I don't think i ever gave Berlin's mystery act Heavy Metal the full spotlight on here and in retrospect i can't really tell if that was because Heavy Metal weren't quite ready for me or 'cos i wasn't quite ready for Heavy Metal. All i can say is i've been monitoring their curious and prolific trajectory over the past few years and with every release their garage-/electro-/totalfuckingnuts-punk bastard concoctions resonated a bit better with my broken brain until finally they hit a prefect sweet spot with their fifth (duh…) longplayer on which they come off kinda like a more out-there version of a certain North Carolina group that's been rumored to not be punk enough for heavy metal or something… thrown in a blender with a healthy dose of Swell Maps or Métal Urbain/Dr. Mix & The Remix. Never before have they sounded this nebulous and just wrong in all the right ways, except maybe for the idea of fighting the devil… that simply doesn't strike me as the most heavy metal thing to do. It might please the christian rock crowd, though.
New shit from one of KBD-informed garage punk's prime makers in our time, L.A.'s Freakees. Having tried on quite diverse stylistic flourishes, bits and pieces on recent EPs including pure synth-/electro punk on their previous one, they have never sounded more focused than on their newest effort and this pays off admirably as the current, pretty synth-heavy iteration of their sound totally slaps and might be compared favorably to acts like early Launcher, Alien Nosejob, Research Reactor Corp., Liquid Assets and Satanic Togas.
Garage punk made by a group from Stuttgart, Germany which, despite its german lyrics, thankfully doesn't sound all that german. Rather i'd compare them to recent groups of the more or less KBD-influenced breed like Liquid Assets and Freakees. Further parallels might be drawn to Erik Nervous, Useless Eaters or Sauna Youth. A fine selection, that is.
The Seattle group has been around for quite some time now and accordingly at this point, their ultra-oldschool garage punk sound heavily indebted to MC5 and Stooges feels as worn-in and mature as it gets. Their speeds occasionally reach into hardcore territory now, but that's pretty much the only major change since their 2015 Demo. All of this would be a recipe for utter boredom in the hands of a less capable band but as always, Lysol easily hammer that shit home by virtue of sheer force.
…and here's yet another exquisite load of quirky, fun & catchy DIY garage- and synth punk by some australian dude that fits right in between, say, the last Alien Nosejob full-length and the even more colorful microcosm of Warttman-affiliated groups.
Everyone keep an eye on the chilean label Instant Party. Having already caught my ears recently with the Pizza Boys tape, these folks have just unearthed another gem by a mexican group i probably wouldn't have heard of otherwise and they fucking rule! This tape compiles all four EPs they've released so far. Electrified garage- and synth punk kinda like S.B.F.-meets-The Spits, but the latter with way more robots, more cyberpunk but maybe also… mumble punk?
Really quite a lot of eggy goodness/insanity goin' on this week. In an effort not to repeat myself i'll keep it short: Here's the latest Cassette from the always excellent Deluxe Bias imprint, a recording that fittingly sounds a bit over-biased. Ask your parents what that means.
So the egg-plague has now arrived in Greece. Was about time, i'd say. Μπριτζολιτσεσ are a duo from Athens cooking up a mixture of garage- and synth punk that even yours truly has to classify as totally and deliciously nuts. A level of nuttyness that's roughly in the ballpark of lunatics like Skull Cult or the whole Warttman-infested Research Reactor Corp./Set-Top Box clusterfuck. Whatever undecipherable mess google translate makes of the lyrics gives me a hunch that understanding the language won't make the whole thing any saner.
So this group from Reno, Nev… aw, fuck off! My best guesses are either Leipzig or Berlin with 95% confidence. Probably not wearing cowboy hats either. The music rips though. Ultra-competent garage punk with that certain Useless Eaters, Sauna Youth or Flat Worms flavor and occasional hardcore flourishes.
No wonder this shit feels familiar. The Wind-Ups is a new solo project of none other than Jake Sprecher of Terry Malts and Smokescreens fame. Much rawer and louder than any of his other groups have dared to sound recently (albeit not quite reaching early Terry Malts levels of speed and fuzzyness), this at times sounds like a fusion of Terry Malts' melodicity with slightly post punk-leaning garage groups like Tyvek or Parquet Courts, while in other moments you can sense a breeze of The Spits, Ricky Hell or anything Reatard(s)-related. Yet when he goes all-in on power pop, there are some undeniable british invasion vibes emanating from his arrangements and compositions.
