New shit by Midgee? Awesome, i’ll have two. Wait what, it also has new tunes by Electric Prawns 2? Just shut up and take my money! Melbourne’s Midgee once again prove to be a safe bet for fans of quirky synth-/garage-/eggpunk goodness in the vein of Prison Affair, Nuts, Set-Top Box or Beer. Quite a bit more ambitious and varied then are the four tunes by Moffat Beach garage sensation Electric Prawns 2, although on this one they mostly act on the sunnier side of their musical spectrum in a set of compact and catchy-as-hell smashers that exhibit many of the virtues of recent Billiam or Alien Nosejob.
The fourth EP of Melbourne’s Piss Wizard combines their least crappy production values so far with their strongest set of tunes to date in their trademark rough-as-fuck mixture of garage-flavored fuzz- and hardcore punk imbued with plenty of surf twang, rockabilly leads and noise-infested texture. That shit feels sickly, smelly, perverted and contagious in the best possible way!
The Debut EP of this Brisbane group delights with four energetic blasts of no-frills garage punk/-core, a hint of death rock in the opening- and closing tracks, some distinct proto punk feel and constant flourishes of sleazy ’70s and ’80s cock rock – a somewhat unreal sounding mix that reminds me a lot of groups like Cement Shoes, Golden Pelicans, Tarantüla, Flea Collar, Polute and the early days of Electric Chair.
Astoria, Oregon group The Dumpies have been around for a bit already and have been a thoroughly lovable force ever since, yet their recent split EP with Night Court (of which most songs are also included here) signaled a huge leap forward in terms of energy, stylistic diversity and songwriting potency – a promise they certainly make good on with this incredible new LP, cycling through endless iterations of power pop-infused (garage-)punk, melancholy indie rockers and also numerous attacks of straight-up hardcore punk in a single impressive burst of uncontainable creativity, crude humor and eccentricity. There’s not a trace of filler to be found on this record. Every song hits home without fail.
This exquisitely butt-whooping debut album by Austin, Texas dude Bryan Alchamaa aka Outside View has a whole 15-song all-killer-no-filler package of catchy, partly synth-enhanced and just slightly ’77-leaning garage tunes in store for us of which some kinda resemble the straightforward simplicity of Buck Biloxi, The Spits, Bart and the Brats, while others channel the sparkling hymns by the likes of Why Bother?, Deletions, Digital Leather and Lost Sounds.
After the overflowing bucket of catchy power pop fun that was the debut LP of this australian dude who’s also playing in such high caliber acts as R.M.F.C. and Gee Tee, his newest album delivers more of the same basic goodness while improving on it in all aspects across the board and where previously his tunes may have come across as a bit too uniform, samey and clincal at times, on this one his impeccable songwriting chops shine all the brighter helped along by a perfectly fitting production (also: actual drums, finally!) striking just the right balance between gunk and polish to make his simple garage-/fuzz pop tunes sparkle with joy and energy.
To me, previous releases of Mason City, Iowa’s Why Bother? have usually been a somewhat hit-and-miss kind of affair, although the undeniable highlights no doubt made up for any instance in which the songwriting was just a tad too undercooked or the performance just didn’t quite spark. Over time their hits-to-duds ratio has certainly improved though and their newest offering is hands down their strongest set of new catchy-as-fuck tunes so far, as usual melting strikingly simple ’77 vibes, scraps of power pop and plenty of contemporary garage- and synth punk into an impressive succession of unstoppable hooks and melodies with quite a bit of stylictic breadth.
This neat new tape by a Los Angeles group has some deliciously noisy and hyperactive synth-/electro punk for us that transports some vague feel of the genre’s ’70s/’80s classics while exact matches with any of those seem kinda elusive, although i’d say Primitive Calculators and Nervous Gender are reasonably close comparisons. Above that, you may draw similarly diffuse connections to recent groups, with certain moments, bits and pieces evoking a bunch of acts as diverse as Lost Packages, ISS, Spyroids, Skull Cult and Freak Genes, plus just a bit of hybrid garage-/post punk á la Tyvek and Shark Toys in more guitar-centered tracks like Ford Branca.
Following up on their stellar previous EP, this (probably) Austin, Texas group delivers a way more crude and unpolished – yet no less exciting – batch of new tunes located in the more eccentric spheres of the garage-/synth-/eggpunk spectrum. Less catchy overall but more high-energy instead, this makes for a more than serviceable successor to a plainly sensational record that’s been a decidedly tough act to follow anyway and even as the lesser of the two, it’s still a freakin’ increadible bit of eccentric noise to be perfectly honest.
Always great fun, a new EP courtesy of Ukraine’s best address for quirky and catchy eggpunk goodness that evokes the aesthetic pillars of Prison Affair, Beer, Set-Top Box, Autobahns, Goblin Daycare, Midgee… yeah, this particular sub-branch of the genre is shaping up to become a remarkably international affair and it’s such a joy to watch it all play out over time.
