Sunflowers – Chameleon Kid
You Have Fallen... Congratulations! releases November 7th via Fuzz Club Records.
Emmett O’Connor – 9 From The Warped Mind
Quirky LoFi-ish toy synth punk goodness from Cleveland, Ohio dude Emmett O'Connor who may already be a familiar figure to some as a member of Archie and the Bunkers and MK Ultras. Now on this solo longplaying effort he's creating a warm, rich and full sound out of minimal means, poured into a number of strikingly simple but infallibly excellent power pop tunes that often have the feel a slightly sedated, toned-down and bedroom-dwelling budget version of Digital Leather's most catchy pop moments.
Album-Stream →Knowso – Hypnotic Smack
With the recent Cruelster LP still quite hot out of the oven, here's the newest artifact of another Nathan Ward-fronted group already, the significantly more angular and methodical yet unmistakably related Knowso, whose recent Optimism / Foot Of Pride cassingle had also landed just mere weeks ago. As usual this shit is operating pretty much on the bleeding edge of repetitive post- and art punk weirdness, performed by a bunch of flawlessly rotating, well-greased man machines. Really i can't think of many other bands able to present such rigid and choppy compositions with such a frictionless drive and unbroken momentum. That's not to say their music weren't also catchy as fuck most of the time and especially in the second half here, tunes like Consumer Talk and Panopticon show them expanding on their melodic undercurrents for some of their most immediately striking and accessible tunes so far.
Album-Stream →Dark Thoughts – Highway To The End
Man, it must have been ages since we last heard of this Philadelphia group, which for a long time has been one of the probably less then ten bands you could plausibly qualify as "pop punk" that doesn't make me desperately flee the room in a matter of seconds. Dark Thoughts still prove they're capable of pulling off that impossible trick and all it takes them to do so is one of the most beefy yet slick garage punk sounds around, a feisty, determined performance and a perfect hit ratio when it comes to simple, tried-and-tested but always perfectly to-the-point punk songcraft.
Album-Stream →Snarewaves – DIY / Snarewaves
And again, there's two New Snarewaves releases already! Not only did a digital EP drop like two weeks ago, there's also a new cassingle via Knuckles on Stun with an epic length of exactly one minute on which you'll have to make up your own mind about whether or not it's worth shelling out four-and-a-half USD for the running time equivalent of three-fifths your average punk tune. Anyway, as usual these are a bunch of excellent new burst of quite singular and eccentric, blown-out garage-/synth-/electro punk that's equally simple, catchy and explosive.
Album-Stream →Snooper – Worldwide
Worldwide releases October 3rd via Third Man Records.
Prayer Group – Plagiarism
Strawberry releases August 29th via Reptilian Records.
The 1981 – Soft Goodbye
Soft Goodbye / Count On Me releases August 19th via Dandy Boy Records.
Acid Casualties – Langley
Flags Are False releases September 5th via Iron Lung Records.
Cel Ray – Raw God
The Antics – Takings
Crying Form – Victim Of Ignorance / Value Menu
Dick Move – Fuck It
Metho – Metholated Spirit
Tom Lyngcoln, previously probably best known for his old groups Pale Heads and The Nation Blue, really hit upon something special with his 2020 solo LP Raging Head and its larger-than-life dramas combining oldschool postcore with rustic americana elements, condensed down to fit into a super-economic, minimal footprint. So now we get to witness his newest band and kind of a spiritual successor to that one-off project, featuring further familiar faces like the garage punk supreme being that is Jackson Reid Briggs (currently of Split System), Callum Foley of The Blinds, The Stevens (he also played on Raging Head) and old gun Jay Jones, who had also provided the drum recordings Raging Head was built around and who apparently has played in a shit-ton of groups all the way since the mid-'90s that i'm just a bit too young to remember. Most of all it's still Lyngcoln's own distinct handwriting that's front and center here though, with the whole thing playing out like a considerably rougher spin on his solo LP, more spontaneous and immediate, compraratively messy and cluttered in a good way. There's one other thing i'm reminded of a little here and that's the bands of Atlanta's Josh Feigert and particularly his more recent groups like Uniform, Glittering Insects and Mother's Milk.
Album-Stream →