Oh look, London garage-/synth punk solo crusader Tommy Cossack has expanded operations into a full band line-up and the result sounds absolutely brilliant and so much bigger, shedding some of its Lo-Fi eggpunk quirks in favor of a more potent, dense and focused attack while never lacking in terms of thrilling hooks, of which these songs are stuffed to the brim with, making for a compact and incredibly entertaining half hour of breathless energy and exitement that may rightfully be compared to the likes of Set-Top Box, Powerplant, Ausmuteants and Satanic Togas.
Eggpunk’s eggiest idiot group’s long-playing debut consists mostly of re-recordings of songs already known from his previous two EPs, with the added benefit of somewhat improved production values and thus lots of added oomph to their sound, making this the definitive collection of Egg Idiot tunes so far and certainly the most infectious dose of brain damaged fun you’re gonna experience in the next thirty minutes or so… Awesome shit!
Yet another thoroughly compelling load of new egg-ish garage- and synth punk goodness comes to us by way of this crunchy split cassette featuring two Providence, Rhode Island groups. Jimsobbins are a duo comprised of Adam and Lucy. Is that the same Adam who’s also in Balloon Thief? Plausible but unconfirmed. With the addition of vocalist Ella, they then transform into the trio Cindy7. Jimsobbins are the more typically eggpunk-sounding of the two groups, calling to mind stuff like Daughter Bat and the Lip Stings, Gee Gee, Billiam and Toe Ring… plus a slight shambolic touch of Neo Neos in Leopard. The latter tendency then persists throughout Cindy7’s side, exhibiting even more of that scrappy DIY charm, with their opening track Gonna Break! even evoking a bit of an oldschool no wave vibe while the final two tracks charge things up with an increasing amount of chaotic hardcore energy.
Even in a busy week like this one (ya know, bandcamp friday and whatnot…), i just gotta mention this new digital two-track single by Tel Aviv synth-/eggpunk act Paulo Vicious ”cos if these two songs don’t fuckin’ rip then i don’t know what does, mastering the neat trick of considerably slowing down things without ever evoking boredom, effectively filling the new gaps between the thumps and beeps with plenty more of interesting squeeks, groans and kablowies to an altogether animating overall effect.
Another quality release from that bastion of off-kilter punk and noise, Erste Theke Tonträger. Busted Head Racket is a group based in Newcastle, Australia centering around vocalist / multi-instrumentalist Arden Guff and in the past year has already made waves with a number of EPs, compilation appearances and split releases. Their long-playing debut now delivers another strong batch of odd little tunes of distinctly egg-ish qualities which manage to come across as equally catchy, quirky, rough and energic, kinda combining the traits of, say, Billiam and the hardcore attack of last year’s Snooper LP, with further parallels to be drawn to such acts as Slimex, Daughter Bat and the Lip Stings, Set-Top Box and Ghoulies.
Here’s yet another pair of moderately egg-related small fry in the form of two new digital (?) 2-track singles. First off there’s Minneapolis garage punks Liquid Lunch delivering two excellent new blasts on a fucking holiday-themed release in fucking April which then again, i’d say is actually one of the most egg things possible to do. Then, there’s also a new release by Melbourne DIY magician Billiam which unsurprisingly doesn’t disappoint either. The title track indeed appears to take some cues from Jackson Reid Briggs and his current band Split System in particular.
In recent years, i highly doubt there’s ever been such a thing as a bad week for eggpunk but this one has been especially fruitful with three notable, way above average releases. Paulo Vicious of Tel Aviv you might already be familiar with from last winter’s kickass debut EP and on this one, they seemlessly continue the depraved fun with strong echos of Prison Affair, Set-Top Box, Nubot555 and, at times, an added sheen of 8-bit chiptunes. Oslo, Norway act Dårskap then approach egg-related noises with a bit of a dungeon undertone and some ever-so-slight traces of oldschool death rock, begging the question if there’s some overlap with another Oslo group, Molbo, who’ve also been featured on here just a week ago. To round things out with what is probably the most straightforward and classic (hah!) sounding example of the bunch, Stockholm, Sweden’s very own Gurk deliver four new attacks of ultra-catchy egg-induced joy on their newest EP that might just be their strongest effort to date.
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.
Coming off their unwieldy two-hour Lo-Fi garage-/post-/eggpunk monolith Prawn Static For Porn Addicts from last year, the Moffat Beach, Australia based group returns with a couple of comparatively Mid-to-HiFi sounding singles and EPs. All three of them reinforce my assessment that was already evident on their predecessor, namely that these folks just write kickass tunes, plain and simple, which don’t really need to hide behind a wall of low fidelity gunk and grime and can be made to work in pretty much any shape and form. I like my things sounding kinda scruffy and crummy though and thankfully, here they pretty much hit the sweet spot concerning that.
Speaking of Deluxe Bias… here’s the newest cassette of miniscule runtime from that Wyoming label specializing in exactly that one kind of thing. Another completely blown-out assault on the senses walking a thin line between ultra-rough LoFi fuzz-, garage- and eggpunk resulting in some exquisite mayhem which may plausibly get described as a curious blend of the likes of Print Head, Warm Bodies, Snooper and Fugitive Bubble.
