ALF - The Demo

Wednesday, August 16, 2023 | Records | , , ,

Ex­cel­lent new rough and noisy shit from this Perth, Aus­tralia group op­er­at­ing on the in­ter­sec­tions of garage- and hard­core punk with an added dis­tinct old­school KBD-Vibe not en­tire­ly dis­sim­i­lar to the likes of the Liq­uid As­sets, Frea­kees, Li­po­suc­tion, Launch­er or Mys­tic Inane. An EU edi­tion of this beau­ty is promised to drop pret­ty soon via Good­bye Boozy Records!

Al­bum-Stream →

IZM - IZM

Sunday, June 25, 2023 | Records | , ,

The LA group's sec­ond EP via Pop­u­lar Af­flic­tion Records con­sid­er­ably ups their game with a strong bun­dle of new tunes while stay­ing large­ly true to their pre­vi­ous sound, ap­ply­ing a cu­ri­ous syn­th­punk spin to a rough style of garage punk not dis­sim­i­lar to the likes of Frea­kees, Launch­er, Li­po­suc­tion and Liq­uid As­sets.

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The Stools - R U Saved?

Saturday, June 3, 2023 | Records | , , ,

It's a new LP by the De­troit group and as you might al­ready sus­pect, there's not a whole lot in the way of sur­pris­es here, which is to­tal­ly fine for their par­tic­u­lar lo­cal flavour of garage may­hem. As far as fair­ly tra­di­tion­al, heav­i­ly Stooges-/M­C5-in­formed garage punk (and just maybe, a hint of Feed­time?) goes, it doesn't get much bet­ter in terms of raw, pri­mal en­er­gy. This is the kind of record which con­vinces al­most ex­clu­sive­ly by virtue of brute force and boy do i feel saved now, which is to say: Ouch!

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People's Temple /​ Hood Rats /​ Hickey

Saturday, February 25, 2023 | Records | , , , , ,

Three hard­core re­leas­es es­pe­cial­ly stuck out this week, all of 'em more or less tread­ing off the genre's beat­en paths. The most con­ven­tion­al­ly sound­ing - rel­a­tive­ly speak­ing of course - is the EP by People's Tem­ple on NY la­bel Roach­Leg Records, giv­ing us an ex­treme­ly tune­ful vari­a­tion on 80s hard­core, at times com­ing across like a blend of Cir­cle Jerks with ear­ly-to-mid­dle-era Naked Ray­gun and with oc­ca­sion­al flour­ish­es of Hüsker Dü to boot. Of more re­cend Bands, Fried E/​m might al­so fit the bill.
Hickey's tape on Arch­fiend records then in­fus­es con­tem­po­rary strands of garage-, synth- and egg­punk weird­ness with plen­ty of old­school hard­core en­er­gy, along the way al­so evok­ing the some vibes of Flip­per, Spike in Vain, Bro­ken Tal­ent… With this re­lease, we might just be en­ter­ing the eggcore era!
Montreal's Hood Rats op­er­ate in a vague­ly sim­i­lar ter­ri­to­ry, al­so hav­ing a sound ground­ed in garage punk brim­ming with lo-fi egg­punk quirky­ness just as much as with an un­kempt KBD en­er­gy and the tunes to make it stick.

Al­bum-Streams →

The Vortex - Executive Dysfunction

Sunday, April 24, 2022 | Records | , ,

This San­ta Ana group emits short and noisy KBD-soaked ar­ti­facts, equal parts old­school garage- and hard­core punk with the oc­ca­sion­al touch of Gun Club. The over­all im­pres­sion ain't too far off Neo Neos or any of mae­stro Voltaire's var­i­ous hard­core projects, ear­ly Erik Ner­vous and maybe some hint of Launch­er, meshed to­geth­er with some beau­ti­ful ac­ci­dent of the kind that might've just as well oc­cured on some ran­dom Deluxe Bias or Im­po­tent Fe­tus re­lease.

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Peacemaker - See You Dead /​ Greed

Wednesday, April 14, 2021 | Records | , ,

Here's yet an­oth­er short and sweet tape car­ry­ing one of those de­li­cious old­school hard­core/KBD-style/­Garage Punk hy­brids, so sim­ple and el­e­gant and flaw­less in its ex­e­cu­tion. I nev­er get tired of this kind of shit.

Big Jar of Mayo - Big Jar of Mayo

Tuesday, March 2, 2021 | Records | , , , ,

More qual­i­ty shit cour­te­sey of Deluxe Bias. This ab­surd­ly short cass­in­gle of noise in the realm of KBD-in­formed weird­core, garage- and post punk will sure be a de­light to folks who've al­ready de­vel­oped a huge bon­er for Mys­tic Inane, Rolex or Fried E/​M.

Septic Yanks - Septic Yanks

Saturday, October 24, 2020 | Records | , ,

An­oth­er moldy wet lump of ul­tra­con­ta­gious punk shit, equal parts garage punk, KBD-style mis­chief and hard­core punk of the very old school. Not too far off from stuff like Liq­uid As­sets, Fried E/​M or Launch­er.

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Liquid Assets - Offshore Accounts

Friday, July 10, 2020 | Records | , ,

I've al­ready failed to men­tion this group at least two times and feel kin­da bad about that - al­though you might have heard them al­ready on some of my "Verspan­nungskas­sette" mix­tapes. So, if you haven't been ac­quaint­ed with this Ot­tawa group's chem­i­cal­ly un­sta­ble garage-/hard­core-/KBD-style punk ex­trav­a­gan­za yet, here's your next chance. This tape, brought to us by malasyan punk strong­hold Pissed Off! Recs, con­tains pret­ty much every note of their de­mo tape and 7" re­leased last year in, as it ap­pears to me, most­ly re-record­ed and ex­tra ex­plo­sive ren­di­tions.

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Freaks - Freaks

Monday, April 13, 2020 | Records | , ,

An un­re­lent­ing storm of raw KBD-meets-ston­er punk kicked loose by the Freaks of Philadel­phia, en­forced with loads of hard­core propul­sion. Starts out kin­da like an amal­ga­ma­tion of ear­ly Milk Mu­sic or Di­nosaur Jr. with Every­thing Falls Apart-era Hüsker Dü, then set­tles in­to a mode that comes across like a mix of Tarantüla/​Cülo, Fried Egg, a hint of Launch­er and some added sludge and death rock vibes, the lat­ter re­mind­ing me of Be­ta Boys.

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