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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
D.Sablu Free Speech For The Dumb Badtime Sick Leave Jocks Shinzo Speedy Muffler Ain't Too Bad The Bad Plug Macho Man Altos Hornos Caballero, por favor The Oidz Jackin off in the U.F.O Auditing Time Eroded Vault Door Gorgonis Want, Need Kiloff Holokaust Plemników Rare Spam Signature´s Wack Outside View Blue Law Gangrena Surf La Sotana
Null Tone Politimann Og Atomkrig Z.O.L. Rolltreppe Nylon Mind Control Hood Rats Cold As Ice Aldi Ost Boss ≠ Friend No Refund$ Misinformation Knome Year of the Knome Necron 9 Not Me Video Evidence Fluid Exchange The Hell Last Chapter Cleanser Bloodlines Sympos Soft Society Steröid Through The Night
Tracklist
Famous Logs in History Data Mind Olivia's World Weird Guy Ÿdeg Ui Ardan No Control Marcel Basho Basho Basho Headlegs Fog Rhoads Incompatibility Zero Discount Kein Geheimnis Snarewaves Str8 From The Basement Corpus Earthling Neon Slime
Motorbike Currency Private Lives Dealer's Choice Stepmother Vacant State Gummi Bazooka Last Waltzon I Can't Cook Beta Máximo Delirio en el naufragio Distance A La Surface Real Sickies Over Thought About It Dumbells Seeds Eel Men Sixteen Numbers
There's just no other way to put it: Sophisticated oldschool-ish noise rock is going through kind of a rough patch right now with unique and outstanding releases in the genre being precious few and far between. Even in these times though, Germany's genre overlords Trigger Cut just keep delivering the goods, reminding of - and hopefully also paving a way toward - better times. As usual this shit covers a wide range of the hallmarks of golden age groups such as Bastro, Cows, Rapeman, Distorted Pony, Drunks With Guns and Dazzling Killmen, even some slight hints of Tragic Mulatto in Crash Crew for example. Of more recent groups you may find similarities to the likes of Multicult, STNNG, Leaves, Body House, Elephant Rifle, Help and Overtime. All that said, more than ever - as has already been an increasing tendency on their previous LPs, - they absolutely transcend the obvious influences towards an unmistakable voice very much of their own while keeping us on our toes at all times, with each of these songs incorporating more unique decisions, twists and turns than your average contemporary noise rock/postcore act would come up with for a whole LP - you just can't ever predict where they're gonna go next!
