Excellent shit straddling the fine line between hard- and postcore with a smidge of garage thrown in is what we get on the debut EP of Winnipeg group Jug, reaching our shores courtesy of the always reliable Vancouver noise forge Neon Taste Records. Their sound encapsulates exactly the rough and unruly qualities i seek out most from these genres, at the same time sounding reasonably elaborate and well-constructed. At points, you might draw comparisons to stuff like Acrylics, Mystic Inane, Arse, Daydream, Video, Crisis Man, early Bad Breeding… plus a surprise hint of '77 New York in My Body's Doomed!
Similar things, albeit in a somwhat dumber, equally fun and delightfully primitive fashion, are then brought forth on the debut LP of Milwaukee's Innuendo which has just dropped via Unlawful Assambly and Roach Leg Records and on which they hit a sweet spot between simple and stupid oldschool hardcore energy and KBD-drenched garage insanity, ingredients that have stood the test of time being presented in a way here that still feels fresh and alive.
After a somewhat mixed bag of a cassette four years ago and a string of collaboration EPs with the likes of Eyes And Flies, Science Man and Ricky Hell, the newest album and accompanying extended play cassette of Buffalo, NY group Nervous Tick and the Zipper Lips sees them returning at their most focused to date, their mix of post-, garage- and synth punk with just a slight hint of industrial coming across like a decent middle ground between, say, Droids Blood, Beef and The Spits - far from reinventing the wheel here but always energetic, catchy and effective.
iPad Baby of Glassboro, New Jersey first came to my attention with a fun little debut EP last fall but their newest EP/mini-LP thingy is just a so much stronger, more consistent effort in which they dial the weird energy and creativity up to eleven, coalescing into a new lump of completely off-the-rails insanity sure to please discerning fans of all kinds of other unmedicated, beautiful trainwrecks in the realm of Egg-, Synth- and Garage Punk as done by the likes of Zoids, The Gobs, Mateo Manic, Prison Affair, Metdog, Nuts or Nubot555, to name a few.
Another bomb has just dropped via Tetryon Tapes. The previous EP Better Homes & Gardens by the Rochester, NY group was a perfectly fun occasion already, albeit one still kinda struggling to seamlessly integrate their oldschool '70s/'80s metal elements into their overall aesthetic. This new cassette rectifies this in part by way of a rough-as-fuck Lo-Fi sound that simply fits them a lot better while their powers of song construction have undoubtedly made plenty of progress as well, resulting in an unforgiving force that skillfully imbues some of the most furious instances oldschool hardcore grime and filth with a distinct dungeon punk note.
