These dudes’ music is still among the most unique things in the current crop of blackened and vaguely dungeon-themed punk bands with their uncharacteristically death rock- and post punk-informed take on the genre, even if some of their more recent releases struck me as a bit spotty and directionless. Well, direction is definitively less of an issue here, after their previous Cerebral EP marked kind of a return to form whose increasingly catchy, melodic flourishes get expanded upon here even though things may get a bit overstretched and uneven in the middle part, resulting a record thad kinda reflects their discography as a whole – starting with a bang, losing the plot a bit in the middle before steadily working its way back up to greatness towards the finale… which is basically the same trajectory as Twin Peaks season two for whatever that’s worth. Damn, it makes me wonder how Annie’s doing these days.
What Evil Eye from Charlotte, North Carolina pull off on their debut cassette is easy to describe on the surface as a straightforward strain of Garage Punk combining ’77-ish energy and catchyness with a KBD-like rawness and tons of Dead Boys- and Wipers-level Hooks, though as old as it all sounds on paper, as fresh and alive it all feels in practice and it’s all thanks to some top-notch oldschool songcraft at its core and an adequately rough and propulsive performance to make the tunes stick.
Shrudd from Louisville, Kentucky already have been a more than notable presence in the garage punk scene for a while but they really hit it out of the ballpark with their first longplayer No Man Is Good Three Times from last winter, leaving behind much of their humble eggpunk beginnings for a more fleshed-out, sophisticated sound very much on the psychedelic, spaced-out side of the garage- and post punk spectrum. A tough record to follow really, but with their first substantial release since then (leaving aside that silly christmas single from late last year) they’re doing a perfect job at that with two flawless new rippers in the previously established sonic spectrum of elaborate and kinda elegant post-/garage punk vaguely in the neighborhood of such groups as Mononegatives, Useless Eaters, Institute, Corker, Marbled Eye, Tube Alloys or Electric Prawns 2, but also very much their own thing really.
The former Synth-/Electro Punk one-man-band Klint based in Schleswig, Germany quite obviously has grown into a duo now and, as i’ve caught wind of some time ago already, is planning to finally hit the stages as a live act at some point and if you thought damn, these vocals sound unfamiliar this time around, then that’s because yes, it’s not the same dude doing the singing here. That minor technicality aside, Klint mostly stick to their winning and still completely unique-sounding formula of synth- and sample-based mayhem and if you dug previous Klint records, there’s no doubt you’ll happily absorb this one too.
Super neat thing, this newest EP by Götri of Jakarta, Indonesia, on which they craft an explosive cocktail of hardcore punk that’s as heavily garage-infused as it’s indebted to the classic early eighties era in its no-frills simplicity and unbroken momentum with every tune on here built around a minimal but effective hook and all the fat stripped away and what can i say, the shit just works!
Cincinnati, Ohio dudes Smarm are making a thoroughly promising impresson here on their debut EP sporting a completely unpretentious garage punk sound with a neat ’77- and proto punk edge that clearly pays tribute to some local punk heritage with plenty of a timeless Dead Boys energy to these tunes, excelling in a simple but perfectly balanced kind of songcraft that also perfectly nails it in terms of infectious hooks and a determined, straightforward no-bullshit performance.
Yet another excellent burst of quite 77-ish garage mayhem then is the the new Demo of 700 Club from Athens, Georgia whose three songs are captured in a way rougher sonic guise here compared to the relatively Hi-Fi production values of that Smarm record and a bit more of a Saints or Wipers bent to their songs, even crossing over into hardcore territory a bit in the closing tune No Cash and all throughout there’s also an actually quite contemporary-feeling infusion of Lumpy & The Dumpers or Fried E/m-like chaos goin’ on.
I was intrigued when the Brisbane-based label Grog Records (re-)issued the Hello, Mr. Operator EP by New York electro punks Hand Helds on cassette, originally released late last year. A closer look at their bandcamp profile reveals not only that they’ve had a new EP out in January already but also that quite obviously they’ve been at it for a while already, churning out a ton of EPs in a varying spectrum of dark and noisy garage punk, minimalist and often quite harsh synth- and electro punk. I’m pretty sure i already came across them in the past but i’m also reminded why i passed over that stuff back then, as much of their earlier cataloque sounds like the equivalent of throwing lots of shit at the wall to see what’s gonna stick. Anyway, a couple of things have stuck apparetly and on their latest two EPs, things click into place way more tightly thanks to a more minimalist and deliberate less-is-more approach. Hello Mr. Operator is certainly the cruder of the two EPs with a heavily Primitive Calculators and occasionaly Suicide-indebted brand of Synth Punk minimalism. The Transatlantic Death Machine EP then trades in the bass guitar for live drums and things get even wilder and, dare i say, kinda sophisticated, despite the best efforts and dissonant patterns of synth cacophony in tunes like Glue Tongue to obscure the fact. There’s a weird kraut-ish, motorik quality to the whole thing and a successful approach of trimming the fat while giving attention to the details that matter, all of which positions these two records a couple notches above your average electro-kraut effort or no wave-ish ’80s synth punk throwback.
After the grave diasppointment that was the too-slick-for-its-own-good, overly sanitized second Poison Ruïn LP recently, i’m glad to have come across this neat substitute drug created by a Philadelphia group, scratching some similar itch of strongly ’80s heavy metal-influenced, dungeon-adjacent punk, even if the overall style here feels more at home in the wider hardcore and d-beat landscape. Nonetheless, if you take a closer listen these tunes reveal an abundance of sophistication, attention to detail and tons of highly captivating hooks to both anchor and elevate these seven bursts of breakneck-speed ecstasy.
