Datenight - Clueless and Hangless

At first glance i wasn't quite sure if this Nashville group's newest LP isn't gonna be just a bit too mel­low for my taste but even­tu­al­ly, the sheer strength of their Lo-Fi in­die rock songcraft wins me over once again, the whole thing hav­ing the feel of a scrap­py odds-and-ends col­lec­tion which might just be the case. This as­sess­ment is on­ly be­ing re­in­forced by the fact that the songs ap­pear in al­pha­bet­i­cal or­der here - the tunes them­selves are pure A-grade stuff though.

Al­bum-Stream →

M.O.T.O. - The Wall of Phlegm

What a god­damn beau­ty! Paul Ca­por­i­no of cult garage punk /​ pow­er pop vet­er­an project M.O.T.O. at long last has com­piled a new set of beau­ti­ful­ly fuzzy record­ings in the well-worn 4-track so­lo fash­ion, kick­ing things off with a fuckin' Motör­head cov­er of all things and sub­se­quent­ly pulling off what must be his most high-val­ue, hook-laden set of tunes in a long time, noth­ing short of a new lo-fi pop mas­ter­piece if you ask me. Many songs have al­ready ap­peard on one oc­ca­sion or an­oth­er but hon­est­ly, who cares re­al­ly as this thing kin­da plays out like an all-killer-no-filler best of from his re­cent decade-plus of cre­ative out­put, pre­sent­ed in uniqe, un­heard record­ings.

Al­bum-Stream →

Beer - Beer I

For our week­ly dose of egg-re­lat­ed brain­fuck, some dude or group from Charleston, South Car­oli­na is vol­un­teer­ing and they've brought beer with them, nice! Though not ex­act­ly rein­vent­ing the wheel here, this is an­oth­er rock sol­id new pack­age of quirky funky lo-fi garage pop good­ness that fans of shit á la Prison Af­fair, Set-Top Box, Nuts, Eu­gh or Pringue are guar­an­teed to have a mas­sive ball with.

Al­bum-Stream →

Die TV - Uno Affo

Com­ing off a se­ries of neat EPs last year, Marmo­ra, New Jer­sey garage group or, prob­a­bly, so­lo artist Die TV re­turns with a new al­bum pre­sent­ing their tunes in an even more stripped-down, low-key man­ner at first glance, yet un­der­neath the unas­sum­ing sur­face un­folds a spec­tac­u­lar fire­works of DIY cre­ativ­i­ty. While at some points you may still find the oc­ca­sion­al speck of Spits or Stal­ins of Sound in there, Die TV's strum­my, jan­g­ly blend of garage- and post punk with sprin­kles of psy­che­delia comes in­to even sharp­er fo­cus here, the min­i­mal­ist pro­duc­tion pro­vid­ing plen­ty of breath­ing room for the melan­choly, sparkling gui­tar arrange­ments with more than a lit­tle hint of Des­per­ate Bi­cy­cles in some places, Pow­er Plant or Freak Genes in oth­ers, even a touch of Dig­i­tal Leather in the mut­ed pop vibes of Goner. Don't let first im­pres­sions fool you, this is quite po­tent and awe­some shit from start to fin­ish!

Al­bum-Stream →

Gee Tee - Goodnight Neanderthal

New stuff from Gee Tee or Vee or what­ev­er, this dude's shit is all good! On this LP, he's hold­ing a nice bal­ance be­tween the pow­er pop ten­den­cies of his re­cent Tee Vee Re­pair­man records and the some­what more garage-lean­ing projects of his á la Sa­tan­ic To­gas, Re­search Re­ac­tor Corp. and Set-Top Box, mak­ing for an­oth­er fine batch of fuzzed-out garage pop tunes, among them some of his most in­fec­tious ones so far, that's for sure.

Al­bum-Stream →

Teksti-TV 666 - Vapauden Tasavalta

A new LP by that finnish group with way to many gui­tar play­ers… dun­no, i think 666 was the num­ber last time i count­ed. Here, the band is shift­ing their sound in­creas­ing­ly in­to a psych rock di­rec­tion. Es­pe­cial­ly in TJ they're div­ing head­first in­to Space Rock ter­ri­to­ry and the ef­fort pays of ad­mirably. In oth­er places, they stay true to their brand of melod­ic in­die rock, fuzz punk and noise pop with echoes of No Age, Wavves, Cal­i­for­nia X, Hap­py Div­ing and some ear­ly The Men, which they then in­fuse with sprawl­ing gui­tar drones rem­i­nis­cent of Glenn Bran­ca and 80s Son­ic Youth.

Al­bum-Stream →

Légumes Sex - LPette

An over­flow­ing buck­et of joy, the newest LP(ette) by some duo from Mon­treuil, France, gen­er­at­ing a mix­ture melod­ic of garage punk, old­school in­die rock, fuzz- and jan­gle pop re­mind­ing me of a di­verse group of more-or-less re­cent acts á la Dumb Punts, Woolen Men, Her­met­ic, Land­lines, The Ex­bats, Tape/​Off… or maybe a more down-to-earth P.S. I Love You, aswell as old in­die rock­ers of the Su­per­chunk, Archers Of Loaf va­ri­ety. This record serves as a per­fect re­minder that you don't need to stage a huge spec­ta­cle if you just de­liv­er on the melodies that stick.

Al­bum-Stream →

Dehidratált Fejek - Igyad Azt Menjünk

Damn, i thought i was done blog­ging for the week and then this un­ex­pect­ed lit­tle gem of crude and sham­bol­ic noise by a Bu­dapest group crops up last minute, their sound strik­ing me as a pe­cu­liar fu­sion of odd­ball garage punk in the Ed­dy Cur­rent Sup­pres­sion Ring and UV Race vein with sim­i­lar­ly weird acts in the post punk and old­school in­die rock field such as Tree­house, Kitchen's Floor, The Molds and City Yelps.

Al­bum-Stream →

Weak Signal - War and War

Wow, i didn't re­al­ly ex­pect that much en­joy­ment out of the most re­cent LP by this New York group… in fact, these folks have com­plete­ly evad­ed my radar so far. What we get is a heav­i­ly Vel­vet Un­der­ground and Je­sus and Mary Chain-in­spired melange of fuzz-/pow­er-/noise-/dream pop that con­vinces by sheer strength of the un­der­ly­ing song sub­stance while in terms of son­ics, they sure like to slow-cook their songs at low-to-mod­er­ate heat - the re­sults are fuck­ing de­li­cious, just to­tal­ly melt­ing in your mouth as you rel­ish every sin­gle hook, every speck of low-lev­el tex­ture in their rich son­ic land­scape.

Al­bum-Stream →

Air Vent Dweller - Air Vent Dweller

A nice lit­tle bat­tery of vague­ly egg-ish garage punk and fuzz pop com­bin­ing more re­cent weird­ness à la Print Head or Freak Genes with a good mea­sure of Des­per­ate Bi­cy­cles, some ear­ly Fly­ing Nun Records vibes - es­pe­cial­ly The Clean and The Stones - a touch of C86 pop (as in Cow­boys Aren't Re­al) or al­so: loads of ran­dom 80s cas­sette cul­ture ar­ti­facts that might or might not have cropped up on some Messthetics/​Homework/​Hyped To Death com­pi­la­tion over the years.

Al­bum-Stream →