Silicone Values - Who Do You Hate? /​ Spirit Of The Age

Dun­no if you al­ready no­ticed, but the UK's most un­der-the-radar group of sheer awe­some­ness just re­cent­ly re­leased a com­pi­la­tion EP bring­ing to­geth­er most of the pre­vi­ous sin­gles plus three new tracks on french la­bel SDZ Records, which is the per­fect place to start if you haven't al­ready fall­en for this band hook like and sinker. Any­ways, here is their newest in that end­less string of two-track dig­i­tal sin­gles al­ready and as any­thing the group has touched so far, this is yet an­oth­er in­stant clas­sic of end­less­ly charm­ing Mekons-, Des­per­ate Bi­cy­cles- and Tele­vi­sion Per­son­al­i­ties-in­formed old­school british DIY punk good­ness.

NTSC>PAL - Full Of Spots

Don't let this fake NTSC>PAL fool you 'cos it's ac­tu­al­ly just Bil­liam dressed up in a NTSC>PAL suit. Al­so, nice try name­drop­ping Scream­ers which… well,I'm sure you could make a plau­si­ble case for that but at the end of the day, aside from the mere tech­ni­cal­i­ty of "no gui­tars" on this cas­sette, Bil­liam can't re­al­ly help sound­ing like any­thing oth­er than him­self, which is to say: pret­ty damn fuck­ing awe­some!

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O.R.F. - O.R.F.1

Fantab­u­lous new garage-/synth-/elec­tro punk shit from Graz, Aus­tria, us­ing min­i­mal means to ac­tu­al­ly bring some fresh and as-of-yet un­heard im­puls­es to the whole egg­punk clus­ter­fuck as, at cer­tain points, i can't help but dub that shit Big Bl…Egg! Then again, there's al­so no short­age of fluffy pop melodies on here. I'm not quite sure what to make of the clos­ing track Freibad Fürsten­wald though, which… fuck me, re­search that shit for your­self. Or maybe don't, just… don't.

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Monda - Stiff Jumbo

The newest of a, to be per­fect­ly hon­est, fuck­ing in­pen­e­tra­ble amount of re­leas­es which have ac­cu­mu­lat­ed on this To­towa, New Jer­sey group's band­camp page over the past few years, de­liv­ers a pure spec­ta­cle of short and catchy lit­tle tunes with a max­i­mum length of ex­act­ly one minute, fir­ing off four­ty tracks in­be­tween the co­or­di­nates of garage punk, pow­er pop, old­school in­die rock and fuzz punk in well un­der half an hour. The whole thing makes me think of a cou­ple of 1980s DIY punk and in­die rock land­marks like the ear­ly works of Guid­ed By Voic­es, Fast­backs and M.O.T.O. just as much as a cou­ple more re­cent bands like Boo­ji Boys, Print Head, Vaguess and Datenight.

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Thyroids - Toppings and Droppings

Five ex­cel­lent new bursts of catchy, sim­ple and mim­i­mal­ist synth punk is what we get on the newest EP of this Dal­las, Texas group. Though the ti­tle of the open­ing track Q:Where? A: On The Square! kind of evokes as­so­ci­a­tions of De­vo, i'd say ac­tu­al­ly this shit sounds a lot clos­er to some of the more un­der­ground acts of the '70s and '80s á la Min­i­mal Man, Ner­vous Gen­der, Scream­ers, Units, Prim­i­tive Cal­cu­la­tors or Vis­i­tors, while in the cur­rent scene you might al­so com­pare them to groups such as Vic­tor, O-D-EX, Lost Pack­ages and Freak Genes.

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Gee Tee - Prehistoric Chrome

The Syd­ney garage-/eg­g­punk powerhouse's newest record is ac­tu­al­ly more of a col­lec­tion of scraps, demos, odds and ends left on the cut­ting room floor over the years but… damn! If this shit here rep­re­sents Gee Tee's b-ma­te­r­i­al, i'm glad­ly gonna eat up what­ev­er c-list shit they've got lin­ger­ing in the archives too. This is a bril­liant record from start to fin­ish and manda­to­ry lis­ten­ing for any dis­cern­ing con­nois­seur of catchy good­ness in the realms of garage punk, fuzz- and pow­er pop, all killer no filler!

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Vacation - Rare Earth

Cincin­nati group Va­ca­tion re­main a rare zeit­geist-de­fy­ing gem, once again de­liv­er­ing a bril­liant new batch of bangers equal­ly catchy and propul­sive, to be lo­cat­ed in the rough ball­park of Pow­er Pop, Garage Punk, Noise Pop and old­school melod­ic In­die Rock, brim­ming with a per­va­sive sense of joy and eu­pho­ria in the face of rough times ahead while nev­er miss­ing the mark thanks to their re­mark­able skill in craft­ing sim­ple but ef­fec­tive, per­fect­ly bal­anced and to-the-point lit­tle tunes they then like to blow up to larg­er-than-life cin­e­mas­cope pro­por­tions.

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Fen Fen - National Threat

This De­troit group made quite a bit of a splash al­ready with a strong EP in 2022 and now they're throw­ing an even bet­ter LP at us, once again com­bin­ing a bit of lo­cal (pro­to-) punk his­to­ry with flavours of garage punk, hard- and post­core, call­ing to mind a bit of Ner­vosas in Amer­i­can Lies and Doll­house in Kill Your Par­ents, while oth­er­wise play­ing out a bit like a good cross-sec­tion of a bunch of garage/hard­core-hy­brid groups like the some­what more garage-lean­ing, KBD-in­flu­enced stylings of Launch­er, Frea­kees, Liq­uid As­sets and Mys­tic Inane as well as the more hard­core-heavy side with groups such as Im­ploders, Head­cheese, Hood Rats, Alf and Ce­ment Shoes.

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Tommy Cossack & The Degenerators - Agitator

Oh look, Lon­don garage-/synth punk so­lo cru­sad­er Tom­my Cos­sack has ex­pand­ed op­er­a­tions in­to a full band line-up and the re­sult sounds ab­solute­ly bril­liant and so much big­ger, shed­ding some of its Lo-Fi egg­punk quirks in fa­vor of a more po­tent, dense and fo­cused at­tack while nev­er lack­ing in terms of thrilling hooks, of which these songs are stuffed to the brim with, mak­ing for a com­pact and in­cred­i­bly en­ter­tain­ing half hour of breath­less en­er­gy and ex­ite­ment that may right­ful­ly be com­pared to the likes of Set-Top Box, Pow­er­plant, Aus­muteants and Sa­tan­ic To­gas.

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Egg Idiot - Best Of LOL

Eggpunk's eggi­est id­iot group's long-play­ing de­but con­sists most­ly of re-record­ings of songs al­ready known from his pre­vi­ous two EPs, with the added ben­e­fit of some­what im­proved pro­duc­tion val­ues and thus lots of added oomph to their sound, mak­ing this the de­fin­i­tive col­lec­tion of Egg Id­iot tunes so far and cer­tain­ly the most in­fec­tious dose of brain dam­aged fun you're gonna ex­pe­ri­ence in the next thir­ty min­utes or so… Awe­some shit!

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