More incredibly bonkers shit out of the belgian Belly Button Records orbit. What we get on this dude's debut EP under the Nubot555 moniker (previously the culprit has been doing shit as King Dick) is some garage- and electro punk mayhem of the overwhelmingly egg-ish variety. These lo-fi gems manage to counterbalance all their quirky weirdnes with plenty of smarts and creative energy, making for an impressive debut easily standing out even in its fairly crowded genre pool. I'd say Egg Idiot have found their match here.
You can't go wrong with any new release by that UK garage-/synth punk duo teaming up Proto Idiot's Andrew Anderson with Charly Murphy of groups such as The Red Cords, Internal Credit and Isolation. After exploring a more cold, minimal synth aesthetic sound on their previous LP, this one presents them in a somewhat fuller sound and probably at their catchiest so far, channeling primarily the spirit of first-wave synth punk acts á la Primitive Calculators, Nervous Gender, Screamers, Units, Minimal Man and of course Devo (duh!), while from the current landscape, comparisons to Isotope Soap or Alien Nosejob in full-on electro mode may be drawn as well.
Awesome synth-/ electro punk shit from Berlin that kinda plays out like a curious mix of Pisse, Puff! or the most recent, electro-heavy Schiach EP. Further you might draw comparisons to Spyroids, Heavy Metal as well as old synth punk staples á la Screamers, Nervous Gender. Klickfarm in particular might have taken some cues from the Visitors' classic ripper Electric Heat as well.
New shit by the world's only viking synth punk project… and we've got another winner! The title track just sucks you right in with a throbbing beat not unlike to the recent Dance single, spiked with a hint of ancient eurotrash cheesiness. With Go Ahead we then get an effective straight-up no-frills punk smasher, while the oddly placed/titled Instrumental Interlude feels like fun hommage to classic chiptunes that will also mesh well with the ongoing dungeon synth/-punk wave.
This dude from Schleswig, Germany already made an excellent first impression a couple weeks ago with his debut 7" on Goodbye Boozy. The artwork sure suggests some dungeon synth/-punk affinity, although sound-wise - lacking the latter genre's obvious black- and/or oldschool "heavy" metal elements - i'd rather compare this shit to recent developments on the intersection of garage-, synth- and electro punk and associated acts of the Mononegatives, Pow!, Liquid Face, Ghoulies or Slimex variety.
Somehow i must've overlooked this Ocean City, NJ dude so far. His long playing debut and third release altoghether hits my nerve dead-on though, with a variety of simple & stupid garage-/electro- and, occasionally, synth punk, often with a distinct 77-ish bent calling to mind old pioneers à la Screamers, MX-80, Metal Urbain/Dr. Mix & The Remix as well as a slight hint of Chrome. In Country Girls, quite fittingly, we even get a touch of Gun Club-esque americana-/cowpunk while of the more recent scene, you might draw comparisons to groups like S.B.F., Kid Chrome, Zoids or Mateo Manic.
Garage-/synth-/electro punk from Cleveland, Ohio that carves out its own little place in the current landscape of similar groups by way of a certain psychedelic haze, kinda like a mix between The Spits, Silicon Heartbeat and Smirk, observed through some dense Chrome- or Metal Urbain-esque fog. Or you might describe it as some kind of garage punk incarnation of Murderer's hallucinogenic cowpunk nightmarescapes.
Barcelona group Algara initially burst onto the scene last year with a four track demo as an electro punk duo, which then quickly grew into a four-piece group and promptly released another tape consisting of a re-recording of the first EP's songs as well as some tracks meant for their first longplayer, which we finally get to witness in its full glory now. In the meantime their sound has evolved into a compact and effortlessly flowing fusion of post-, garage- and electro punk that might be described as a mix of ISS, Straw Man Army, Rank/Xerox and UZS, only broken up right in the middle by the strong synthwave flourishes of Hedonistas.
It only took them like… twelve years but finally the Munich duo has released their second 7" via Slovenly Recordings and it's an irresistable blast of garage- and electro punk with echoes of The Spits and Stalins Of Sound, plus an unlikely touch of Big Black in the highly combustible opening track Shut Your Face.
I don't think i ever gave Berlin's mystery act Heavy Metal the full spotlight on here and in retrospect i can't really tell if that was because Heavy Metal weren't quite ready for me or 'cos i wasn't quite ready for Heavy Metal. All i can say is i've been monitoring their curious and prolific trajectory over the past few years and with every release their garage-/electro-/totalfuckingnuts-punk bastard concoctions resonated a bit better with my broken brain until finally they hit a prefect sweet spot with their fifth (duh…) longplayer on which they come off kinda like a more out-there version of a certain North Carolina group that's been rumored to not be punk enough for heavy metal or something… thrown in a blender with a healthy dose of Swell Maps or Métal Urbain/Dr. Mix & The Remix. Never before have they sounded this nebulous and just wrong in all the right ways, except maybe for the idea of fighting the devil… that simply doesn't strike me as the most heavy metal thing to do. It might please the christian rock crowd, though.
