So let me try to get this right. It appears this new-ish Soft Shoulder LP ain't so much a compilation of stuff released on various lathe-cut EPs and -singles over the past couple years rather than a collection of songs recorded years ago that deliberately first got put out in that piecemeal way starting in 2022, but was intended from day one to eventually make up a full LP, which we now have in front of us. Phew, that sure is some kind of clunky roundabout way of doing things and i'll say it's just fitting for one of the most intentionally clunky, roundabout types of bands of our time, one that's been around way longer than this blog, is probably gonna outlast it too and has never failed to amaze with their cluttered and messy, though also totally unmistakable, singular vision of vagely The Fall-inspired, No Wave-informed post punk and noise rock. And you know what? I think it's the greatest thing the (in its current incarnation) one-man-band from Tempe, Arizona has ever done even after the knockout double whammy of 2023s Smile Building's Exit and It’s A Small World After LPs, as i'll say these new old tunes hit even harder in their collected, re-sequenced new form - so much creativity and brilliance concentrated into a dense 21-song 45-minute record that refuses to get tedious for even a second and the added punch and clarity of a stellar new mastering job also sure contributes a good bit to making this thing gel together and rise way above just the sum of its parts.
Austin, Texas group Guiding Light already had a pretty exciting, if still kinda messy debut EP out via Stucco / Down South Tapes in 2024, who are now also responsible for the cassette release of their first full length record (viny is availablel via Post Present Medium), on which they up their game in pretty much every aspect of their sound as the the folk-ish strummy melancholia of Shackled By Lust makes immediately clear and even though that tune ain't fully representative of the rest of the album, it keeps on resonating as a thoroughly impressive opening salvo nonetheless. That greatness persists all throughout the record where their folk- and cowpunk-adjacent strummery somewhere inbetween the likes of Angst and Volcano Suns keeps colliding with eighties Post Punk right between the chairs of, say, Burma, Saccharine Trust, Man Sized Action and early Minutemen, though spiked with occasional bits of Flying Nun Post Punk Psychedelia, catchy Jangle Pop guitar leads and -harmonies, though if instead you feel like naming more recent Folk-/Cowpunk/Post Punk hybrids á la Leche, Cardi O., more recent Rolex or Optic Nerve, i'm gonna say you're right on the money too. Can't miss this one if you're into any of that shit.
After an already quite thrilling demo tape in 2023, the group from Oslo, Norway finally makes good on the promise and impresses with their fully realized vision three years later on their first longplayer, wildly elaborating on their eclectic sound that incorporates such things as a bit of the frantic and anxious early Iceage energy unravelling here, a touch of early Poison Ruïn high-stakes dungeon punk drama, coupled with a momentum somewhat reminiscent of Stay Home-Era Hank Woods & The Hammerheads and there's also plenty reference to be found of another New York Band Hank Wood has been in, the existential psychedelic cowpunk nightmarescapes of Murderer. Further i'm reminded of that unpredictable recent Forcer LP, the epic frankenstein song constructs of the 2020 Tom Lincoln solo album und its sort-of full band incarnation / successor Metho, whose line-up including the great Jackson Reid Briggs then again leads me to the realization that tunes like Trollmandens lærling also have quite a bit of a Split System energy to them. So yeah, what this band is pulling off here covers a lot of ground and whatever these dudes touch seems to turn into pure gold instantly, while the more garage-like mid-fi production values of the previous EP give way to a more hard- and postcore-infused vibe with slightly metal-infused overtones on this, matched up with just the right kind of vicious, unrelenting performance here to make that shit stick. This record is a wildly creative grab bag brimming with pure wonder and breathless ecstasy.
Buffalo, New York duo Ismatic Guru are a rare breed of a post punk act that not only constantly keeps raising the bar and refining their craft with every release over the span of six EPs so far - roughly one every year since 2021 - but in the process has carved out a pretty singular, unmistakable niche for themselves, sticking out even in a genre landscape that's about the most crowded and diverse it has been for decades i'm gonna say say. Made up of their trademark angular, funky-to-math-y rhythms and playful grooves, plenty of kraut-y peculiarities, a bit of colorful, kaleidoscopic psychedelia and a strong dub-ish undercurrent, this one's yet another half-notch about anything they're done before. Having ironed out the initial kinks of their art early on in their discography, they sound just insanely confident by now and almost as if can't do no wrong at this point. If you're into art punk shit that's equally quirky and classy, lively and intricate, you can't ever skip a new Ismatic Guru record.
Just about half a year after their brilliant previous Weston-le-Clay EP, its successor sees the Warford, England group once again upping their game in terms of both variety and compact-/catchyness of their, at times, subtly math-infused post punk, most significantly expanding on the more midtempo-ish section of their stylistic repertoire and as expected, that shit works just admirably here 'cos this dude (or these dudes?) clearly has the creative juice and raw musicality to pull that shit off. Just as before, smartypants contemporary post punk influences of the Landowner variety loom large over this one too, just as do ancient british DIY art punk staples from a quite diverse sphere inbetween, say, Mekons, Blurt and Television Personalities, though at the same time, Aidmoozic sound very much like themselves here more than ever. The seeds of this greatness were already noticeable on their two 2024 EPs, but Aidmoozic play on a whole different level in 2026 and i'm gonna say that in these short few recent months, Aidmoozic have catapulted themselves onto the cutting edge of contemporary art punk with razor-sharp, though seemingly effortless, precision.
