the whole thing, the smart postcore overtones being peppered all throughout and the numerous surprises and compositional quirks it has up its sleeve. This is a record sounding a lot dumber at first glance than it actually is and you know i’m a sucker for that kind of shit.
Anytime Cowboy - With My Demons ----------------------------------- Harry W - Losing My Brain Lovebomb - Rockin in the wrong house Winky Frown - Npc Energy Hot Ocean - Whole Lotta Fuck Emmett O'Connor - Chrome Crusher The Meccaniks - Natural Born Bungee Jumpers - Oh Possum ----------------------------------- The Moids - Human Meat The Bored & Ignored - Crack Killer Rhoads - System Decay Rifle - United State Hot Beer - I Hate People Sometimes Social ills - Dimming Lights Youth Avoiders - No Medal for Failure ----------------------------------- Centipede - Bad Trip High Ideals - Ignorant Flower Power - Innocent Attest - Rot Ultimatum - Foxtrap Invisible Hand - Fuck The World 2 Feeble Minds - Social Tragedy ----------------------------------- Puke Pisstols - She's Primitive Küken - Grass Green Doe St - Thrill Coffer - (Ain’t No) Holy Ghost Game Show Models - Everything Isnt Gonna Be All Right ----------------------------------- Only God Forgives - Welcome to the Planet of Silence DBR - Hold Me Tight Sunny Bear Forest - Nuisance ----------------------------------- Zulo - Violencia Post Community - Vertices The III - Squeeze ----------------------------------- Station Model Violence - Heat (Single Version) Shrudd - No Man is Good Three Times Cartoon - Classic Style ----------------------------------- Powerplant - Bridge of Sacrifice Cries of Agony - Infinite Lucifer ----------------------------------- Wristwatch - Hints / Dü
The third EP of this Montreal group is yet another irresistible candy seemingly inspired by the more melodic strains of eighties punk somewhere inbetween, say, Fastbacks, late-era Naked Raygun and Hüsker Dü, but also previous-decade revivalist indie punk rockers like Milk Music, California X, Milked and Kicking Spit ain't too far off either. This time they keep us waiting a bit - until the very last track to be precise - before they fully lean into their trademark heavy metal shredding which has also been the secret ingredient of their brilliant previous EP, but that shall in no way distract from the bucketloads of catchy joy we had along the way leading up to that point too!
