This Montreal group’s previous two EPs were already each a fat bucket chock-full of sleazy-ass rock’n’roll bliss and now they really hit it out of the ballpark with their first full-length effort, on which they considerably expand their stylistic color gamut and dial up the catchyness to eleven of their already dangerously combustive recipie made up of garage punk, hard- and postcore elements, a slight hint of Oi! and lots unapologetic dabbling in sweaty ’70s hard & heavy dad rock territory while in tunes like Never Enough, there’s an undeniable hint of roots-y folk- and cowpunk going on aswell. Immediately this shit strikes me a bit as a significantly dumbed down version of that recent Punter LP and further reminds me of a colorful bunch of sleazecore acts á la Cement Shoes, Golden Pelicans, Flea Collar, Cülo, Cutters, Polute and Chain Whip.
Melbourne’s Metdog have absolutely cemented their status as one of the major players of the contemporary garage-/synth-/eggpunk scene with last year’s pretty fucking gaga full length Questions and Answers Regarding Computers and Screens. For their newest LP though, they dial down the overall weirdness ever-so-slightly, which i’m gonna say is actually for the better as i think another iteration of that ’90s PC- / early web-themed insanity and ultra-cheesy general MIDI-esque sonics certainly wouldn’t hit quite as hard the second time around. Instead we get a somewhat more streamlined and straightforward bunch of alarmingly catchy garage tunes that still let their freak flag fly aplenty, just in case you were worried things might get even remotely too serious here. Anyway, it’s certainly their most substantial release so far, supported by a matching growth in the songwriting department without giving up too much of the group’s overall playfulness and unpredictability.
There’s more going on under the hood than first meets the eye on this Budapest group’s debut cassette whose eight tunes on one hand – especially in its first half – channel some vaguely oldschool-ish KBD- and garage punk vibes with alternating flourishes of Gun Club and Wipers, counterbalanced by a bunch of way more contemporary sounding elements on which groups of the current anarcho-/postcore-axis á la Straw Man Army and Fantasma have surely left their mark while at many other points, a certain breed of art punk melancholy akin to, say, Kitchen’s Floor and Uniform (Atlanta, not NYC) also shines through.
For the follow-up to their excellent 2023 EP Feed The Clones Pt. 1 – which has been their first record to fully realize their potential IMO – the Oakland group can’t be bothered to tweak their specific formula a whole lot, just as the “part 2” designation would already suggest. That’s fine with me ‘cos there wasn’t anything broken with their sound to begin with and much of the song material collected on here is top notch shit once again – even though, admittedly, this thing sometimes feels more like an EP’s worth of hits wedged inbetween a good deal of more sluggish, abstract, atmospheric tunes this time around, much of which i’m tempted to classify as glorified interlude material. Nonetheless, this is yet another essential listen for connoisseurs of demented, Spits-flavoured horror-/garage-/synth punk fodder.
Right on the heels of the Billiam & Busted Head Racked collab EP more excellent shit keeps rolling in already of egg-ish australian garage punk’s prime driving force and it’s a neat little gimmick indeed to put a five-minute track on one side of a 7″ and five one-minute tracks on the other. Naturally, this is yet another kickass bunch of six catchy-as-fuck hits including an explosive Ausmuteants cover tune, but the biggest surprise on here is actually how admirably that aforementioned five-minute song format is working out here. Dude should try that more often! Longpunk or shortpunk? The proper answer is yes, please!
New Gobs! What’s left to say about them? If you didn’t know about them before, now you do! These Olympia, Washington-based folks absolutely solidify their status as the current kings of fuzzed-out noisy hi-speed lo-fi no-frills garage punk smashers all over again with yet another set of exquisitely explosive sonic weapons.
Portland’s Yacht Fire absolutely killed it with last year’s self-titled debut EP of cool-as-fuck DIY fuzzed-out garage punk that alternated between quite catchy and utterly abrasive tunes. The successor now transports the same awesomeness while slightly expanding on the folk-ish vibes already subtly present on the first EP, now taking center stage most notably in Run and Kiss Off, while Nod and Cigarettes are punchy no-frills bursts of simple and effective fuzz punk mayhem and the closing tune Werewolf keeps hitting hard too with a bit of a Wipers-meet-Dead Moon vibe. This is yet another all-killer record by a band you should absolutely keep a eye on!
The tireless Leipzig scene strikes again with yet another quality bunch of eggpunk tunes roughly in the vein of a less distorted Prison Affair, Beer, Egg Idiot or Research Reactor Corp.. Sure, don’t expect anything new or groundbreaking here but this shit still packs plenty of a familiar quirky punch and tons of a reliable, if – at this point – kinda basic and no longer terribly original kind of fun.
A lovely and fun debut by some Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania group. The instrumental opening tune Liftoff Jam (White Boys in E) swells into a monotonous monster of psychedelic haze that sounds a bit as if MX-80 and Chrome were being fused with early The Men, only for the rest of the EP to settle into a slightly less cumbersome aesthetic of straightforward, somewhat Stooges-esque garage punk that occasionally approaches some hardcore speeds and energy levels and keeps setting itself apart by way of its subtle psychedelic overtones and a constant melodic undercurrent flowing through their catchy, oldschool garage- and proto punk stylings.
Lansing, Michigan’s Snarewaves are releasing quite a lot of stuff to keep up with so you gotta forgive me for not posting about it every single time the dude releases like another two-minute EP. Now’s a good time however as the I’d Rather Die Than Be On Linkedin EP first released a couple weeks ago has now been extended into a twelve-song micro-LP with an epic total running time of six-and-a-half minutes, plus, there’s already the next one available which may or may not get that same treatment over the coming weeks. Snarewaves releases are iterative. We’re used to that by now. And what can i say, their music always appears to make more sense to me when it comes in a larger bundle, transforming his ultra-short bursts of lo-fi electro punk into some kind of disjointed opera. Right now this shit still sounds like no one else around, as if current developments in garage punk and oldschool hardcore elements were being forced through the low-res sample meatgrinder of ancient Amiga 500 tracker files. If i had to come up with something at least superficially related, it would be the Schleswig, Germany based synth punk viking Klint, probably.
