Here's an odd one for you, and i mean that in the most positive sense, coming from a group presumably from Charlotte, North Carolina. The thing starts out as very much of a hardcore record, though even throughout the first couple tunes you can't help but notice that pronounced spaced-out psychedelic undercurrent and an increasingly catchy, melodic quality as well as some top-notch ability of song construction underneath that really goes into overdrive in the fourth track Misery, after which the record then incrementally slows down the tempo with each track and leans even more into an acid rock-driven post punk, postcore and art punk vibe that reminds me a bit of recent Science Man, Optic Nerve and there's even a slight bit of LoFi-era Poison Ruin in Make A Case. Inevitably, the record eventually reaches something of a full-on space rock territory yet retains all of these at times subtly emo-fied, melancholic undertones and ist melodic brilliance and you know what, at no point does this group sound much like anything else around really - the best comparison i can come up with for the second half from the top of my head are the likes of recent Shrudd and some of Electric Prawns 2, but really that's kind of a stretch already. You also may compare the larger-than-life drama of the record's middle section to Tom Lyngcoln's Raging Head LP or his more recent band and spiritual successor to that one-off record, Metho. But none of these comparisons truly stick here. This record is freakin' unique is what i'm sayin'.
Here's another strange artifact of peculiar yet also kinda catchy noise rock and postcore delirium for connoisseurs of rough and unwieldy noise. Agita are a group from Philadelphia and their third EP, just released on cassette by local label Strange Mono, unleashes upon us fifteen attacks of a crude ruckus mostly less than one minute long that reminds me as much of early proto noise rockers á la Flipper, No Trend or even slightly of very early Rudimentari Peni as it does of more recent noisy oddities like Soupcans, Soft Shoulder, making for twelve delightful minutes of cluttered, chaotic noise held im place by reassuringly rigid and seamlessly integraded supporting structures, hammered home in an unrelenting performance that ain't pulling any punches here.
Shrudd from Louisville, Kentucky already have been a more than notable presence in the garage punk scene for a while but they really hit it out of the ballpark with their first longplayer No Man Is Good Three Times from last winter, leaving behind much of their humble eggpunk beginnings for a more fleshed-out, sophisticated sound very much on the psychedelic, spaced-out side of the garage- and post punk spectrum. A tough record to follow really, but with their first substantial release since then (leaving aside that silly christmas single from late last year) they're doing a perfect job at that with two flawless new rippers in the previously established sonic spectrum of elaborate and kinda elegant post-/garage punk vaguely in the neighborhood of such groups as Mononegatives, Useless Eaters, Institute, Corker, Marbled Eye, Tube Alloys or Electric Prawns 2, but also very much their own thing really.
I was intrigued when the Brisbane-based label Grog Records (re-)issued the Hello, Mr. Operator EP by New York electro punks Hand Helds on cassette, originally released late last year. A closer look at their bandcamp profile reveals not only that they've had a new EP out in January already but also that quite obviously they've been at it for a while already, churning out a ton of EPs in a varying spectrum of dark and noisy garage punk, minimalist and often quite harsh synth- and electro punk. I'm pretty sure i already came across them in the past but i'm also reminded why i passed over that stuff back then, as much of their earlier cataloque sounds like the equivalent of throwing lots of shit at the wall to see what's gonna stick. Anyway, a couple of things have stuck apparetly and on their latest two EPs, things click into place way more tightly thanks to a more minimalist and deliberate less-is-more approach. Hello Mr. Operator is certainly the cruder of the two EPs with a heavily Primitive Calculators and occasionaly Suicide-indebted brand of Synth Punk minimalism. The Transatlantic Death Machine EP then trades in the bass guitar for live drums and things get even wilder and, dare i say, kinda sophisticated, despite the best efforts and dissonant patterns of synth cacophony in tunes like Glue Tongue to obscure the fact. There's a weird kraut-ish, motorik quality to the whole thing and a successful approach of trimming the fat while giving attention to the details that matter, all of which positions these two records a couple notches above your average electro-kraut effort or no wave-ish '80s synth punk throwback.
