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.
Not long after the recent 7" on Goodbye Boozy Records we get the first LP of Sydney's Tee Vee Repairman on that other garage punk powerhouse label Total Punk. As you might've guessed this is another juicy treat of simple and stupid melodic garage punk and power pop delight well suited for fans of shit like Bad Sports, Tommy and the Commies and Bed Wettin' Bad Boys while of the dude's own other projects, you might be most reminded of a sugar-coated version of Satanic Togas or recent R.M.F.C..
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.
This montreal group's debut EP delights with a batch of fairly melodic, simple-and-effective little smashers in the realm of garage pop, fuzz- and post punk reminding me of a particular cluster of groups from a few years ago including acts such as Feature, Negative Scanner, Slowcoaches and UV-TV. Also, in Get Loose, there's a distinct Wire vibe at play here and y'all know i'm a sucker for that kind of shit.
Whoa, i didn't really expect that record to be this fucking good - a hot contender for my favorite power pop record of 2022, plain and simple. Like a curious eggfolk Resonars or Bevis Frond, these songs also radiate the melancholy, dreamy vibes of Lost Balloons with little hints of early Guided By Voices, Soft Boys, Honey Radar or Woolen Men added to the mix for good measure. The quirky and blown-out lo-fi aesthetics simply can't do anything to lessen the impact and beauty of the superb songwriting chops on display here.
I almost overlooked this beauty which appears to have been out for a couple months already. Knoxville's Ex-Gold had put out a delightful debut EP in 2018, a couple of whose songs have also been re-recorded for this new one while the new tracks seamlessly continue the excellence of their debut. That means more quirky powerpop and garage punk with both a slight '77- and an oldschool indie rock touch. The best comparison i can come up with right now are UK wisecrackers Proto Idiot but fans of stuff like Tommy and the Commies, Bad Sports, Radioactivity, Sweet Reaper, Corner Boys or Steve Adamyk Band should also get a kick out of this.
Spanish garage poppers Beta Máximo already left a rather positive impression on me with their couple of fairly recent EPs but with this one, they're finally nailing it if you ask me, striking a perfect balance between snappy garage punk and surf-infused power pop - kinda like a somewhat less eggy, less lo-fi incarnation of Barcelona group Prison Affair.
A wondrous and strange little EP full of otherworldly garage-/power-/fuzz pop from a Philadelphia Duo. The tape starts out as if the insane pop qualities of, say, Booji Boys or Daughter Bat & The Lip Stings collided with the smart rhythmic post punk of Lithics, while the remaining three songs then settle into a slightly more low-key kraut-leaning psychedelic groove, the likes of which you might suspect somewhere in the lo-fi pop worlds of acts like Germ House, Far Corners, Violent Change, Honey Radar or even early Woolen Men. Excellent shit throughout.
Um… what meaningful thing is there left to say about a new Alien Nosejob record at this point? They kinda come in two shapes: The grab bag style ones where Mr. Robertson branches out in every direction possible and the hyperfocussed monoculture ones where he doubles down on a single genre - like his hardcore 7"s for example or that synth pop/eurotrash 12" maxi a while ago. Well, this one's another grab bag record and apart from that, it's just the plain old usual awesomeness we've all come to expect from this dude who seems utterly unable to write a dull tune.
Speaking of the devil… here's the latest venture of the mighty Warttman empire and it's yet another beauty to behold. Four rough gems of catchy garage punk and power pop that, of all the Warttman-related groups, reminds me most of R.F.M.C. and Satanic Togas, albeit with a certain southern rock (in this particular case… southern what, actually??) bent bearing some similarity to what you heard on early Sheer Mag EPs.