Lifeguard – It Will Get Worse
Ripped and Torn releases June 6th via Matador Records.
Blowers – Tony’s In Hospital Again
Blowmania releases April 28th via Chaputa Records (EU) & Trash Cult Records (AUS).
Technopolice – Hellastic Mr. Pox
Slippers – Guess I Started A Band
Snarewaves – Fashionista
Gerber and the Babies – Gerber and the Babies
Another kickass Painter's Tape by yet another Detroit garage group excelling in a moderately egg-ish take on more-or-less contemporary Garage- and Synth Punk that, once you made it past the cheesy intro, doesn't sound very cute at all and much darker than expected with a distinct post punk-ish feel to tracks like Paranoia and quite a bit of stylistic freedom and flexibility reminding me at different points of such groups as S.B.F., Ghoulies, Spits, Stalins Of Sound, Kid Chrome, Lost Sounds, Mind Spiders, Sex Mex, Exit Mould, The Gobs, Broken Prayer and Kerozine.
Album-Stream →Mr. Piss – Mr. Piss
A worthy addition to the see/saw-sourced piss bands spreadsheet comes from some Raleigh, North Carolina dude or band creating a fun mix of noise rock and garage punk with hammering Big Black-esque drum machine beats, although i'm gonna say that despite some decidedly Albini-esque guitar noises being contained in here aswell, the overall vibe reminds me more of London's World Domination Enterprises and, to a lesser extent, their fellow brits The Membranes who also had a quite Big Black-ish phase in the late eighties, while the most garage-leaning tracks like Meat Tenderizer evoke the way more stripped-down, minimalistic prototypes of Métal Urbain / Dr. Mix And The Remix with further possible references being the likes Scratch Acid and Brainiac. So yeah, this is good shit!
Album-Stream →Dad Joke – How Many Songs Can You Handle This Night
These croatian punks didn't take long to completely win me over with their joyous and odd garage punk mixture of cowpunk-y X (US) and Gun Club vibes, Angst-ish folk punk sprinkles and tons of early Minutemen-esque, freewheeling anything-goes funky post punk weirdnes that also calls to mind a wild bunch of contemporary acts like Ismatic Guru, Patti, Tyvek, Print Head and Shark Toys, while the the sort-of-theme-tune Dad Joke almost feels like an authentic throwback to old DIY brits á la Mekons, Television Personalities and Desperate Bicycles.
Album-Stream →Negative Outlook – Negative Outlook
Oooh-kay, so this is supposed to be the new project of some old british-american punk geezer but to be perfectly honest, i'm fairly positive that you can't take anything of what's written on their bandcamp page at face value. Anyway, this is some ripping shit. It's a noisy, fuzzed out explosive concoction of garage- and post punk with just a smidge of '90s indie rock and old britisch DIY thrown in for good measure. Devotees of actually not-that-old groups á la Shark Toys, Tyvek, Parquet Courts and earlier Cloud Nothings are gonna approve of this.
Album-Stream →Slick – EP1
This Madison, Wisconsin group delivers a thoroughly compelling third EP here, made up of mid-eighties to early-nineties melodic punk and indie rock of the heavily Dinosaur Jr., Superchunk, Jawbreaker, Archers Of Loaf and Sebadoh-informed kind that also also got a second wind roughly two decades later with bands like California X, Kicking Spit, Happy Diving, Fins and - most of all - Milk Music giving this sound a mild resurgence back then. Also, especially in Dust, there's a bit of a Pitchfork / Drive Like Jehu vibe going on. Nowadays, all of this shit strikes me as timelessly old-fashioned in the most pleasing way, its consistently way-above-average quality underpinned all the way through by an ultra-solid set of underlying tunes.
Album-Stream →The Bad Plug – Macho Man
This Milan, Italy group has already made some smaller ripples in the garage punk scene with a constant drip of singles and EPs starting in 2022, but i'm gonna say they're really coming into their own on their newest EP on which they streamline the old records' comparatively blunt force into a more compact and wieldy vision overall, their high-impact garage-/synth punk mixture holding an ultra-stable balance of catchyness and relentless propulsion while still leaving plenty of room for experimentation and general weirdness, most notable here being the title track which may qualify as a contender for the most unhinged Village People cover tune ever, transferring that old sock about touching and feeling everyone's bodies into a kind of sonic insanity that reminds me more than just a little of the early works of Skull Cult.
Album-Stream →Snooper – Unknown Caller
I can't ever have enough snooper tunes in my life so this new tour EP is more than welcome even if it feels like a little bit of a cheat, consisting only like 60% of actual new songs while the other 40% are made up of two rather inessential instances of experimentation and fucking around. The two "actual" tunes are high-octane rippers though, driven by electric beats a bit like we've kinda already heard in the track Subdivision from their 2022 Town Topic EP, although the energy level here is almost brutal in direct comparison, catapulting their sound into some straight electro punk territory with the songs themselves striking me as pretty classic, first-rate Snooper material. Now if these folks just could make up their minds to actually play a show or two in the western parts of germany on their next tour, that would make me a very happy boy. There are egg punk afficinados living in places other than Berlin, you know...
Milquetoast – Lamest Dystopia
Total Fucking Milquetoast releases June 20th via Pout Records.
Piss Me Off – Slide The Shell
Debt With The World releases April 25th via Delayed Gratification Records.
AACKR – WTF
WTF releases June 14th via Mörtel Sounds.
