Now that's some wild shit from Tübingen, Germany. Breakneck speeds meet extremely catchy hooks and melodies, coming together in a buzzsaw audio aesthetic that sits uncomfortably wedged right inbwteween the sonic worlds of equally melodic and eccentric hardcore acts such as Hippyfuckers, Everyone Is Alone Sometimes, Pink Guitars and the more garage-/egg-leaning high-speed punk attacks of The Gobs, Exwhite, Spewed Brain, Witch Piss or 3D & The Holograms.
Louiseville, Kentucky group Shrudd has been around for a couple years already but only really started to strike creative gold with last year's Bizarro and Microbiome EP's, the former dealing with more hardcore-adjacent sounds while the latter dabbled in a kinda familiar garage-/synth punk territory, an aesthetic that also dominates their newest EP on which they considerably elevate the weirdness factor, veering into more of a pronounced eggpunk direction evoking the likes of Prison Affair, Victor, Set-Top Box or Paulo Vicious in equal measure to contemporary synth-/electro punk acts á la Isotope Soap, Freak Genes, Spyroids and Powerplant.
A fucking dream team of the current eggpunk wave joins forces on this new split EP in the form of two very unique and distinct groups, which have both already left quite a mark on the scene in just a couple years. Heck, you actually and reasonably might consider both groups' sounds as having kickstarted their own little egg-subgenres. Altogether, this is a killer collection of hits, as you already might have suspected!
These Istanbul eggpunk warriors' debut EP of last year has certainly been among my favorite releases of 2023 and their first long-playing cassette delivers more of the same kind of fun by which i mean: irresistably catchy and quirky garage-/synth punk-smashers in a similar headspace to such genre greats as Prison Affair, Set-Top Box, Beer and Ghoulies. Tell me, what's not to like about that?
Fantabulous new garage-/synth-/electro punk shit from Graz, Austria, using minimal means to actually bring some fresh and as-of-yet unheard impulses to the whole eggpunk clusterfuck as, at certain points, i can't help but dub that shit Big Bl...Egg! Then again, there's also no shortage of fluffy pop melodies on here. I'm not quite sure what to make of the closing track Freibad Fürstenwald though, which... fuck me, research that shit for yourself. Or maybe don't, just... don't.
The Sydney garage-/eggpunk powerhouse's newest record is actually more of a collection of scraps, demos, odds and ends left on the cutting room floor over the years but... damn! If this shit here represents Gee Tee's b-material, i'm gladly gonna eat up whatever c-list shit they've got lingering in the archives too. This is a brilliant record from start to finish and mandatory listening for any discerning connoisseur of catchy goodness in the realms of garage punk, fuzz- and power pop, all killer no filler!
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.
