Quality shit from Phantom Records once again. The culprits, this time, are yet another Berlin group playing a breed of post punk (really, who’d have guessed….) which proudly wears its origins on its sleeves yet manages to put an inventive and playful spin on every single track. Funky but thankfully not too polished, there’s also a prominent surf rock vibe at play here ricocheting through their arrangements like a steel rod willfully thrown into the spokes, always making for some delightful stunts and maneuvers. Sometimes we also get a touch of rockabilly as put through a Gun Club-meet-The Fall meatgrinder. My personal fave here is a little banger called Angerman which perfectly applies the carrot-and-stick approach in its juxtaposition of dissonant noise and melodicism.
Somehow i must’ve overlooked this Ocean City, NJ dude so far. His long playing debut and third release altoghether hits my nerve dead-on though, with a variety of simple & stupid garage-/electro- and, occasionally, synth punk, often with a distinct 77-ish bent calling to mind old pioneers à la Screamers, MX-80, Metal Urbain/Dr. Mix & The Remix as well as a slight hint of Chrome. In Country Girls, quite fittingly, we even get a touch of Gun Club-esque americana-/cowpunk while of the more recent scene, you might draw comparisons to groups like S.B.F., Kid Chrome, Zoids or Mateo Manic.
Having released a somewhat hit-and-miss debut tape last year, the Berlin group’s newest LP shows off a considerably matured, heavily roots- and folk-influenced flavor of post punk whose overall vibe echoes the americana-/cowpunk of Angst while also evoking with a bit of post-Miami Gun Club and solo Rikk Agnew. Among their contemporaries, you might compare them to groups such as Jackson Reid Briggs & The Heaters and Low Life. Other times, like in Reanimation, Pissing and Look Of Disgust you can sense a certain british invasion-style melancholia with hints of The Resonars or The Bevis Frond. So in a nutshell, this ain’t quite your average selection of ingredients for a punk album… which kinda makes this a perfect fit for Erste Theke Tonträger who, as i just learned, are gonna be handling the european vinyl release of this beauty.
NJ/NY Label State Champion Records has yet another quite awesome tape for us and this time it’s by a group from Helsinki, Finland who deliver a fully realized sound taking cues from so much of what’s good in recent years, i don’t really know where to start… The EP starts out with propulsive post punk that feels like a fusion of darker sounding groups in the Rank/Xerox or Pigeon vein with artsy post- and garage punk groups like Patti, Lithics, Reality Group, Vintage Crop or Yammerer. The middle two songs then introduce a more relaxed, slightly indie rock leaning vibe á la Gotobeds, Sleepies, Tape/Off or B-Boys, with the closing track Plastic Marine feeling like the perfect symbiosis of both tendencies.
An awesome little debut mini-LP by a Buenos Aires group. Revolving around a more-or-less oldschool-ish, brass-enhanced style of garage- and art punk vaguely reminiscent of Downtown Boys, they certainly like to mix things up a bit here and there when they occasionally enter post punk territory or try on a ’77-touched Buzzcocks-meet-Undertones powerpop vibe like in Sin tu amor, keeping this a fun and entertaining ride throughout. While not everything hits the bulls-eye quite yet (Ya no soy is simply too little of an actual song), most of it works out just beautifully.
An abrasive yet quite melodic wall-of-sound piles up on this Aarhus group’s debut album, a sound inbetween the worlds of noise pop, art- and post punk, equally reminiscent of Teksti TV 666 and Open Your Heart-era The Men, 80’s SonicYouth-isms and some MX-80 edge. And as if all that weren’t compelling enough on its own, the addition of a restless brass section makes the whole thing outright irresistible.
On their second longplayer, New Orleans group Waste Man have gotten rid almost entirely of the hardcore elements that were still front and center on their incredible 2018 tape A New Type Of Worry, but that doesn’t mean their newest LP is any less thrilling. Quite on the contraty, this has become both their most ambitious and well-rounded release so far, a captivating and unpredictable ride at different points reminding me of smartypants garage punk of the Vintage Crop, Dumb or Uranium Club variety, art punk akin to Lithhics or Patti as well as contemporary post punk in the vein of Public Eye, The Gotobeds and Bambara… at the same time emitting some distinctly oldschool vibes – faint echoes of Wire and Saccharine Trust being the most noticeable ones here.
DWP is the current solo project of Sloane Flashman who has also been playing the guitar in Seattle post punk group Nail Polish. If you’re already acquainted with the latter band’s no-wave inspired noise, you might already suspect this EP is gonna be a rather bumpy, adventurous ride as well and you’d be totally right. Over the course of eight abstract, droning sketches a soundscape of experimental Art Punk unfolds that appears to draw equal amounts of inspiration from Suicide, Wire and Glenn Branca, among many other things.
Another excellent EP by Rhode Island’s Germ House, a solo project of Justin Hubbard who also happens to be playing in Far Corners. These three songs once again sparkle with his familiar stripped-down lo-fi charme and a sonic range that stretches from abrasive post- and art punk – which surely owes a thing or two to The Fall or Desperate Bicycles – to classic garage rock and contemporary garage punk, while also revealing a surprising catchyness, deep melancholy and a playful vibe reminiscent of The Woolen Men.
Considering the Melbourne group’s previous track record, i didn’t expect their third full length to be anything less than superb… and surprise: This is yet another very strong record occupying a spot of their own in this particular niche at the junction of playful smartypants garage-, post- and art punk. Worthy new premium fodder for admirers of Uranium Club, Pinch Points, Reality Group… you might also find a bit of Sauna Youth or Patti in there.
