On their debut cassette carrying the quality seal of the ever-reliable Detroit label Painters Tapes, what this Ohio group pulls off here is nothing short of some top-notch weapons-grade guitar-less synth punk excellence that kinda bridges the gap between oldschool '70s-'80s acts like Nervous Gender, Units, Visitors and Screamers on one hand and some more recent, varyingly egg-ish groups running the gamut from the unpredictable, hyperactive approach of, say, Checkpoint, Titanium Exposé, Pressure Pin to the more minimalist attacks of Beef, Busted Head Racket and some shit right inbetween those worlds like Quitter, Slimex, Isotope Soap, earlier Freak Genes or Billiam's synth punk project NTSC>PAL.
What a neat little oddity, this second EP by Chicago group Forklift Rodeo, on which they're mixing some weird-ass unpredictable bursts of cowpunk with small traces of 90s AmRep/Tough&Go-esque noise rock, postcore and occasionally also some kind of contemporary eggpunk quality, though in that regard i'm thinking more of early Skull Cult rather than the somewhat more codified recent crop of Lo-Fi-recorded insanity. Speaking of Lo-Fi... this record certainly ain't that, giving a well-produced sheen and transparency to their equally quirky, sprawling and intricate constructions that would indeed have absolutely no need for hiding behind an obscuring layer of noise and grime.
The debut EP of this Portland group is kind of all over the map stylisticly but also fucking brilliant at all times, with the first two songs leaning into a sound between angular garage- and post punk, holding a delicate balance of dissonant textures and catchy hooks like you may have heard previously from groups such as Reality Group, Print Head, early R.M.F.C., Exit Group and Beef. Technology Discriminates Against The Poor then sounds a bit like a kraut-y Spray Paint fused with the likes Mononegatives or late Useless Eaters. False Reality reminds me somewhat of the spaced-out garage punk of Pow! while Identify has a quality of catchy minimalism similar to shit like Busted Head Racket and Daughter Bat and the Lip Stings. Beat Struggle then goes all-in on the motorik kraut-y vibes before the record gets to its worthy conclusion in the form of a neat cover tune of old dutchmen Ivy Green and the slow-burn synth punk grooves of Conflict Driven Entertainment.
Hey, have y'all heard of the tragic death of egg punk? I'm sure you have but it appears Butter Swamp of Appalachia, Virginia haven't gotten the memo yet. C'mon guys, it has been decided last week you're not supposed to sound like that anymore! Oh well, i guess Ex-Lumpy dude is gonna have to put up with the embarrassing zombies of his distant past for a little longer then. He's probably not gonna love this record. But as for me, i always liked my punk best when it's nice and dead and rotting. May it die another thousand deaths as long as i'm still breathing!
On their latest and - as far as i can tell - only 7" so far, the sporadically active Massachusetts post punk / -core supergroup plays it just a bit noisier and rougher than we'd previously expect from them and i'm gonna say that suits me just fine. With the a-side coming across kinda like a lost Wipers outtake as performed by a fusion of Scratch Acid and Feedtime and the b-side being a perfectly competent cover of a truly iconic Strike Under tune, there's no use arguing with this flawless little punk single.
This Madrid group's third short-form artifact is their strongest one yet i'd say, delivering two explosive new charges of what you could describe as textbook eggpunk in the vein of Beta Máximo, Beer, Pringue, Prison Affair, Möney, Goblin Daycare and Hugayz, that has the aesthetics down perfectly while bringing enough substance of its own to the table to stand on its own two feet. Niebla is the true standout track here though, which dares to go just a little harder to places a little darker than we're used to in this genre, in what amounts to a perfect miniature post punk assault.
Bristol's Möney took their time to find their bearings as a band but after their 2023 demo showing lots of promise and last year's tape with SPRGRS serving as evidence of further progress, everything perfectly clicks into place on their newest EP thanks to the most carefully fleshed-out set of tunes so far, their both psychedelic- and post-punk-leaning take on contemporary eggpunk really shining here with a forceful performance and comparatively slick production values, at long last propelling them into the genre's big league in a sonic sub-niche that sounds like very much their own little thing. That said, i'm pretty sure admirers of grops like Molbo, Prison Affair, Winky Frown, Electric Prawns 2 and Beta Máximo will get a lot of joy out of this record as well.
It's been over six years since we've last heard from this Bloomington, Indiana group which by now must be considered a highly influential force on the current garage-, synth- and eggpunk scene while in the meantime, members of the group have pumped their creative juices into acts like Belly Jelly, QQQL, Dummy and Big Hog. Now that they finally break the deafening silence, i gotta say this shit works better than ever in what must be the strongest set of tunes they've delivered so far. Just a tiny bit less weird and cluttered than on their previous efforts with more grounded, catchy and melodic song foundations and echoes of the likes of Tyvek, Marked Men and Lost Sounds, this is a strikingly mature work with all the hallmarks of a band that took a long break to branch out creatively in other projects, now reconvening to apply everything they've learned along the way with sleepwalking precision to an effortlessly wrecking result.
Insanely engaging garage shit from a Detroit group via the reliable local cassette forgery Painters Tapes, covering an admirable stylistic bandwidth that successfully combines many traits of quirky and elaborate garage punk groups á la Uranium Club, R.M.F.C., Erik Nervous, Satanic Togas, Exwhite and Dumb, the DIY post punk/garage-hybrids of Shark Toys and many flashes of contemporary eggpunk like Prison Affair, Clarko, Snooper, Beer, Winky Frown, Завірюга, Midgee, Gobs and Goblin Daycare. There's no room for boredom here as you can never know what's gonna lurk behind the next corner of this freakisch little tape.
Another strong Ismatic Guru record containing their whole discography so far if i'm not mistaken but, having featured them before, the five new tunes are of primary interest here. Just consider the other twenty tracks as a neat bonus if you haven't heard them already. I considered the early material of the Buffalo, NY group as a bit hit-and-miss but the quality control has certainly ramped up since then, with their third EP having been the most pronounced improvement. So now here is their fifth batch of tunes and once again they're outdoing themselves, having never sounded this confident and effortless in their mutant-funk post punk sketches that you could describe as a weird egg-ified fusion between a funked-up Landowner, early Minutemen and The Pop Group, maybe? I also imagine that admirers of last spring's Cartoon LP might get a new kick out of this.