You could easily file these swiss dudes away as yet another artifact of kinda fashionable, Pisse-induced german-language post punk but this stuff is operating on a high level and standing very much on its own two feet with enough identity and ideas of their own to set them apart with a sound that strikes me as just a tad more international, with Rien Pour Moi reminding me a bit of the likes of Ismatic Guru or Landowner for example, while Animal Farm has a bit of an old Giorgio Murderer Vibe. Anyway, even if they won't be able to shake off that Pisse comparisons just yet, this is a neat and excellent debut EP in its own right and i can't wait to see where they'll go from here.
The early teaser tracks for the debut longplayer of this Melbourne group featuring members of Piss Wizard and Stray Dogs To Good Homes had already signaled kind of a drastic departure from the simple Wipers-infused garage punk of their previous EP and indeed this record is a different beast altogether, taking on more of a dusty, americana-tinged post punk vibe with echoes of eighties Scientists but also plenty of more recent stuff like the noisy post punk of Copenhagen's Lower and the early works of Iceage; Sklitakling and Pleaser from Sweden, americana- and cowpunk-influenced US groups like Weak Signal and Bambara, or Australia's own Optic Nerve and Refedex. A rich tapestry of plausible, well-established influences to draw from for sure but these folks absolutely make it their own with tons of resilient song substance providing the foundation to expand upon for their noisy eruptions, determined performances, a fully matching vehicle of haunting sonics for the frank, urgent lyrics and vocals of frontwoman Freya Tanks.
Is this really the fourth Dead Finks LP already? Time sure flies by man! In contrast to that, the output of the Berlin-based duo consisting of Erin Violet and Joseph Thomas (formerly of New Zeeland post punkers Trust Punks) has been reassuringly constant and worthy at all times, surely carrying over some of that old Trust Punks DNA but matching it up with a great deal of folk-ish strumming and melancholia, woven into an epic and colorful mosaic of widescreen drama, a moody atmosphere of unresolved conflict that more than once reminds me of the kinda iconic, singular vision of Brisbane indie-/noise rockers Kitchen's Floor.
One of the most esoteric tentacles of the current art punk world strikes again with yet another kickass six minutes of math-y, dub-infused, polyrhythm-obsesed and altogether unapoligetically self-indulgent post punk nuggets that would come across as way up their own arses from any lesser group. These Buffalo, NY folks though, who've constantly improved and fine-tuned their intricate formula over the course of five years and six releases so far, are among the very few exceptional bands able to meet their lofty ambitions with an overflowing abundance of musical substance and rock-solid craftsmanship.
This record came pretty much out of the blue, to me at least, when it was announced in January, though it appears these tunes and the group behind them - featuring members of Total Control, Den and R.M.F.C. among others - have been brewing for a couple of years already, with some this shit apparently originating from a previous group named KX Aminal which, to my best knowledge, has never made it out of Australia or released any music so i guess i can be forgiven for not being in the loop. Anyway, expectations were high on this one and i'm glad to say it turned out every bit as good a record as anyone could have hoped for, their sound incorporating elements recognisable from all three of these better known bands, yet succeeding in taking that aesthetic to some fairly unexpected places in how they weave familiar post punk flavors with a great deal of new age ethereal spaciousness, kraut-y motorik repetition, further hints of '70s art rock and even a slight folk-ish bent reminiscent to NZ Post Punkers Trust Punks or their Belin-based successors Dead Finks into an epic, deeply atmospheric, sprawling and otherwordly hallucinogenic trip that is clearly meant to be ingested in one go - yeah, this is a prime example of an increasingly rare thing these days - an honest to dog capital-a album rather than just ten songs pressed on an record and no doubt this will be among the classiest punk things you get to hear this year.
Holyoke, Massachusetts group Landowner, one of the most unique voices in contemporary post punk, now has their fifth long-playing record out via Exploding In Sound Records and a good ten years in, they still show no signs of wear in their mimimalist and abstract approach on post punk and postcore that, despite their influence on younger bands becoming increasingly obvious in recent years, is still unmistakably very much their own. If anything, both their compositions and lyrics only have gotten sharper and a good bit darker over time with anything resembling a sense of ironic detachment coming off as nothing more than a psychic self-defense measure, necessary to keep your own sanity when confronting these tunes' existential subject matter while we all know that - in contrast to the way Linear Age frames human history as a succesion of unlocked and at times questionable achievements like in some bizarre sort of strategic simulation game - the actual universe won't grant us a second shot at existence and we're absolutely shitting the bed at every conceivable level right now.
