Toys That Kill – Backwash Me The Antidote
Triple Sabotage releases February 20th via Recess Records.
CS Cleaners – Come & Go
Buddhadatta – The Journey Of Earthly Desires
Buddha & Devadatta releases December 26th.
Ace Of Spit – Cole’s Chopper
Ace Of Spit II releases January 3rd via Sinkhole Records & Wombat Cock.
Bleakness – The Left Behind
Blurred Visions releases February 27th via Vicious Circle Records.
Tacoblaster – Toxic Surfer
Digital Fun-Zone! releases January 30th via Howlin' Banana Records.
Outside View – Fuck ICE
Fantasma – Quase
Their brilliant demo in 2023 and an equally rippin' digital 2-track single in 2024 already had me hyped up good for this group revolving around two Brazilians in New York with further participation of, among others, Margaret Chardiet of Dollhouse and Pharmakon. So finally here's their first longplayer out on UK powerhouse label Drunken Sailor Records and who would've guessed... it's yet another freakin' great record! I've previously compared their sound to Straw Man Army and partly that still holds true here but there's also plenty of evidence of the group expanding their musical horizon way beyond that and most noticeably, leaning in on their more melodic tendencies and some kinda ethereal, meditative, almost psychedelic undercurrents most notably in tunes like Lugares Mais Altos. The bandcamp blurb also mentions both old UK anarcho punk and Wire as influences, a pair of shoes that i'm gonna say also fits them quite perfectly and concerning Wire in particular, y'all know i'm always gonna approve of that!
Album-Stream →Total Revolt Of All Limbs – Entropy
Now this is what i call a bulky, filthy clump of abrasive noise that greets us on this Vienna based group's second Tape and their first full length effort at that. At first glance, this shit appears to primarily channel the likes of Flipper, No Trend and a touch of early Swans, plus a decent chunk of old No Wave-ish excess. But listen a bit closer and you can also sense distinct echoes of eighties japanese psych-noise groups like The Rabbits or the the US art punk classics of Chrome and MX-80. Tunes like Entropy, then again, have a bit more of an early 2010s Copenhagen vibe á la Lower and Iceage to them and while i'm already namedropping shit from that era, there might aswell be a bit of Soupcans in there. Anyway, this is fourty excellent minutes of weapons-grade sonic assault to overwhelm your senses, blow your mental fuses, bypass all inhibitions and when it's done with you, you just feel gross and wanna take a fucking shower ASAP so yeah, this record accomplishes everything it set out to do.
Album-Stream →Pill Mill – Pill Mill
There's nothing worse than kinda mid hardcore groups, the bane of my existence. What was i trying to say now? I forgot. Anyway, the new Pill Mill EP certainly ain't that. As far as fairly oldschool hardcore goes, these eight tunes in just over eight minutes deliver all the thrills you could wish for - an utterly deranged performance hammering itself home with unrelenting force and momentum but also packed with plenty of catchy-as-fuck hooks and an abundance of neat twists, turns and nutty ideas.
Album-Stream →Walter Ego – Smoke On The Walter
First-rate new eggpunk goodness comes to us from one-man-band bedroom project Walter Ego out of Aschaffenburg, Germany. While this shit no doubt dabbles in, at this point, quite familiar sounding territory with varying echoes of such genre powerhouses like Prision Affair, Billiam, Beer, Set-Top Box or Nuts, it also never fails to hit the spot dead-on in a perfectly dialed-in mid-fi aesthetic balancing garage crunch with eggpunk whims and quirks and on top of it all, Race The Alps and even more so the closing track Forevermore (In The Dungeon) are nothing short of certified instant genre classics.
Album-Stream →DE()T – Welcome To The Idiot Factory
Last year's full length debut of this Raleigh, North Carolina group already made a lasting impression and their latest EP via the local scene bulwark Sorry State Records continues in a similar vein, although there are also gradual changes to be gleaned here, with their overall aesthetic feeling more playful this time and not quite as grim as it still was on the LP, with those quirky toy keyboard vibes and a good deal of nutty ideas making for an excellent counterweight to their otherwise pretty much wrecking ball-like sound inbetween the worlds of Noise Rock, Post- and Synth Punk that once again reminds me a lot of groups á la Isotope Soap, Broken Prayer, Powerplant, Kerozine or Beef.
Album-Stream →Pen16 – Magic Touch
Now that's an impressively confident second EP by this Philadelphia group, newly (re-)issued on a neat pink cassette now by pop-ish punk specialist label Dead Broke Rekerds, presenting a dense package of high calorie catchy earworms that combine a slight hint of early '90s indie rockers á la Superchunk, Sebadoh, Seam and Superdrag with an even stronger dose of present-day power pop sensations like Teenage Tom Petties, Bad Sports, Teen Line, Night Court, Tommy And The Commies, Ex-Gold and Mr. Teenage and it's their infallible songwriting capability that really elevates these tunes.
Album-Stream →Havana Syndrome – Kill Your Brain
A hefty charge of synth-enhanced in-your-face hardcore and garage punk driving straight into the abyss in an act of blissful defiance, that's what we're geting on the debut tape of Buffalo NY group Havana Syndrome. On one hand this shit has a bit of an unhinged Lumpy And The Dumpers energy and a straightforward attack akin to that Feed/Zhoop/Brundle/Nightman/etc dude but just as much i feel reminded of a number of varyingly egg-leaning groups like Baltomore's Quitter, Italy's own The Bad Plug, the greek eggpunk pest that is Μπριτζολιτσεσ and there's also an undeniable hint of early Skull Cult or Research Reactor Corp at play here.
Album-Stream →Snarewaves – Alcohol Ladder
The newest three minutes of Snarewaves noise may be the first time we witness some cautious tweaking of their winning fuzz punk formula, insofar as the first three tracks not only slow things down just a notch but also see them de-cluttering their sonics just enough to make the underlying toolset almost discernable, like, for the first time i'm like 80% confident that we're hearing an actual guitar here rather than (as i previously suspected) oldschool bit-crushed samples and the good news is that their tunes are more capable than ever of carrying that shit along even when forced through somewhat less of a sonic meatgrinder, slightly less reliant on the obscuring and flattering qualities of that super-crunchy aesthetic, though it certainly helps nonetheless.