If you feel like you've heard these songs before, you're not going nuts 'cos indeed every single tune on album number 3 by this Madison, Wisconsin-based group has already been on one of their previous two LPs. So on one hand this thing plays out like some kind of best of comp but then again, everything has been re-recorded here, polished up and given a new layer of paint and especially those tunes from the first record - which still left some things to be desired in the production department - have gained a lot of punch and sparkle in what i'll call their definitive versions now. So basically we've got kind of a "first Snooper LP" situation on our hands here and the strongest representation so far of their quite unique blend of super catchy garage- and post punk with psychedelic undercurrents and additional sprinkles of glam and goth, a combination that often reminds me of Powerplant, De()t or Isotope Soap minus the Synths, of Mononegatives, Shrudd or Electric Prawns 2 on the more psychedelic side of the equation and, in their lighter moments, the likes of Erik Nervous, Andy Human & The Reptoids, SGATV, Freak Genes or Cthtr.
Now this Brooklyn group kicks up an excellent fuss on what appears to be their second EP so far, churning out eight concise and catchy eruptions of fuzz-heavy garage- and old-fashioned DIY punk that evokes quite a bit of an early 2010s feel reminiscent of Tyvek, Parquet Court or maybe a quite Lo-Fi, rustic incarnation of Wimps, though you could just as well draw comparisons to oldschool KBD-adjacent Acts like The Endtables or The Mentally Ill. There's an undeniable Desperate Bicycles energy to it aswell and when it comes to more recent shit, i'm sure enjoyers of that fairly recent Winston Hytwrs Perfect Harmony EP might get a kick out of this one too.
Judging from the title, this Boston group featuring half the lineup of The Monsieurs has just found some recordings and dumped them on bandcamp, so no clue how old this shit actually is, but reading the tea leaves i'll say it's fairly recent actually. Anyway, where The Monsieurs have, for my own taste, often been adhering just a bit too closely to an ultra-oldschool, rather basic and well-trodden garage punk retro formula, this shit right here - while still not exactly new or original - has a lot more muscle to it, delivering its old school thrills with plenty of oomph, relying on heavy-duty, resiliant hooks and rock-solid song substance all the way through.
Insanely appealing shit, this demo by Sydney group The Moids. What starts out with your kinda standard lo-fi electric beats propelling forward a subliminally egg-ish garage punk sound á la S.B.F., 3D & the Holograms or Witch Piss, gains way more of a rough oldschool KBD quality from the second track Maitland Man going forward, reminiscent more of such groups as Launcher, Liquid Assets, Freakees and Mystic Inane, while Long Week has a stripped-down art rock feel not unlike the earliest Peace de Résistance releases.
This Chicago-based one-man band really upped their game on their 2025 Sunk EP after the dude's previous releases still sounded more like fleeting snapshots of a developing act still in search of its own voice. This new tape released via the good folks at Knuckles On Stun now once again sounds like he means business, delivering four super-compact, simple and catchy treats of power pop-infused, melodic DIY garage punk with a subtle hint of Wipers that never misses a beat and always gets straight to the point.
These folks from Rye, Australia have been around for a couple years already but i can't remember them ever hitting it quite as hard as they do on their newest 7" on Legless Records, on which they retain their previous releases' catchy songwriting prowess but enrich them with a bit more of a primal garage vibe and some melancholy overtones that - despite no current members of that band playing in this incarnation of Doe St, i think - certainly expose ther personal and geographical proximity to Melbourne's garage punk dynamos Split System. If you're into that shit, don't miss out on this either!
Sex Mex have been a constant for the past couple years as my go-to act for straight-ahead fuzzy and melodic no-frills garage punk that doesn't evolve much beyond its time-tested formula but so far hasn't ever disappointed either, always kept afloat by the quality of the song material and this newest EP is without doubt among the strongest sets of new tunes they've let loose so far, another no-frills treat of synth-enhanced, euphoric garage pop to lift the spirits when we desperately need it.
The debut EP of this Auckland, NZ group feels a lot like a welcome throwback to the early days of (proto-)eggpunk to me in how they combinine a sound somewhat akin to the likes of early Erik Nervous, Hobocop, Coneheads, Neo Neos, Skull Cult and an up-and-coming young Billiam with plenty of an oldschool abrasive garage punk edge not so often heard from the more recent wave of eggheads. No complaints here, that shit still works.
Over the last couple years, Shrudd of Louiseville, Kentucky consistently upped their game with each new release and yet i'm gonna say their newest one is playing in a different league altogether, such an amazing leap from anything they've done before. Where their previous work cycled through numerous subgenres but had an undeniable egg-ish quality in common especially on their most recent bunch of EPs, this one moves way beyond that with the opener M.M.I.T.L. still bearing the closest resemblance to their previous work with kind of a Ghoulies vibe before Stagnant shows the first subtle harbinger of a darker, more psychedelic-leaning overall vibe reminiscent of the likes of Useless Eaters, Pow!, Electric Prawns 2 and Mononegatives, which really kicks into gear with the slightly Powerplant-esque aura of Bodies. EMT on the other hand has quite a bit of a classic blues-y, slightly cowpunk-ish garage vibe to itself, followed by Gift where they're going into full spaced-out acid punk overdrive. And in such a vein it continues, gradually expanding their sonic color plaette with almost every new tune. So basically, here we have the newest example of a band growing the fuck up and branching out from their humble eggpunk beginnings towards new horizons, which i guess is gonna make ex-Lumpy Martin Meyer kinda happy and it makes me quite happy too cos this shit is so freakin' good!
This new tape by London group Botox does absolutely nothing new but what it does, it gets absolutely right, distilling a strong and primitive concoction out of '77-, KBD- and garage punk that's like 35% fuzz and 45% attitude with the remaining 20% consisting of a thin remnant layer of tried-and-tested oldschool punk tropes and formulas that do their job just fine here in what must be one of the most frugally effective blasts of minimalist punk i've heard in a while.
