Two notable, more or less dungeon punk-adjacent releases have landed this week. First off, there's the debut cassette of Oslo group Molbo who, on the surface, primarily seem to draw influences from that genre complex of eighties goth, death rock and post punk that's been so en vogue once again for the last decade or so. What sets them apart in that particular niche though is a certain whimsical eggpunk aesthetic, a sense of joy and fun not often found in an otherwise often overky self-serious genre, though admittedly this can at times have an unintentionally comical effect as well.
Ipswich, UK duo Kerozine then approach a vaguely dungeon-esque aesthetic from a more straightforward yet delightfully noisy synth-/electro punk angle that's every bit as driving and hard-hitting as it's catchy, the best reasonably recent comparisons i can come up with right now being the likes of Spyroids, O-D-EX, Drýsildjöfull, Channel 83, C57BL/6, Expose and Beef.
On their newest, heavily pandemic-delayed LP, Budapest's Padkarosda don't tweak their existing formula too much which is just fine - no need to fix what isn't broken and that one thing they do, they still excell at: crafting moody oldschool post punk soundscapes with that raw, pitch black all-consuming death rock vibe.
Berlin group Skeleton Glove have already put out a bunch of demos, all of which suffered to a varying extent from their Lo-Fi production values, so it's nice to finally hear them in a sound that does their sheer sonic force justice. The result is every bit as good as i could've hoped for, their ultra-primal brand of post- and hardcore punk with flourishes of death rock and garage never failing to hit where it hurts the most.
Once again Barcelona's scene is killing it! Plataforma manage to do just that thanks to a beautifully rough, DIY-as-fuck sound in the realm of dark-/post punk with a healthy dose of goth/death rock doom & gloom. Crisis come to mind as well as the early 2010's Kopenhagen scene - think Lower and early Iceage - and some more recent stuff like britain's Disjoy.