Kaloomps, British Columbia group Headcheese have been messin' about for way longer than my intuition tells me as it still feels to me like their first Demo and self-titled debut mini-LP dropped just about yesterday, even though their most recent previous record Expired is actually like three years old by now. Anyway, this group has certainly left a thorough impresson in my faulty memory with a number of records that feel like an endless tug-of-war between successive impulses of elaborating on their sound and then dumbing it down again in the most thrilling way possible. Their newest one might well be their magnum opus so far though, with the group operating as a simultaneously tighter and rowdier-than-ever wrecking crew, pummeling into submission their most coherent, fleshed out bundle of chemically unstable creative outbursts so far, which no serious devotee of inventive, shaggy noise inbetween the worlds of KBD-injected garage punk, oldschool propulsive west coast-style hardcore and maybe even some particles of No Trend-, Broken Talent- or Flipper-esque proto noise rock mahem should miss out on.
Philadelphia's Sims Hardin aka Society probably doesn't need an introduction here after the splashes he made with the deliciously scrappy 2022 EP All Flies Go To Hell, whose rough proto punk-ish energy subsequently got channeled into a more concrete, fleshed out art punk sound on 2024's brilliant Social Flies cassette, to which Reign Of Flies now feels like a direct sequel, but not without some clear refinements and growth along the way, setting this record apart with a more pronounced post punk-ish vibe to these tunes and a tighter grip on his catchy hooks than ever before. Yeah this is another must-have for connoisseurs of rough, artsy and eccentric DIY punk oddities.
Just like that Celebrators LP i've just posted, the debut LP of Oamaru, New Zeeland group Cuticles is yet another really freakin' good 21-song LP that could have become a freakin' brillian 15-song LP just by cutting some fat but ya know... i'm not gonna complain about such an abundance of good, especially if that shit is so fucking up my alley. Featuring members of 2010s NZ DIY punk staples Moonrakers and Trendees, this group, which first really caught my attention with their excellent 2023 EP Pavlova, certainly shares some of that shambolic avantgarde DNA but channels it into a much more catchy and melodic whole, trading in much of that raw Half Japanese-style mayhem for a more approachable aesthetic, reminiscent among others of old british DIY acts in the neighborhood of Swell Maps, Television Personalities, Mekons and Desperate Bicycles. There's a good deal of old Flying Nun energy goin' on aswell plus some stray occurences of the more pop-focused end of the Pink Flag-era Wire spectrum in tunes like Making Up Shit. If i had to come up with more recent bands as comparisons, i'd say New York's Famous Logs in History, Philadelphia group Society and the early works of Adelaide's own Wireheads don't strike my as totally off either.
This Los Angeles group has crafted a deliberately cluttered and disjointed yet insanely exciting mess of a record that seems to take inspiration from old heroes of the art punk world ranging from the likes of The Pop Group, Pylon and hints of James Chance, Pere Ubu and even a slight trace of Wire to their more underground and, potentially, more synth-heavy counterparts á la Minimal Man, Visitors, Neverous Gender... and yeah, quite obviously there's also some Devo DNA embedded in there. Or, in more recent years, you may also find some common ground here with contemporary acts like Landowner, Cartoon or Ismatic Guru. Then again, the folk-ish strummy energy goin' on 0126iii recalls the likes of Angst, Volcano Suns or early My Dad Is Dead. Anyway, there's a great deal of variety and an uncontainable creative momentum happening on this record and even though not every experiment pays off equally well here, with a generous 21 Tunes assembled here i think it's just fair to rate this album by its abundance of hits rather than its rare misses.
This Chicago group had already made considerable waves with two promising EPs in 2023 and now their debut longplayer retains much of that chaotic energy in a slightly more streamlined sound which, admittedly, doesn't sound all that novel and original in the year 2026 after the past decade has given us a not exactly overwhelming, but steady and noticeable stream of artsy post punk and weirdcore acts that may all have played some part in influencing these tunes ranging from 2010s acts like Vexx, Warm Bodies and Negative Scanner to more recent ones á la Scud, Sniffany and the Nits, Judy and the Jerks or Warp. Of course, you also can't exactly avoid the Snooper comparisons here, although i wouldn't consider them too central to this just barely egg-adjacent (though also not entirely unrelated) sound. I'm also gonna say that older Downtown Boys probably were a factor shaping this stuff too. Anyway, i think i can just about find room in my heart for yet another record roughly in that vein, although looking forward, a potential successor would probably do good to condense their mess of disparate ideas into something less fleeting and throw a little less shit on the wall at any given time, even though for the time being, most of that stuff still sticks quite well actually, all things considered. I just have my doubts that schtick will work a second time.
