I'm rarely ever posting compilations here 'cos, quite honestly, most of these are too much of a mixed bag. I'm gonna make an exception here though as this shit has been put together by none other than see/saw dude Evan and just as you'd expect from him, this thing is certainly a couple notches above your average "Everybody send me your unreleased stuff for a good cause"-type comp and absolutely stacked with exclusive tracks by what amounts to a massive who's who of the international punk underground right now. That, plus your 10$-or-more donation will be spent in support of those affected by the Los Angeles wildfires. Win/win i'm gonna say! What's not to like?
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!
Y'all haven't been worshiping the mighty frown of wink quite hard enough! On their EP number iii, the Ottawa, Ontario group once again goes way above and beyond the efforts you'd expect to be put in your average eggpunk record. Is it their best yet? Their worst? I don't know and i don't care 'cos everything tha group has delivered so far is just really, really fucking good. Another insanely creative Winky Frown record. Highly recommended for fans of: Winky Frown. And everyone else reading this dumb shit, too.
The excellent 2-song demo by this Philadelphia group has me hooked already with Head Full Of Glue being a deliciously spiky and abrasive lump of noisy dungeon-esque, blackened hardcore punk with vague similarities to groups like Piss Wizard, Dick Hick and Jeg Hüsker, wrapped in a thick layer of white noise. The second track Stone Fruit is even better - a clearer sound lets even more weirdness bubble up to the surface in a post punk-ish tune seamlessly fusing the aesthetics of egg- and dungeon punk, which among other thinks i'm pretty sure will thrill fans of that recent Molbo comp on ETT.
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.
The sound of this Ciudad López Mateos, Mexico group remains kind of a singular, curious mixture on their third demo even in the colorful anything-goes context of the current eggpunk scene, feeling a bit like a flashback to the more melodic ends of the mid-to-late eighties punk rock spectrum - early pop punk artifacts that hadn't lost their abrasive edge yet, being given a thorough and fuzzed-out lo-fi makeover here and enriched with a perfectly measured dose of quirky, charming synth action altogether making for an irresistable bundle of pure sugary bliss.
Way more egg- than cowpunk, what this group from Poznań, Poland sets out to overwhelm our senses with. This shit is certainly among the more out-there offerings at the altar of playful insanity the genre has given us so far and it's a bottomless well of unpredictable fun that threatens to fall apart or go up in flames any moment but is so ridiculously satisfying while it lasts, reminding me of a colorful and markedly international bunch of acts such as early Skull Cult, Goblin Daycare, Paulo Vicious, Metdog, Beer, Cool Sorcery... and you can't leave out Barcelona's genre overlords Prison Affair of course.
On their kickass debut cassette this group from the british island of Jersey enters the scene with a fully formed sound juxtaposing some rather dark lyrical contents with completely opposite sonics of a markedly quirky, egg-ish quality, all of which reminds me of such things as early Powerplant, Tommy Cossack & The Degenerators, Wristwatch, S.B.F., Chtr or Beer.
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.
