These New Yorkers' new longplaying cassette is quite a stunner, showing incredible growth from its already thorougly enjoyable predecessor, 2022's Fancy! EP. While that one still had a kinda cute power pop and new wave-ish quality to itself, this one manages to come across as simultaneously more abstract and more mature. Less Television Personalities and more eighties The Fall in its minimalism and repetition, yet at all times feeling very deliberately put together, this further channels the aesthetic traits of old british DIY á la Desperate Bicycles, Membranes, Swell Maps or early Mekons, while a thick load-bearing layer of melancholy interconnects some of the album's most memorable tunes and reminds me quite a bit of a certain strain of aussie groups like Wireheads, Kitchen's Floor and the more downbeat moments of Eddy Current Suppression Ring. Another decent reference point would be yet another not-so-famous famous group - Philadelphia's Famous Mammals - along with a number of other US-based shambolic post- and art punk acts like Society, Germ House, Spiral Rash and Toe Ring.
This Philadelphia group's most recent EP delights with five wonderfully leaned-back and slightly off-kilter gems of jangly indie rock and slacker punk located somewhere inbetween the worlds of indie rockers Treehouse, Kitchens Floor, Thigh Master or, quite recently, Hungary's Dehidratált Fejek on one one side of the equation - and the more quirky, eccentric sonics of, say, Damak, Honey Bucket, Germ House and Far Corners on the other, while the standout track Artifact sounds a bit like a mix of the dusty acid/roots/garage rock fusion of Weak Signal with the fuzzy garage pop catchyness of The Wind Ups.
On their, like, hundredth release in just about three short years, this Minessota group has crafted an enchanting sonic landscape of timeless cool, combining elements of relaxed and strummy, insanely catchy indie rock and noise pop with just a tiny hint of shoegaze and Sarah Records-esque oldschool indie pop to insanely appealing results, which at times come across like a mix of the more power pop-ish ends of the Bevis Frond Spectrum, Flying Saucer Attack, LoFi-era Guided By Voices and a smidge of Eric's Trip, Sebadoh and Archers Of Loaf maybe? Also there's some quality akin to the more psychedelic side of eighties Flying Nun Records á la The Clean and The Stones. Moving on to increasingly more recent references, you may also sense lots of kinship to the densely foggy sonics of early Rat Columns or The Molds, the dreamy indie rock of Treehouse, the early works of Male Bonding, Wavves or, most recently, the Lo-Fi haze of Italy's Purp and the catchy-as-fuck indie rock / noise pop hymns of Vacation.
Following up on a rather inconsistent, undercooked 2022 album, this Richmond, Virginia group's newest EP is in a whole different ballpark altogether, a highly flammable little package of only certified smashers that at times would more comfortably blend into the crowd a decade prior - Rearview for example sounding a bit as if you fused the melodic punk rock of early Swearin' with the melancholy of Royal Headache. This record pulls off that trick gracefully, held together by some top-notch songwriting chops, a tight, ultra-focused band performance and not least the soulful vocals of Katie Bowles who effortlessly delivers on that certain Siouxsie-vs-Debbie schtick that so many singers have been trying to emulate before but fell way short of more often than not. She totally sells it though!
This Budapest, Hungary goup really took me by surprise with their unkempt 2022 diamond-in-the-rough debut EP. Here we get to hear the successor which manages to ever-so-subtly refine their sound without losing any of their charming, quirky edge in their strummy approach to melodic DIY punk and indie rock - a mixture that balances out a knack for catchy hooks with a sense of deliberately unresolved drama in their compositions, the latter of which reminds me most of groups like Treehouse, Kitchen's Floor and City Yelps with somewhat weaker similarities to the likes of early Tape/Off, Monda, Pardoner and The Molds.
This Sydney group has an embarrassment of riches in store for us that's being poured into a sonic guise of timeless elegance here - heavy duty power pop songwriting chops take on the shapes of Byrds-inspired, relaxed garage rock, british invasion- and first wave british psychedelia-fueled jangle pop anthems which often come across like a less sarcastic variant of The Soft Boys, a more retro-minded Guided By Voices or the more powerpop-ish corners of the Bevis Frond galaxy, though you may just as well compare them to more recent, mostly US-based groups like The Resonars, White Fence, Honey Radar, Good Flying Birds, Chronophage, Violent Change, Scupper, Germ House or Mo Troper, while in more indie rock-leaning tunes like Winston you can sense just a little hint of fellow australians Treehouse.
An incredible three-way split tape bringing together some groups you should definitely keep your eye on in the forseeable future. Chicago's Answering Machines start things off with a remarkable bang in the form of catchy pop tunes that seem to combine many of the most striking qualities of the late-aughts to early 2010's fuzz punk excesses by the likes of Wavves, No Age with the propulsive power pop by groups such as Bad Sports, Warm Soda, Sonic Avenues or Scupper, while the overall fuzzed-out aesthetics and production values call to mind stuff on the rougher end of that same spectrum á la Violent Change, The Wind-Ups, Famous Mammals, Honey Bucket, Germ House, Far Corners and maybe also early Chronophage. Good Flying Birds from Indianapolis, who've also released an absolutely stunning debut tape just a day prior to this, then present three smashers occupying some of the whitespace inbetween the worlds of eighties jangle pop, C86-related pop goodness and plenty of late-eighties Sarah Records indie pop vibes. Pulling Hair is a tune for the ages i'd say. Rounding out things is St Louis art rock outfit Soup Activists whom i've admittedly had kind of a difficult time warming up to at first and still think are best enjoyed in small doses. Well, what we get here is certainly a suitably small dose of their craft and i have to concede there probably couldn't have been a more perfect, relaxed and low-key conclusion to this amazing little cassette.
Krystian Quint may be best known in association with Detroit garage punks The Stools. On his full-band debut under the Quitters moniker however, his tunes take a way more catchy and melancholy direction, largely alternating between two distinct modes of operation, one of 'em radiating the vibes of melodic garage punk acts like Sonic Avenues, Cheap Whine, Marked Men, Bad Sports, Sweet Reaper or, most recently, Eye Ball and The Dumpies. The other one is more reminiscent of moderately emo-ish nineties indie rock á la early Superchunk, Archers of Loaf, Sebadoh, Lync and Seam as far as the old guard is concerned, or of more recent stuff like Tape/Off, Treehouse and Pardoner.
I'm just gonna assume that certain Nick G. mentioned in connection with this newest release courtesy of our favorite bullshit enterprise Discontinuous Innovation Inc. is that same dude who also gave us the underrated post punk highlight that was 2023's Broken? If so, his sound has certainly evolved a good bit into a more catchy and melodic direction on his first EP under the NRG moniker while still being recognizable as having arisen from the same mind, adding psychedelic flourishes and sprinkles of melodic indie rock to the mix. Less Criminal Code and Sievehead this time and more in line with such highly regarded, more or less recent post punk phenomena as Marbled Eye, The Drin, Straw Man Army, Institute, Public Eye and Waste Man but eaqually having some distinct vibes akin to a bunch of indie rock-leaning post punk groups from roughly a decade earlier, like The Gotobeds and Sleepies.
Don't let the kinda standard surf rock intro fool you 'cos what it leads into is actually a lot more exciting: Two effortlessly shredding garage punk tunes with a bit of a '77 vibe to them, filled with catchy hooks on the inside and projecting sparkling melodic textures outward, all in all reminding me a bit of early Vaguess or that kickass Wild Rose demo from 2017.
