Whatever this Cleveland, Ohio group conjures up on their newest EP always carries that certain air of sugary fuzz punk and noise pop, the varyingly Primitives-informed kind that had a bit of a resurgence in the previous decade with such bands as Feature, UV-TV, Slowcoaches, Monster Treasure or Male Bonding and has been kept alive in more recent times by the likes of Private Lives, Exo and Glitter on the Mattress among others. And what should i say, this shit is every bit as good in its ultra-catchy song substance and has a couple of neat flourishes and surprises to boot, like some mid-to-late-era Hüsker Dü vibe in Here We Go Again, while the slightly Wipers-vs.-Wire-esque sounds of the closing track Symmetry also make me think of a slowed-down version of Nervosas or early Milk Music.
This Montreal group's spectacular debut EP pulls off a pretty neat trick and does so flawlessly and at exactly the right time in our collective cultural consciousness. Ultra-catchy punk rock kinda bridging the gap between classic eighties acts like mid-career Hüsker Dü, Dinosaur Jr., Dag Nasty, Embrace or the later works of Naked Raygun and Government Issue on one hand; previous-decade noisy punk and indie rock groups á la earky Milk Music, Kicking Spit, California X, Milked and Happy Diving on the other, gets blended here with flourishes of decidedly '80s-sounding heavy metal shredding and solo-ing which, in tandem with the heavily dungeon-themed artwork, is sure gonna strike a chord with friends of Steröid or Poison Ruïn, with this shit at times coming across a bit like a catchier, immediably approachable spin on the latter group's work so far.
England's Noise Merchant Records just reissued this Spokane, Washington group's debut tape which i've somehow either missed or stupidly ignored last winter. On it, they inject some slight hint of early Superchunk or Dinosaur Jr into an overall sound more in alignment with 1st- and 2nd-wave emocore, getting all the basics right at reproducing the genre's tropes and conventions that made it awesome in the first place while avoiding all the pitfalls that would make it a fucking joke and a tired cliché later on, while the songwriting chops on display here are somewhat basic but confident and sure-footed enough to keep you engaged, even if Puddy Knife won't add anything new to the genre here rather than reminding us of how much fun and joy you could get out of it in its earlier days and still can to this day, once you strip it of its acquired baggage of clownish mall punk cosplay and performative self-pity.
Their rather Lo-Fi 2024 Demo was pure bliss already and now we get to behold the first more polished recordings of the NYC group on this new digital 2-track single, presenting them in a somewhat different light with less of a pronounced garage vibe, instead being more reminiscent of the more indie rock-ish, melodic leaning ends of the '80s SST Records spectrum and loosely related shit, somewhere inbetween the likes of mid-career Hüsker Dü, early Dinosaur Jr., Man Sized Action, a hint of Angst maybe too. In that regard, and especially strongly in the undeniable über-hit Combat Zone (Left For Dead), these tunes remind me a lot of the incredible first Milk Music EP.
A pretty fucking stunning debut LP from an Alamance, North Carolina duo excelling in a hazy and hypnotic mixture of noise rock, post punk, oldschool indie rock and the darkest alleys of the americana spectrum. The latter tendency often come across like a more vicious and propulsive take on the muddy southern gothic charm of (quite paradoxically) NYC based group Weak Signal but also, at certain points, you may find traces of the blues-y proto-noise rock of Feedtime and Scratch Acid, the swamp rock of eighties Scientists. The overarching melancholy of the whole affair then again reminds me of somewhat indie rock-leaning groups like Australia's Kitchen's Floor, Treehouse and earlier stuff of London's Witching Waves on one hand, the moody, eccentric post punk of acts like Auckland/Berlin-based groups Trust Punks, Dead Finks on the other, with further similarities to the deep abysses of Atlanta's Uniform, Glittering Insects, Mother's Milk or the folk-ish Angst- and Meat Puppets-indebted neo-proto-grunge of Bellingham, Washington group Pig Earth and Madison, Wisconsin's Dharma Dogs. All of that is being rolled expertly into ten all-killer-no-filler widescreen melodramas here with perfect sonic architectures marked by super effective buildups and payoffs.
Not too long after their brilliant debut EP we already get to hear the first full LP of this Minneapolis group which still delights with a pleasantly old-fashioned genre mixture that primarily appears to take inspiration from the more left-field and melancholy edges of '80s -'90s post punk, hard- and postcore history, although the influences are a lot more varied here with the opening song Hello World having a strong '90s Dischord vibe somewhat reminiscent of the likes of Jawbox, Crownhate Ruin, Bluetip, Smart Went Crazy or Kerosene 454 while Tectonic Plates comes across like a curious mixture of Rapeman, Brainiac and Mule. Kick Geneva and Steve remind me a lot of Angst and Moving Targets, BDFI has some Butthole Surfers-esque doominess and it's not before the second-to-last track, the instrumental What Happens Next and the subsequent Mantle, that those Mission Of Burma influences - which were more strongly present on the EP - kick into full gear once again. Anyway, through much of the record, there's a slightly folk-ish undercurrent goin' on aswell that further calls to mind such eighties US groups like The Proletariat, Volcano Suns, M.I.A. and My Dad Is Dead.
I somehow skipped over the previous Monda LP here so i take this newest EP as an opportunity to remind you that this Totowa, New Jersey dude is still around and doing cool shit all along the way, with his newest one being the most catchy and straightforward release in a while, consisting of five undeniable earworms between the rough coordinates of oldschool indie rock, garage punk and power pop that more often than not radiates a melancholy, dreamy atmosphere. High quality shit as usual, this time around reminding me quite a bit of Cincinnati power pop overlords Vacation.
This Evesham, New Jersey Group has already racked up a substantial bandcamp discography but damn, is this new LP a massive jump in quality! On it, they craft a wall of catchy noise pop and fuzz punk inbetween the worlds 2000s-'10s noise pop and indie rock acts á la Milk Music, Male Bonding, No Age on one hand and golden-era '80s Dinosaur Jr. on the other, though with the particular distinction that every single tune on here seems inspired by Lou Barlow's desperate growls and screams in that brutal closing track of the Bug LP, Don't, rather than the introverted nasal voice of J Mascis. Also, there's a some oldschool My Bloody Valentine action going on in Boy Christening and Mark Prindle has a bit of The Wedding Present being sent into noisy blown-out post punk hellscape.
This Madison, Wisconsin group delivers a thoroughly compelling third EP here, made up of mid-eighties to early-nineties melodic punk and indie rock of the heavily Dinosaur Jr., Superchunk, Jawbreaker, Archers Of Loaf and Sebadoh-informed kind that also also got a second wind roughly two decades later with bands like California X, Kicking Spit, Happy Diving, Fins and - most of all - Milk Music giving this sound a mild resurgence back then. Also, especially in Dust, there's a bit of a Pitchfork / Drive Like Jehu vibe going on. Nowadays, all of this shit strikes me as timelessly old-fashioned in the most pleasing way, its consistently way-above-average quality underpinned all the way through by an ultra-solid set of underlying tunes.
The newest release on the consistently brilliant Total Punk sublabel Mind Meld is yet another stunning achievement from the outer fringes of the garage punk-related universe created by a Sydney group featuring members of Shrapnel, Gee Tee and Satanic Togas among their ranks, although of these, Shrapnel are the obvious comparison for these elegant and accomplished compositions of timeless, jangly-ass power pop and art rock with vague and fleeting echoes of The Soft Boys, The Bevis Frond and Television among many others, in addition to a diverse cluster more recent shit by the likes of Treehouse, Honey Radar, Good Flying Birds, Kitchen's Floor, Chronophage or Violent Change.
