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.
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.
