Just a couple weeks after their debut, the second EP of the Beta Máximo dude's new synth punk project simply picks up the strands right where they left them on the predecessor, yet there's also some neat experimentation and surprise to be found in there which we haven't heard before like the airy synth polyrhythms in the verses of El Fin De Los Días showing SYT at their most aloof so far but also rewarding the patience by segueing into some of their most catchy moments in the chorus.
I found it a bit difficult warming up to last year's debut LP by this group featuring, among others, Chris Natividad of Marbled Eye and Public Interest, as that record still struck as a bit too glassy, overindulgent and underdeveloped, severely lacking in direction and contour in an era where that's kinda symptomatic of the sad state the current wave of shoegaze-y groups is operating in. Well, i can't say that about their newest EP though, on which they've considerably sharpened the edges and reinforced the structural integrity of their compositions. Did i just say Shoegaze? Yeah that's right! There's relatively little in common here sound-wise with the slightly ethereal, dreamy post punk of the aforementioned groups. Rather, Blue Zero are distinctly channeling a certain strain from the more straightforward and direct edges of the old-timey Shoegaze spectrum with the likes of Swervedriver, Bailterspace, Pale Saints and early Ride springing to mind immediately.
Unsubscriber Hallways Midwestern Medicine Credit Line Sunny Bear Forest Police Kar Twisted Teens Pack Of Jokers Imploders Bloodstains On The Big Screen Oolskunrahod Vengador Active Service Shoot First Stupid World Poor & Divided Citric Dummies Grant Richardson's Burning Wreckage Welcome Home Gare Du Nord The Flame No Time State Execution Gnats In My City Завірюга Гулять Snarewaves Poltergeist Sprgrs Me Han Robado Otra Vez Speed Week Tragic Creature Cheap Fix Soul Tune Gus Baldwin Cherrywood Gold Cup The Piss Has Been Taken
Tracklist
Liiek Myth TGRX Regulated Glueman Disposer Baby Tyler The Pressure Gonies Circuit Fatigue Sklitakling De stopper ikkje Perfil Bajo No cuela Liquid Cross Don't Think Teenage Tom Petties Teenage Thin Lizzies Missed Cues Like I Was Nothing Greg Wheeler and the Poly Mall Cops Violent Hues Power Pants I'm Not The Best The Smarthearts One on One Minot Walls
After their previous LP, though pretty fucking good already, still sounded a bit like stereotypical Berlin post punk on autopilot in some places, their second album (or third maybe, depending on what length you actually consider an LP) considerably widens their stylistic breadth and feels way more deliberately crafted and well thought through in comparison, imbuing their repetitive grooves with a heightened sense of feverish urgency while still calling to mind a number of primarily Berlin based groups like Pigeon, Pretty Hurts, Glaas, early Diät, Clock of Time or Exit Group.
The Des Moines, Iowa group already have an EP and a pretty neat first LP under their belt but i don't remember them ever ripping as hard as they do now on their sophomore album, sporting a sound that in parts feels pleasantly antiquated at this point, kinda as it these guys got stuck in a time loop around the mid-aughts to early '2010s garage punk era and they have the bottomless well of catchy-ass tunes and explosive performances to make that shit stick.
Right away the debut EP of this group based in Eugene, Oregon radiates a vibe reminding me of a number of short-lived noisy and melodic punk groups from the early 2010s like Milk Music, Fins and Dharma Dogs as well as the fairly recent bands Jolana Star and Psychic Dogs who seem determined to revive that timeless sound of borderline post punk-ish catchy punk tunes paying tribute to the eighties Homestead, SST Records and Touch & Go eras. So now you can add Liquid Cross to that list but also, there's a notable hint of early-days Protomartyr present here, most notably their second and third LPs, in no small part due to the singer's voice channeling a weary and melancholic quality quite similar to Protomartyr's Joe Casey.
Manchester's Gold Cup have already accumulated a number of notable EPs over the past couple years but in my book they really struck yellow for the first time with their newest golden shower of hits that is their fourth EP, walliowing in a sleazed-up hard-rockin' garage punk sound that seems to channel kind of a Golden Pelicans energy while in tunes like opener Zero Percent and closing tune King Crab, they refine the formula with faint echoes of oldschool AmRep-Style noise rock and a subtle hint of 90s postcore. Stuck On Repeat on the other hand is a catchy-as-hell borderline powerpop-ish tune of the highest caliber and The Piss Has Been Taken reminds me of another quite yellow jet of a band, Australia's own Pist Idiots.
Awesome new shit from Basque Country-based label Mendeku Diskak. First off there's a new EP of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania group Iron Breed on which they serve four delicious treats of catchy garage-flavored Oi! shit with an oldschool strummy power pop-ish quality to boot. The debut EP of Gare Du Nord, a group of somewhat nebulous international origin then feels a bit like the more rough and old-fashioned flipside to that same thing as they churn out no-frills catchy tunes with both a distinct '77 and eighties europunk flavor, kinda as if the current breed of french and belgian garage/oi!/post punk groups went all-in on their original inspiration.
For the last three years or so, Sprgrs of Granada, Spain have been an ever-present mainstay at the upper-mid tier of contemporary eggpunk groups and while they seem seem perfectly content with that status, reproducing the genre's basic ingredients with workmanlike consistency, it should also have become abundantly clear that these dudes came to stay and ain't going anywhere anytime soon. I'm fine with that, as there's still pleny of fun to be had with their music even if the day may never come on which they finally transcend the genre's self-imposed limitations. It's a very burger-and-fries type of record and sometimes you're just craving for ecactly that kind of musical junk food..
