First-rate new eggpunk goodness comes to us from one-man-band bedroom project Walter Ego out of Aschaffenburg, Germany. While this shit no doubt dabbles in, at this point, quite familiar sounding territory with varying echoes of such genre powerhouses like Prision Affair, Billiam, Beer, Set-Top Box or Nuts, it also never fails to hit the spot dead-on in a perfectly dialed-in mid-fi aesthetic balancing garage crunch with eggpunk whims and quirks and on top of it all, Race The Alps and even more so the closing track Forevermore (In The Dungeon) are nothing short of certified instant genre classics.
For the last three years or so, Sprgrs of Granada, Spain have been an ever-present mainstay at the upper-mid tier of contemporary eggpunk groups and while they seem seem perfectly content with that status, reproducing the genre's basic ingredients with workmanlike consistency, it should also have become abundantly clear that these dudes came to stay and ain't going anywhere anytime soon. I'm fine with that, as there's still pleny of fun to be had with their music even if the day may never come on which they finally transcend the genre's self-imposed limitations. It's a very burger-and-fries type of record and sometimes you're just craving for ecactly that kind of musical junk food..
The Nashville, Tennessee eggpunk übergroup is back with a second LP that ain't nearly as radical a departure from their previous work as the thumping electric beats of the preview track Worldwide would've had us believe at first. Rather, after the culture shock of their first LP which saw their first live band incarnation ripping through most of the early EPs' material with unrelenting hardcore intensity, this new one is in parts a bit of a return to the playful and varied experimentation of their early days. Like with its predecessor, we've heard some of these tunes before in one form or another, most notably Subdivision, which has first been heard all the way back in 2022 on their Town Topic 7" and the Beatles cover tune Come Together which goes even further back, first appearing on 2021's G.T.R.R.C. III compilation, though both have been given a thorough makover here and so have most of the previously known tunes. What can is say, this album is yet another fun, glorious freakout of quirky, catchy noise on the fringes of garage- and post punk that never seems to run out of steam and ideas.
More exciting eggpunk of the minimalist and fuzz-heavy variety comes to us from this UK-based group whose tunes don't do much to break the established patterns at first glance, but who fucking cares really when every single one hits the nail on the head so effortless and precise in an all-killer succession of snappy and catchy-as-fuck fuzz pop attacks that call to mind a mixture of, say, Elvis 2, Kid Chrome, Power Pants, S.B.F. and Satanic Togas.
Now here's some excellent new garage-/synth-/post punk shit that's only tangentially egg-related but certainly a good bit Devo-fied nonetheless and best of all, pretty versatile and casually shapeshifting in its sonic parameters, as a result reminding me of an appropriately eclectic bunch of groups like Checkpoint, Kitchen People, Ghoulies, Fungas, Cherry Cheeks, Ausmuteants, early Powerplant, Electric Prawns 2 and Dr. Sure's Unusual Practice.
Here's yet another kickass Billiam record once again delivering the goods of quirky-ass egg-ish garage punk in four tunes that nicely balance the comfortably familiar with, as always, plenty of novel ideas and unexpected detours. To me the absolute standout here are the pulsating post punk grooves of Planned Obsolescence but New Wave is an absolute wrecker too. Essential Feedstock Oils feel a bit like a welcome throwback to the very early days of Billiam and it's just as glorious seeing Robbie Thunders' 2023 insta-classic Houston We Have Rock being given its due in an absolutely vigorous cover rendition.
Excellent new shit, the debut EP of this Nottingham, UK group whose style feels kinda fluid, evading categorization as a whole even if the isolated components feel fairly familiar, the most immediately striking ones being the eggpunk-related eccentricities of Snooper, early Skull Cult, Busted Head Racket, Clarko on one hand and the considerably rougher weirdness of Warp, Beef, Scud on the other while at times even approaching the unpredictable off-the-rails eclecticism of Pressure Pin, Checkpoint or TY.
After six years silence, out of the blue comes the second 7" of this Antwerp, Belgium group via the local garage punk powerhouse Belly Butten Records. And oh boy, this is some heavy duty shit channeling an aesthetic that seems just as influenced by smart artsy garage punk groups á la Uranium Club, Vintage Crop, Reality Group as by the sprechgesang and eleborate arrangements of US postcore phenomenon Straw Man Army, even if lyrically this shit is a lot more lighthearted here, in-tune with the overall musical vibe. To round things out, there's also a distinct touch of Tyvek or UV Race progressively creeping in over the course of these four tunes. I think this is just a perfect little 7". So ready for the next one in another in six years.
First-rate new catchy garage punk shit from Sydney that cycles through quite a few different styles in its four songs with POSIWID and the opening tune What A Time To Be Alive coming across a bit like a mix between the fuzzy power pop of Sex Mex and the quirky synth-enhanced egg-ish action of Ghoulies while the synth punk of The Game recalls oldschool Digital Leather material and more recent stuff like Spyroids and O-D-EX. The closing track B-52's Tattoo on the other hand sounds like something right out of the warped mind of Texas garage punk eccentric Trashdog. Oh wait, there's yet another dog band i'm thinking of here... Oh right, that's Melbourne's wonderfully trashy garage-/synth punk explosion Metdog!
Winky Frown have been kind of an oddity right from the start even in the - by definition - quite odd eggpunk genre in that their songs on one hand seem to perfectly fit in with a number of thoroughly established eggpunk formulas yet never fail to surprise and transcend the genre's limitations, putting a lot more effort, ideas and songwriting finesse into their tunes than you'd usually expect. Their new digital 2-track single has yet another surprise in store for us when we're greeted with a slow-jam tune kinda channelling a lost artifact of Chairs Missing-era Wire in turn channeling a lost artifact of Syd Barret-era Pink Floyd and the best thing is that shit fucking works! The second tune Upside Down Frown then is closer to the sonics we're used to from the group, which is to say: another marvellously crafted high-momentum electrically driven garage punk smasher that unrelentingly builds up towards a massive payoff.
