Insanely engaging garage shit from a Detroit group via the reliable local cassette forgery Painters Tapes, covering an admirable stylistic bandwidth that successfully combines many traits of quirky and elaborate garage punk groups á la Uranium Club, R.M.F.C., Erik Nervous, Satanic Togas, Exwhite and Dumb, the DIY post punk/garage-hybrids of Shark Toys and many flashes of contemporary eggpunk like Prison Affair, Clarko, Snooper, Beer, Winky Frown, Завірюга, Midgee, Gobs and Goblin Daycare. There's no room for boredom here as you can never know what's gonna lurk behind the next corner of this freakisch little tape.
This new LP by some Elkhart, Indiana dude sees a strikingly simple and time-honored formula getting fucked up to absolute perfection, taking on a sound inbetween the worlds of garage- and hardcore punk, some KBD-leaning eccentricities and a hint of synth-/electro punk in Vacant, succeeding simply by way of overloading our senses with a thick layer of blown-out noise and fuzz. Having a number of high-octane instances of timeless catchy punk excellence like Not A Toy to rely on sure doesn't hurt either, making for twenty glorious minutes of slightly Lumpy & The Dumpers-esque fuckery which, of more recent years, has also some kinship to groups like Small Portions, Yacht Fire, Dick Hick, Power Shovel and Delta 8.
Spanish eggpunks Huevo have been on my radar for a bit already but it's only with this new compilation LP featuring all of their previous work in a re-sequenced order and often wildly superior, tighter mixes, that i finally come to fully appreciate the strengths of this group, putting their very own spin on well-established eggpunk tropes that has quite a bit more of an energetic and raw edge than your average release in that sphere, with tracks like Todo Asqueroso having a propulsive force to them that you'd rather expect from not at all egg-ish punk acts like Piss Test, Dollhouse and Easers.
Here's a sensational debut EP by some band or project based in Lethbridge, Alberta containing six perfect blows of post punk whose ear-piercing walls of noise and pulsing electric beats at times sound a bit as if an eggpunk Big Black collided with the somewhat psychedelic qualities of garage greats like late Useless Eaters, Pow! and Mononegatives - or maybe the murky old experimental punk classics of Métal Urbain / Dr. Mix and the Remix - in a breathless succession of certified bangers. I also have a hunch that fans of spaced-out noisemakers á la Corpus Earthling or french magician Pablo X are gonna lap this shit up.
Now that's some hot shit, this debut tape by some dude from Lansing, Michigan. The fuzzed-out garage punk inferno of Cracked lays out a bit of a false trail for us at first, as the overall vibe then immediately shifts toward more of a noisy synth punk direction for the remaining tracks covering a good variety of stylistic flavors and accordingly, reminding me of a full ecclectic grab bag of acts in the wider synth-/electro-/sample punk spectrum including the likes of Beef, ISS, Heavy Metal, Klint, The Garden, Victor, Spyroids, R. Clown, Paulo Vicious and Kerozine.
Don't expect anything groundbreaking here 'cos with Power Pants you always know exactly what you're gonna get and even the freakin' early Ramones arguably had more stylistic breadth than this group. Yet, their songs never miss the mark and this entirely unfussy formula of catchy garage punk remains insanely appealing to me and as long as we continually get delivered tunes as potent as May I Rest or You're Invited, i'm gonna gratefully devour each new sugary health hazard Power Pants throw at me. Woof!
The third EP of this Brooklyn, NY group is hands down their most ripe effort to date and strikes a delicate balance between more blunt and straightforward garage-infused hardcore punk smashers and more eleborate postcore tunes which call to mind such weirdo acts as Mystic Inane, Launcher or Rolex, keeping us on on the edge of our seats with a constant sense of unpredictability.
This Montreal group featuring Members of Puffer and Béton Armé unveils a fully evolved and classy vision on their second Tape following up on their admirable, if still a bit rough-around-the-edges 2023 Demo. The opener Insoutenable comes dashing right out of the gate with a pronounced Radio Birdman and early New Christs kind of energy which is joined by more contemporary sounding elements of melodic post punk á la The Estranged and Dead Finks, having much of a folk-ish, roots-y quality to it. Another standout is Rien ne t'empêchera, which strikes me as a perfect fusion of a catchy oldschool Oi! singalong with jangly power pop.
This neat little tape by some Leicester, UK based weirdo excites with a rowdy aesthetic blown-out within an inch of its life that rapidly alternates between wonderfully shambolic hardcore parts and more garage-leaning fuzz punk sketches almost conjuring up some sort of oldschool Lumpy & The Dumpers-like quality. Music to my ears!
Less than a week into the new year, Erste Theke Tonträger has already put out 2025's first blockbuster release... digitally, at least. The Ghoulies from Perth, Australia are among those groups where it feels like they've been around for much longer than they actually were, having conquered their own little space inside the garage-/synth-/eggpunk gamut - not at all by considerably shaking up its foundations but rather by perfecting existing playbooks to their maximum sophistication and impact, plus, they always have the bewitching tunes to make it all stick. At many points, their sound is vaguely reminiscent somewhat oldschool-ish artifacts predating the whole eggpunk umbrella term á la early Ausmuteants, Quitter, Drug Sweat, while perfectly fitting in with more recent shit like Cherry Cheeks, Satanic Togas, Research Reactor Corp., Gee Tee, Kitchen People or Tommy Cossack & The Degenerators all the same.
