Here's a new short-playing dose of madness from that Lansing, Michigan one-man-band and who would have guessed - it's yet another delightful attack of chaotic synth-/electro-/sample punk so blown-out within an inch of its life it leaves me wonderin' whether i'm hearing a guitar or just a mutilated synth in the opening track. Thus, high quality new fodder for friends of other disconcerting noises á la Beef, ISS, Heavy Metal, Klint, Spyroids, R. Clown or Kerozine.
The artwork appears to not very subtly hint at a dungeon-related thing and this almost sounds plausible with the riff-heavy opening track, though after that, the spanish group's newest EP settles into that familiar sound of dreamy, egg-ish noise pop and synthpunk we all know and love them for, albeit with a few unexpected nuances like the aformentioned opening, occasional emo-ish sprinkles, some hints at straightforward, classic indie rock and moments channeling some C86-by-way-of-early shoegaze kind of aesthetic in El Valle De La Muerte and the closing track Sesos En Bandeja.
These New Yorkers' new longplaying cassette is quite a stunner, showing incredible growth from its already thorougly enjoyable predecessor, 2022's Fancy! EP. While that one still had a kinda cute power pop and new wave-ish quality to itself, this one manages to come across as simultaneously more abstract and more mature. Less Television Personalities and more eighties The Fall in its minimalism and repetition, yet at all times feeling very deliberately put together, this further channels the aesthetic traits of old british DIY á la Desperate Bicycles, Membranes, Swell Maps or early Mekons, while a thick load-bearing layer of melancholy interconnects some of the album's most memorable tunes and reminds me quite a bit of a certain strain of aussie groups like Wireheads, Kitchen's Floor and the more downbeat moments of Eddy Current Suppression Ring. Another decent reference point would be yet another not-so-famous famous group - Philadelphia's Famous Mammals - along with a number of other US-based shambolic post- and art punk acts like Society, Germ House, Spiral Rash and Toe Ring.
On their debut cassette carrying the quality seal of the ever-reliable Detroit label Painters Tapes, what this Ohio group pulls off here is nothing short of some top-notch weapons-grade guitar-less synth punk excellence that kinda bridges the gap between oldschool '70s-'80s acts like Nervous Gender, Units, Visitors and Screamers on one hand and some more recent, varyingly egg-ish groups running the gamut from the unpredictable, hyperactive approach of, say, Checkpoint, Titanium Exposé, Pressure Pin to the more minimalist attacks of Beef, Busted Head Racket and some shit right inbetween those worlds like Quitter, Slimex, Isotope Soap, earlier Freak Genes or Billiam's synth punk project NTSC>PAL.
I didn't ever think i'd need another instrumental surf rock record in my life, a genre that seemingly never expanded its stylistic vocabulary too much since its '50s/60s gold rush or, even worse, often feels kinda like a dumbed-down, ultra-codified and risk-averse retread of its initial phase. This group from La Cisterna, Chile, however, pulls off that miracle of getting me invested in another surf-ish LP with a sound that makes me feel like goin' surfin' in... well, fuckin' hell i'd say, tackling the genre from an angle of noisy, goth-infused post punk and death rock that infuses tons of energy and much needed fresh air into its ancient ways and in contrast to so much instrumental rock'n'roll (surf or otherwise) feeling in desperate need of a vocal line to bind together the moving parts, the arrangements on this record are perfectly capable to stand on their own - the dramaturgically dense compositions and guitar leads, brimming with energy, are masterfully telling their own stories, no words needed here.
An insanely fun debut EP by this St. Louis, Missouri group that sounds like... no one group in particular really, which in our heavily genre-codified times may be among the best compliments you can make. Rather, this is some freewheeling choose-your-own-adventure-style shit mixing-and-matching an abundance of synth-enhanced garage punk influences with varying degrees of egg-ishness into a super catchy, coherent whole that at different points may call to mind the likes of Skull Cult, Print Head, Warm Bodies, Rearranged Face, Snooper or Wax Minds.
This group from Bordeaux, France at first glance appears pretty much in line with that omnipresent background hiss of french groups playing rather basic, mildly Oi!- and Post Punk-infused catchy punk hymns but damn, do these folks just hit the bullseye with their debut EP, getting pretty much the optimum bang out of a subgenre as restricted und ubiquitous as this. Friends of such groups as Telecult, Litovsk, Bleakness or Nightwatchers absolutely shouldn't miss this one!
Toronto group Cult Crime have already made an excellent impression with thier first Demo and 7" in 2023/'24 respectively. Their full length debut now doesn't attempt to fix what ain't broken and delivers nine no-frills straightforward garage punk smashers strongly rooted equally in the sonic parameters of '77-era groups and early Hardcore Punk which i'm pretty sure will, among others, please admirers of such acts like early Sick Thoughts, Bart and The Brats, Jean Mignon or Hood Rats.
Silicon Heartbeat have been a constant presence at the periphery of the 12XU-relevant sonic spectrum for years now, yet it appears i've never given them a blog post so far for some inexplicable reason (though you've surely stumbled upon them on a couple of my mixtapes). This has to be rectified immediately i'll say and their newest EP is the perfect occasion for that, not only featuring some of their strongest tunes so far but also being further elevated by the production work of garage punk royalty Erik Nervous, whose magic touch adds plenty of oomph and contour to their somewhat Spits-indebted, catchy and psychedelic synth- and garage punk sound. I sure hope that, in spite of its title, this ain't actually the last we're gonna hear of them..
What a neat little oddity, this second EP by Chicago group Forklift Rodeo, on which they're mixing some weird-ass unpredictable bursts of cowpunk with small traces of 90s AmRep/Tough&Go-esque noise rock, postcore and occasionally also some kind of contemporary eggpunk quality, though in that regard i'm thinking more of early Skull Cult rather than the somewhat more codified recent crop of Lo-Fi-recorded insanity. Speaking of Lo-Fi... this record certainly ain't that, giving a well-produced sheen and transparency to their equally quirky, sprawling and intricate constructions that would indeed have absolutely no need for hiding behind an obscuring layer of noise and grime.
