Now if you thought the 2022 EP of this Montreal group was kinda weird and bananas, Pressure Pin be like: “Hold my beer” ‘cos you’ve seen nothing yet! For their second EP, they considerably raise the bar both in terms of sophistication and of unpredictable chaos and mayhem in their totally nuts compositions whose rough characteristics hover somewhere around the spheres of garage-, synth-, art- and eggpunk with a pronounced element of devocore, all the while being hellbent on nuking the confines of those genres respectively. This kind of eclectic anything-goes approach reminds me most of recent works by Trashdog and Checkpoint, though if you take it one stylistic ingredient at a time, you might also find bits and pieces of the ’90s-midi-style pop excursions of Metdog, the Devo-isms of recent Isotope Soap, the sparkling joy of Snooper and the quirky, catchy garage-/art punk explosions of Smirk and Cherry Cheeks. These dudes put more ideas and inspiration in a single tune than your average garage act does in a whole album.
Another awesome EP by that that completely off-the-rails Los Angeles hair punk / egg metal act cementing their status as the severely brain damaged evil cousins of electro punk greats ISS and Heavy Metal, combining an absurd stylistic premise with lyrical contents of only the most deranged quiet-part-out-loud / “Did he really just say that?” variety into a thoroughly ridiculous and fun bit of delightful chaos.
Another Achterlicht EP, another high-octane blast from these dutchmen who have no doubt delivered their best set of tunes so far on this new cassette. The group has never sounded this tight on record before and the songs themselves also show a huge leap forward, delivering a non-stop barrage of dangeruous hooks and catchy tunes roughly in the vein of such garage-/synth-/eggpunk heavyweights as Dadar, Satanic Togas, Research Reactor Corp. and Gee Tee.
With each new Alien Nosejob release, you never quite know what you’re gonna get. An oldschool hardcore attack? Sad-sack power pop? A straight-up Ausmuteants throwback? Relentlessly hammering industrial punk? Heavily eurotrash/italo disco-informed synth pop? A full LP of AC/DC cock rock worship? I’m just gonna say all of this, and more, has happened before with Jake Robertson’s constantly shape-shifting project. Yet, there’s always an unmistakable signature to anything the garage punk auteur does and if there is such a thing as a “classic” Alien Nosejob sound, this new record is about as close as it’s gonna get while still giving us plenty of stylistic variety molded into a super catchy set of new tunes never being let down by Robertson’s unimpeachable songwriting chops.
Finally, here’s the debut album of Cleveland, Ohio art punks The Carp, a group comprised of folks also connected to acts like Perverts Again, Knowso and Cruelster. With most of these songs already having made an appearance on their 2022 demo, here they’re given some final polish here with the increased production values adding plenty of punch, while their sound overall kinda bridges the gap between the sonic traits of Knowso and Cruelster, combining the elaborate yet rigid structures of the former with the straght-ahead fun and energy of the latter, with even a bit of a cowpunk vibe á la Murderer in The Old Ways.
The second LP of this group from Antwerp, Belgium featuring at the very least one Member of Itches plus former members of Star Visitors and The Queefs, takes their kinda basic garage punk formula into a somewhat more eleborate and polished direction having a bit of a Vintage Crop, early Patti, Reality Group or Yammerer vibe to them, while also retaining much of the previous album’s qualities reminiscent both of euro acts like Dadar, Shitty Life and US acts of the previous decade á la Shark Toys, Ex-Cult and Tyvek. So, nothing too new or groundbreaking going on here but plenty of demented fun to be had anyway whith this collection of thoroughly competent and well-crafted garage tunes.
The successor to last year’s kickass second EP of this Cincinnati, Ohio group makes no attempt at fixing what ain’t broken and instead delivers four new blows of that very same awesomness incorporating elements of noise rock, post-, garage- and synth punk with various bits and pieces reminding me of the likes of Busted Head Racket, Brandy, R.Clown, ISS, Spyroids and Knowso, De()t, Toy Brigade or Nervous Tick and the Zipper Lips.
Five insanely pleasing new bursts of straightforward garage punk from yet another belgian group exquisitely executing a no-frills basic strategy that combines traits of a bunch of other european acts (think of the likes of Itches, Mitraille, Dadar and Shitty Life) with a hint of nested grooves á la early Uranium Club, Dumb and Reality Group on one hand, counterbalenced by some shit reminiscent of groups located on the rougher ends of the garage punk spectrum like Easers, Crisis Man, Cruelster or Curleys.
New Jersey garage freak Reckless Randy first came into my sight with 2022’s neat self-titled debut LP and has since then released another strong EP. On this new (mini-)LP he once again ups the game considerably for what is hands down his most fully realized record to date as is best exemplified by the couple of tracks already known from previous releases, being given a thorough makeover and adding lots of punch on this one. An invigorating caffeine boost of super catchy garage- and synth punk alternating somewhere inbetween the sonics of the classic The Spits school, Die TV (who previously also played the drums on Randy’s records, it appears), Sick Thoughts, Buck Bilixi and Kid Chrome.
What’s there left to say about, like, the only german-language band that matters right now pretty much? The guilty conscience of german DIY punk has released yet another batch of excellent and excentric new tracks in their one-of-a-kind fusion of equally pissed and quirky post-, garage- and synth punk, unceremoniously dumped on Bandcamp as has always kinda been their modus operandi, but also slated for a vinyl release via Phantom Records pretty fucking soon™.
