One of the best kept secrets of the contemporary australian garage punk underground demonstrates its godlike potency once more in the form of two new digital singles amounting to three tracks in total, each one of those having its very own distinct vibe. I Wanna Be UR Simp sports a strong psychedelic flourish not entirely dissimilar to the likes of Mononegatives, Zoids, Corpus Earthling and later Useless Eaters, combined with the catchy garage pop of, say, Set-Top Box, Gee Tee and the likes. Prawn Party then plunders its way through an entirely different place and era, most in line with the current wave of pre-'77 New York revivalism as exemplified by Peace de Résistance, Jean Mignon and the most recent Institute LP but you might just as well find traces of The Drin's kraut rock vibes and the catchy garage rockers of certain Alien Nosejob incarnations in there. TV Screen once again shapeshifts into the guise of both early New Zeeland Flying Nun-style jangly power pop á la The Clean and The Stones on one hand, and british DIY (post-)punk pioneers like The Mekons and Television Personalities on the other.
Excellent debut EP from this San Antonio, Texas group setting off seven blasts of pitch-black yet very much refined post punk. While the opening Track Progress Trap sounds to me as if the garage/noise rock/post punk hybrids of Flat Worms and The Cowboy were being fused to a bit of The Spits or Lost Sounds, the record subsequently settles into an ever slightly shifting aesthetic reminding me of numerous greats of contemporary post punk like Nag, Predator, VR Sex, Tube Alloys, Rank/Xerox, Public Interest and the early works of Institute, Diät und Marbled Eye. While this surely ain't the apex of originality at this point in time, the group knows how to keep things moving and interesting throughout and most of the time these songs are every bit as good as any of the aforementioned acts.
This Sydney group already stirred up some waves not too long ago with a pair of strong EPs and this newest one is their finest one yet, operating in a golden zone between garage-/synth-/post- and psych punk that kinda bridges the gap between the garage-/post punk melancholia of weird outliers like Die TV and DBR, the garage primitivism of shit á la Buck Biloxi, Giorgio Murderer and the spaced-out psychedelic expanse of Zoids, Mononegatives, Mateo Manic, Silicon Heartbeat, Pow!, Cthtr or even some stretches of Electric Prawns 2's monumental '23 album Prawn Static For Porn Addicts.
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Power Pants Alienize Shop Regulars I'm Going To Greece Golomb Take My Life Ménage Détroit Would You Say (I'm In Love) Eye Ball L.I.S.T.E.N. Split System Force Field MK Ultras Target Killer Nightman Scab Pust La faute de la boîte Mobile Outsider X2000 El Linaje
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Having put out a pair of already quite impressive LPs in '22/'23, the third longplayer of this Hamilton, Ontario act really nails it this time. Following a brief ironic metal-ish intro, right out of the gate The Glove radiates a vibe of MX-80, Chrome and Metal Urbain plus just the slightest touch of The Cramps. This is some first rate fuzz-/garage-/space punk shit right here, weird enogh to keep you on your toes yet also sophisticated enough to keep you engaged, with just the right amount of ear candy sprinkled in like in Corpus Earthling Meets The Counter Culture, where a well-worn catchy standard punk riff gets the over-the top fuzz-excess treatment. Other times and especially in the first couple of tracks, there's some weird Hawkwind-goes-hair/glam metal energy going on. Just as well though, you might find similar sonic texture in a diffuse cluster of current acts such as Zoids, Thee Hearses, Monoburro, Mateo Manic, Mononegatives or Silicon Heartbeat.
Okay, what have we got here... a London group made up of members of 2010s garage punk mainstays Sauna Youth and Cold Pumas, carrying the seal of quality of the ever-reliable powerhouse labels Feel It Records and Upset The Rhythm... What could possibly go right? Everything, dummy! Sounding unlike any of the aforementioned groups, their debut LP contains some of the most elegant and well-rounded post punk you're gonna hear this year with some echoes of Pylon and Delta 5, occasional flashes of Television and the early works of Soft Boys and XTC. Equally though, you could at times compare them to more recent groups like Sweeping Promises, Spread Joy or Bodega. Throughout, this has a new wave-ish quality without ever becoming too saccharine or smoothed-out - to the contrary, there's quite a bit of edge and contour to these tracks, counterbalanced by a lot of warmth and melody to their songs and arrangements, best exemplified by a bunch of catchy quasi-ballads like Peg or Elsie.
Now that's some wild shit from Tübingen, Germany. Breakneck speeds meet extremely catchy hooks and melodies, coming together in a buzzsaw audio aesthetic that sits uncomfortably wedged right inbwteween the sonic worlds of equally melodic and eccentric hardcore acts such as Hippyfuckers, Everyone Is Alone Sometimes, Pink Guitars and the more garage-/egg-leaning high-speed punk attacks of The Gobs, Exwhite, Spewed Brain, Witch Piss or 3D & The Holograms.
