This Boston group has six unresistably smelly puddles of oldschool-ish garage punk action for us that fit roughly inbetween the basic parameters of classic Reatard(s), golden-era Liquids and more KBD-inspired shit we've heard from the likes of Freakees and Launcher, with a couple pop-nuggets thrown in that remind me of stuff á la Dark Thoughts or early Vaguess. There's nothing terribly smart or original about it really but the tunes, performances and attitude are just spot-on and whenever i'm craving some basic no-frills catchy garage mayhem, this shit's just gonna fit the bill.
They've been around for way longer than i first realized, this Cleveland, Ohio group featuring, among others, Mickey Mocnik of Nervosas fame who's later also been making awesome noise with The Missed and, most recently, Vital Stress. Anyway, last year's Adaptor EP certainly saw the group move on a bit from their earlier sound dominated by echoes of late '80s, early '90s punk and indie rock-ish vibes with a slight touch of Fastbacks toward a more fleshed-out, kinda contemporary-feeling, yet also perfectly timeless brand of fuzzy, garage-y noise pop with some subtle traces of psychedelia and post punk on top. On this new one, they once again channel their energies into an even more catchy and compact bundle of tunes which once again call to mind mostly 2010s groups like Feature, UV-TV, Slowcoaches or Monster Treasure.
Vague Fugue already had a neat EP out last year even though that one still suffered a bit from a kinda plain production aesthetic which brought out a bit too much of a middle-of-the-road garage dadpunk vibe to fully vibe with me. I dunno, it just didn't feel quite appropriate or flattering to their sound, a stark difference to the muddy LoFi fog of this new tape, which frames their anachronistic mayhem as just the kind of drugged- and fuzzed-out satan worshipping acid rock the first EP already strongly hinted at, but couldn't quite sell. This shit sounds perfect right here and it definitely helps that the underlying song material, while still simple raw and primitive, never drops the ball once and omits any unnecessary noodling around and jam band wankery this time.
Chubby's still new-ish band EZ8 has now been properly renamed The Easy Eight and also has their first LP out via Static Shock Records which, to be fair, is actually just the first EP extended with four new tunes, which is also fine 'cos that EP was plenty awesome enough to be listened to over and over again and the new tracks are just as marvellous in that trademark Oi! / Power Pop fusion that only Chubby and his co-conspirators can pull off so infectiously. A good catchy tune and a stubborn, tight performance is all that's needed here, simple as that. I mean, what else do you expect of a new Chubby record? A progressive rock opera in nine chapters? No, you'll get this beauty instead, though there's still a couple of neat flourishes we haven't heard from any of his previous groups like that bit dungeon-esque oldschool heavy metal shredding throughout the verses of Fear As A Gift.
