Verspannungskassette #85
Tracklist
Jimsobbins Strange Interior
D.I.V.A. Eyes
Rude Television Digital Frustration
Titanium Exposé Different Outcome
Larry & Thee Jerrys Spongeworthy
Winky Frown Coinwash
Fast johnny and The Slow Burners Dog Eat Dog
Narkose Dienstherr
Poo Poo Talks Balls Deep
Licklash Control
Time Room Saved
Benzin Krise
Sux Wasted
Bad Shout Building Bridges
Power Shovel Fat
X2000 Morbo y Fascinación
Fogbank Fang
Lexan Putting Your Dog Down
Nagasaki Sunrise Pacific Nightmare Ain't Over
Tracklist
Eel Men Exeter Exit
Solderer Tickboxes
Demo Rally Buen Amigo
The Unfit Gatekeepers
Last Quokka OTC
The War Goes On Fire Walk With Me
Impotentie In De Koolmijn Ft. Béton Armé/Puffer
Exwhite Deaf
Eye Ball Rubber Hammers
Hyperdog Sugar Rush
Goverment Sex Life In The Death Lane
Sex Mex I Love Everyone
Power Pants Just Go With It
Bad Idea USA Drive Slow
Monda Creek Time
Gem Got It Right The First Time
Demo Rally – Volumen 1
Quality shit as usual from the ever-reliable spanish post punk stronghold Flexidiscos. On their debut LP, this Valencia group conjures up quite the storm of smart and angular, yet never tiresome noise that comes across like an amalagamation of the No Wave-ish noise rock / post punk abstractions of Spray Paint with a number of similarly genre-fluid crossover acts like the contorted, interlocking garage punk grooves of Uranium Club, Reality Group and Vintage Crop on one hand, the eccentric post punk constructions of acts á la Rolex, Knowso, Meal, Exit Group, early Marbled Eye and Patti on the other. All of it feels way less grating and catchier than you'd expect, propelled ahead with unrestrained drive and concentrated, punctually applied energy.
Album-Stream →Narkose – Überleben Koexistenz
A bit of a paradox, this record by a Berlin group which, on one hand, feels probably the most quintessentially Berlin-like of anything i've heard this year, yet eludes any straight comparison i could draw to any more-or-less contemporary group of that scene. The best of which that i could come up with are Hyäne, who put out two incredible singles and an equally good LP between 2016-2018, although this shit here feels even more rough, oldschool and primitive, rooted in more of an '80s punk and hardcore background. All of that notwithstanding, i'd also say that fans of groups such as Die Verlierer, Kalte Hand, Maske, Pigeon and Gesture just might get a kick out of this, as there's undeniably at least some sort of a common thread running through all of that stuff.
*edit*
In the time-honored tradition of me writing ill-informed stupid fucking shit, it turns out this group ain't from Berlin at all (only their label is) but not too far from my own doorstep instead, somewhere in the wider Ruhr area. No wonder they're this pissed then. Thrilling shit. How am i gonna fuck up next? Stay tuned!
Exwhite – Balkan Tour Tape
In case the previous LP of this Leipzig/Berlin-based group was a bit too tidy, conventional and well-produced for your taste, then rejoice!... 'cos that new cassette may be right up your alley as a hyperactive and noisy, glorious mess showcasing a band just following their creative whims wherever they may take them in thirty minutes comprised of found-sound interludes, zany bits and jokes and plenty of certified bangers along the way, once again approaching the weirdness and fun of their admittedly kinda hard-to-beat 2022 Estray LP.
Album-Stream →The War Goes On – Death Wish
I never came across this Copenhagen group before, although they've apparently been around for well over a decade by now. Right out of the gate, their third LP radiates an eerily familiar vibe yet looking a bit closer, there's more goin' on with this record than meets the eye at first glance. While the slight folk- and cowpunk vibes of the openening track call to mind the folk-ish post punk acts Dead Finks, Optic Nerve and the nervous garage punk twitch of Hank Wood & The Hammerheads, i'd say that subsequently, this record settles into an aesthetic blurring the line between straight-up catchy punk rock and a darker post punk feel, similar in one way or another to such groups like Xetas, Red Dons, later Naked Raygun, Warp Lines, Dead Years and Telecult. Also, there's some neat Leatherface-esque guitar work going on here and a melancholic quality that reminds me of shit like The Misanthropes and early The Estranged.
Album-Stream →Rude Television – Disconnect
No unpleasant surprises here, the newest EP of West Palm Beach, Florida group Rude Television is yet another high caliber projectile of catchy, egg-ish garage punk excellence and highly recommended for friends similar shit á la Gee Tee, Erik Nervous, Set-Top Box, Satanic Togas, Power Pants or Tommy Cossack & The Degenerators. Hell, that closing track Rat Bastard may well come to be regarded among the genre's all-time greats in retrospect.
