Now this London group is kind of a rare beast in this day and age in that they not only lean all-in on early postcore and first-wave emocore circa mid-eighties to mid-nineties with groups such as Rites Of Spring, Moss Icon, Drive Like Jehu, eary Unwound, Squirrel Bait… you name it, while also absolutely holding their own in the present with well-balanced and fleshed-out song structures and arrangements rather than coming off as yet another bloodless rehash of the genre’s most basic signifiers. Now there’s two possible ways you’re gonna react to these words. Either you’ve long ago acquired a compulsive dislike for anything even remotely touching on *mo subgenres, which is very likely if you’ve first encountered the genre in the late ’90s or later and i can’t really fault you for that, given what terrible things that were gonna come out of it roughly from then on. Or maybe you are well aware that there’s been a lot more to the divisive subgenre in its early days, long before it entered its now thoroughly meme-ified cliché era. And in case all of that sounds just like latin to you now, i’m gonna invite you to maybe discover a bit of the unlikely creative spark and unleashed energy much of the pioneering generation had in common. Anyway, this is good shit right there and may be as good a segue as anything towards discovering the mostly still untarnished *mo and *core shit of the olden days.
Previous releases of this group from Pisa, Italy have all been obscured by a thick veil of of Lo-Fi grime and muck, yet the rough sonics couldn’t do anything to fully conceal the raw brilliance hiding beneath all the clutter. For their newest EP, they polished up their production values just enough for the first time to bring their eccentric, pocket-sized post punk epics out of the murky shadows and confirm our suspicion they don’t have to fear the revealing exposure to broad daylight. Starting off with a vibe not dissimilar to early 2010s surf-infused noise pop and fuzz punk groups like Male Bonding, early Wavves, No Age, Times Beach, Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger! or, way more recently, Shooting Losers, it doesn’t take long though before their tunes also develop a distinct last-decade post punk feel á la Die! Die! Die! and Piles, but also rougher, weirder punk phenomena like Dumb Vision, Piss Wizard and Pink Guitars wouldn’t be too far fetched as a reference. On top of that, there’s an unmistakable hint of mid-90s-to-early-2000s postcore at play here, the kind some uncultured philistines may be inclined to dub screamo but let it be known once and for all that this distinction shall be considered an insult to any good band, so no, this ain’t screamo and fuck you for even bringing up that cursed idea.
The debut EP of this Boston, Massachusetts band outright wallows in an unapologetically old-fashioned puddle of oldschool punk, hard- and postcore with a slight garage edge that calls to mind many of the more left-field and eccentric acts of both the early D.C. postcore era with bands like Gray Matter, Government Issue, Embrace, Rites of Spring, Fire Party and just as many west coast acts like Really Red, Tragic Mulatto, early Saccharine Trust, balanced out with some lighter, straightforward rocking and energetic moments that evoke a bit of a classic Germs and Adoloscents energy.
England’s Noise Merchant Records just reissued this Spokane, Washington group’s debut tape which i’ve somehow either missed or stupidly ignored last winter. On it, they inject some slight hint of early Superchunk or Dinosaur Jr into an overall sound more in alignment with 1st- and 2nd-wave emocore, getting all the basics right at reproducing the genre’s tropes and conventions that made it awesome in the first place while avoiding all the pitfalls that would make it a fucking joke and a tired cliché later on, while the songwriting chops on display here are somewhat basic but confident and sure-footed enough to keep you engaged, even if Puddy Knife won’t add anything new to the genre here rather than reminding us of how much fun and joy you could get out of it in its earlier days and still can to this day, once you strip it of its acquired baggage of clownish mall punk cosplay and performative self-pity.
Following up on their incredible 2021 demo, this Copenhagen group delivers an equally exciting debut full length. On one hand, this sounds vaguely familiar as the local legends Lower and (early) Iceage have sure left their mark on Pleaser’s music – having a similar appeal of larger-than-life drama tangled up in chaotic and emotional no-holds-barred performances – in addition to lesser known Copenhagen groups like Melting Walkmen, Echo People and Spines. But then again, Pleaser totally hold their own owing to top-notch song substance and plenty of neat little surprises like some black metal flourishes in the instrumental The World Says Its Name, Morricone stylings and a Murderer-esque psychedelic cowpunk haze in Drive of Distress while Light and Fire and This Is How I Die have some distinct Poison Ruïn vibes to them. Last but not least, in The Dream, a good bit of Rites of Spring, Dag Nasty collides with some 90s Leatherface or Samiam vibes as well as somewhat younger noise pop acts á la Star Party, Times Beach, No Age, Male Bonding or Joanna Gruesome.
The full-length debut of this Tokyo group kinda plays out like a round-trip through some of the most jangly and melodic sections of late eighties to nineties indie rock, noise pop, post- and emocore, conjuring up the spirit of groups like Polvo, Superchunk, Unwound, Bitch Magnet, Lync, Dinosaur Jr. and many more, with the occasional flash of Slint thrown in for good measure and some shoegaze flourishes particularly of the Swervedriver variety – all of that bottled up using fittingly rough lo-fi production values. An altogether rare and refreshing thing these days, at least in its raw and undiluted form as on display here.
