Now here's a true mystery band for ya that may well originate from earth's inner core or from Saturn's rings or Bavaria or the nth circle of hell, or maybe i'm just imagining the whole thing i don't know what the fuck is going on here. But in case that shit's actually real, i'll try to describe it as the sort of at best tangentially egg-infused, spaced-out psych punk of the most out-there and deraged breed, the kind you'd imagine being blown through the raptured speaker cone of some ancient haunted AM radio coming alive and blaring away each night in an abandoned shopping mall or hospital building or whatever. Quite appropriately, these broadcasts themselves are about as impenetrable as any old numbers station dispatch, probably unrivaled in the 12XU class of '26 in terms of sheer unsettling disorientation as these tunes appear intentionally set-up to catastrophically fail at any moment in unpredictable ways but rather miraculously, the fragile structures holding things in place here, as much as they keep swaying and creaking incessantly, never quite collapse, but rather even expose a good deal of quite catchy garage hooks under their deep layers of grime and fuzz. Though not completely unheard of in our spheres - i'll say Psychal have a number of spiritual peers in the likes of Zoids, Silicon Heartbeat, Corpus Earthling, Mateo Manic or Thee Hearses for example - you've rarely encountered a specimen of this kind going quite as far in its boundless excess of acid rock depravity.
One of hard-/postcore's most incorruptible acts of recent years returns with yet another kickass record that doesn't sound like much else these days, apparently still not feeling any urge to significantly polish up their sound which of course doesn't mean there hasn't been tons of growth and refinement to their music along the way, which more than ever feels like a comprehensive round-trip through a decent stretch of the more out-there and weird fringes of artsy early eighties punk and hardcore history. This shit is just about the roughest-sounding material these Olympia, Washington based folks have done in a while, yet there's always a strikingly purpusefully crafted quality to their sonic chaos, the kind only a group as wildly superior and creative as Fugitive Bubble can pull off so consistently and effortlessly.
Leicester, England dude Roo Stafford appears to be on a roll right now, firing off another batch of first-rate garage punk projectiles just about a couple weeks after the pretty fucking excellent Stoned & Running EP. This time i get a less pronounced sense of 2010s proto-egg vibes and am instead reminded a lot of different groups from that same era á la Kid Chrome, S.B.F., Urochromes or Andy Human & The Reptoids, though beyond that welcome flashback to what i'll call 12XU's formative years, this kind of shit has also been kept alive in recent times by the likes of Jean Mignon or D. Sablu for example. Anyway, this is yes another viciously addictive treat of this particular kind.
In the current, heavily consolidated and codified eggpunk era, the third EP of NYC's Raybees doesn't exactly break the genre mold on a surface level, but stil sticks out by at least bending the rules a decent bit, elevating what at first glance could have been yet another average artifact of the Prison Affair school with a more cluttered production aethetic and what sounds to me like some truly fun pots-pans-and-washbasket style bedroom drumming laid atop the otherwise kinda standard vintage electric beats. There's a genuine sense of joy and a creative spark emanating from these songs which the genre is often lacking for me more recently and it certainly helps that there are some heavy-duty songwriting chops on display here too, especially in the increasingly synth-dominated second half with tunes like Knife Fight and the closer Victory March having more than just a little of an oldschool Digital Leather feel to them.
This dude from Lawrence, Kansas who's apparently also been making sick noises with the likes of Ghoulies (not to be confused with the australian egg punks of the same name), Jackoffs and Drastic Plastic, now has another quite enticing treat for us in the form of a solo cassette that captivates right away with a make of somewhat glam-, southern rock and power pop-infused garage punk goodness that sits somewhere in the neighborhood of the early Sheer Mag singles, early works of Powerplant and more recently the incredible Elvis 2 LP. The last two tracks can't quite live up to that level of brilliance but damn, for such a quick-shot effort written and recorded in just a couple weeks this ain't shabby at all. Looking forward to more.
The newest EP by Sprgrs from Granada, Spain is yet another egg-ish artifact that appears to adhere a bit too closely to a standard genre formula in its early stretch and wouldn't have been much to write home about if it weren't so dramatically upping its game with every successive tune, continuously moving away from a tired Prison Affair-informed template towards one leaning heavier on the increasing quality of its song material whose strengths really start to kick in from the third song onwards although admittedly, they kinda regress back to their old ways in the closing tune Trabaja. But hey, it's the year 2026 where we just don't have many good things anymore, let alone in eggpunk specifically, so i'm not gonna complain about an EP with three such certified bangers on it and i'll call that kind of thing a keeper in this new era of tempered expectations.
Unga Joacim Kängslickare Harry W Theme Song 6o6o Todo lo que dijo Ruido Visual Desequilibrio Mental Why Bother? Farm Pollution Anytime Cowboy Concerned Citizen Fast Johnny And The Slow Burners Cold World Dragnet Para-noid Press Release Plaster Zongo! I Wanted You All To Myself Spread Joy Pygmalion Aidmoozic 1973 Guiding Light Haare Xray Xeroxx That's Why I Do Drugs
The Moids It Aint Right Doltz Sterling Nose Hair Tangerine Roo Stafford White Paint Lithophones Too Tired To Hate Headcheese Dump Run OWOW M30 Blues Clues Que Lindo What Else? Attest Dread Crazy Clue Slavedriver Military School Hammerhead Vague Fugue I'm Still High Baby Killer Seven and Seven Is
Tracklist
Gloves Leeches Decoder Honey Radar Song for the Public Universal Friend Search Results Secret Bench in the Bardo Traps PS Primitive Object Soft Shoulder (The Theme From) Some Thing Balaclava Love Bog Ismatic Guru It’s Nothing Snout Fever The Rat Tense You Can´t Cheat Hinin Cauchemars Blank Chrome Punk Costume
TestXanny Stars See Right Through JJ Sizza 50 Cent Coin The Easy Eight Hanging On The Wall Polish Gifts Buyer's Market Grand Final Who Runs the Game? Power Pants Any Day Now Sex Mex Asshole OBI Strip Polaroid Postcard Monda Until it Shines 1-800-Mikey Pleasant Morning I Will Die In This Jean Jacket Careless