Album-Stream →Solderer – Normal Style
Like a rougher companion piece to the Demo Rally LP i'm gonna be postin' about in just a minute, the debut LP of this Leeds group from late summer - now given a cassette release by french label Discos Peroquébien - delivers more of that excellent noisy and no wave-ish post punk eccentricity, the possible influences of which alternating between such agents of dissonant chaos as Spray Paint, Brandy, Rolex, Lumpy and the Dumpers, Cutie and Soupcans, while comparatively slow and disciplined tracks like Bog Witch even exude a bit of a classic '90s Chicago-style math-/postcore energy.
Album-Stream →Titanium Exposé – Disorders
The debut tape via Goodbye Boozy of this Haarlem, Netherlands group is yet another quality release of egg-adjacent, unwieldy garage punk chaos that kinda sounds like a synth-infused Uranium Club in its more streamlined and restrained moments while at other points reaching a level of weirdness akin to infamous garage punk bafflers and headscratchers á la Checkpoint, Pressure Pin, Liquid Face, Skull Cult and Belly Jelly.
Album-Stream →Winky Frown – ;(ii
Just like on their debut EP, the Ottawa, Ontario group delivers a quick batch of oddball eggpunk chaos which at first glance appears to fit squarely into the genre's established tropes and parameters with groups such as Clarko, Prison Affair, Beer, Beta Maximo and Smirk being some of the obvious comparisons. On closer inspection though, this shit reveals many deeper qualities not least thanks to some pieces of top-notch songcraft, tons unexpectedly catchy hooks and plenty of novel ideas sprinkled throughout. This group is successfully punching way above its proposed weight with tons of musical substance in here to anchor the quirky aesthetics - way more effort under the hood than would be deemed necessary for your average egg artifact.
Album-Stream →X2000 – Gótico Tropical
The 2020 debut EP of this spanish-singing swedish group still fit in (maybe a bit too) well with what i'd probably have described as your typical hardcore- and death rock-adjacent "dark punk" fare in the prior decade, though the 2021 split tape with Iceland's genre mainstay Dauðyflin showed some steady progress already. Now, with their newest mini-LP, i'm gonna say they're finally reaching peak performance and beginning to transcend their kinda restrictive genre surroundings with a bunch of new tunes that - though not actually inventing anything new here - tweak the genre's basic nuts and bolts to absolute perfection in a breathless succession of immaculately built bursts of death and despair that keep things thrilling and interesting from start to finish, a quality that sadly has become a bit of a rarity in that particular niche.
Album-Stream →Hyperdog – Tales From The Mountain
Hyperdog have already been on my radar thanks to a neat debut LP and two not at all lousy demos, though the austrian group's formula has never clicked into place as nicely as on their newest extended play cassette via Goodbye Boozy Records. This is is fuzzy garage punk with at times uncharacteristically relaxed tempos and a glittering psychedelic surface that reminds me a lot of Beta Máximo's sparkling noise pop color splashes.
Yacht Fire – Yacht Fire
This Portland group's debut EP delights with an effortlessly cool make of fuzz punk alternating between melodic noise pop gems that kinda resemble rougher and simpler variants of early No Age, Terry Malts, Male Bonding, Why Bother?, The Wind Ups or Deletions, and a couple of even more primal bursts that call to mind the likes of Buck Biloxi, Lumpy and the Dumpers, Giorgio Murderer, Bart and the Brats and that Zhoop/Djinn/Feed/etc. dude. Closing out the bunch is a neat acoustic tune that doesn't shit the bed either.
Album-Stream →Eye Ball – Rubber Hammers
This group of uspecified origin has kept things short and sweet so far and they keep it that way on their third one in a series of digital 2-track singles aswell, once again pulling off two perfect little explosions of catchy-as-fuck melodic garage punk that fans of shit roughly in the manner of Marked Men, Radioactivity, Sonic Avenues, Cheap Whine and early Sweet Reaper should under no circumstances miss out on!
Bad Shout – Volatile
Cardiff's Bad Shout already had a promising debut EP out in 2023 and an even stronger second one this summer, yet so far thay never managed to escape that dreaded "not quite there yet"-status in my humble opinion. Well guess what, Bad Shout are so fucking there now with their third extended play on which they alternate between well-worn bluesy oldschool garage punk smashers, hardcore outbursts and power pop-ish, '77-infused earworms with that slight Dickies note to them, among other things.
Album-Stream →