This Baltimore group features members of Nag and Quitter, which already raises expectations and it appears that on their first EP, they’re pulling every lever to subvert rather than fulfill those. This record certainly has a split personality of some kind with every tune sounding like it originates from a different Group entirely and i’m gonna say it fucking rips! Carte Blance is four minutes of math-y noise rock, the kind you’d expect from such groups like John (timestwo), Luggage, the earlier works of Tunic or Help. Vertices then feels a tiny bit closer to the bleak and monotonous post punk vibes you’d have expected at first but there’s also a dusty americana vibe goin’ on kinda like what we’ve heart on that recent The III tape. Cranberry is a dissonant and noisy burst of hardcore, followed by three minutes of experimental drone/noise in The Gate. Then at last in Kept Bread, a doom-/drone-ish beginning leads into what probably bears the most resemblence here to the aforementioned Nag, if maybe Played at two-thirds the speed. A puzzling release that is and i can’t wait to find out where they’re gonna end up going with all this!
Strange beast, the debut EP of this group with members scattered across Australia and the USA (Sydney, Portland and Melbourne, more specifically), on which everything just feels a bit off… in a good way! Right frome the Intro there’s an unmistakable Mission Of Burma- and Moving Targets vibe goin’ on and echoes of further ’80s oddities of the Really Red, Angst and Saccharine Trust variety. Also, there’s some undercurrent of Sonic Youth-esque guitar harmonies and ’90s Postcore elements á la Unwound, Drive Like Jehu or later Gray Matter work in unison with their more melodic counterparts like Chavez and Polvo, two Bands whose work also echoes heavily through the even stronger second half of this Record from Closer oneward, where their whole sound veers a lot closer towards melodic Seam- and Superchunk-infused Indie Rock with some additional traces of No Age and Swervedriver maybe? Anyway, this is some thorougly enjoyable shit.
Two years after their super fun debut EP, Philadelphia’s cleanest finally present us with their first LP which doubles down on the chaotic energy of their disjointed art punk that sits comfortably between the chairs of dissonant, oldschool no wave-ish noise, artcore elements akin to early Minutemen and also plenty of more recent phenomena from artsy post punk groups like Patti, Reality Group and Brandy to more postcore-leaning acts like Big Bopper, Cutie, Mystic Inane and Rolex. And i gotta say, their math-y convoluted sound does a pretty decent job of approximating the mental overload and challenge the task of cleaning up the cave presents to my ADHD-cluttered, probably mildly autistic brain… but they sure make it sound like the most fun activity in the world.
Here’s a kickass holdover from last week that i failed to give a fair shake until now and honestly, i should have known better as finnish noise rock groups actually have had a pretty strong track record in recent years and beyond the obligatory comparisons to early Shellac and Rapeman, the next best thing i can come up with are indeed two other fellow Helsinki-based groups, Fun and Baxter Stockman and i’m sure you can picture my non-surprise upon learning that members of both groups are featured in this trio aswell. To a lesser extent, there’s also a bit of Jawbox or Jesus Lizard here and there and you wouldn’t be totally off either to find commonalities with more recent US acts like Multicult, Help, Hoaries or maybe Germany’s own Trigger Cut.
Like a rougher companion piece to the Demo Rally LP i’m gonna be postin’ about in just a minute, the debut LP of this Leeds group from late summer – now given a cassette release by french label Discos Peroquébien – delivers more of that excellent noisy and no wave-ish post punk eccentricity, the possible influences of which alternating between such agents of dissonant chaos as Spray Paint, Brandy, Rolex, Lumpy and the Dumpers, Cutie and Soupcans, while comparatively slow and disciplined tracks like Bog Witch even exude a bit of a classic ’90s Chicago-style math-/postcore energy.
This Minneapolis group runs an interesting gamut on their newest EP ranging from the punchy fuzz punk attack of Like A Dream? over the math- and noise rock infused post punk of Yeehaw! to the comparatively straightforward garage punk of Saved, while the closing track 5678 branches out into some kind of a hazy space rock jam. At different points i’m reminded of groups as diverse as early Rolex, Cutie, Shark Toys, Reality Group, The Cowboy and Big Bopper.
A new Dischord Records co-release and as is usually the case with these, we’re once again dealing with a group whose members had their hands in a whole shitload of important bands spanning several decades of Washington, D.C. punk history, the most obvious of these probably being the likes of Kerosene 454, Channels, Beauty Pill, Soccer Team, Office of Future Plans, Alarms And Controls and to make this namedropping-circlejerk complete, the whole thing has been recorded by Jawbox’s J. Robbins. But here’s the thing with many of these more recent Dischord releases: They rarely ever sound like a tired rehash or bloodless nostalgia-driven cash-in. It’s a unique quality of many actors in this particular scene, the ability of staying true to their own musical heritage while still sounding every bit as vital and passionate as back in the day, willing to do the work necessary for making this by now very oldschool thing sound as fresh as ever, helped by an apparent inability to half-ass any of it.
Leaves are an english Trio boldly defying any recent trends of their domestic scene, instead dabbling in a sound inbetween the parameters of postcore, noise- and math rock, all of which smells more of Chicago, the wider Touch and Go universe and related artifacts of the ’90s US Underground, doing a thoroughly convincing job at revitalizing an aesthetic that’s become a bit rare these days. Slint are the most obvious comparison to be made here but you might just as well pinpoint some flourishes of Tar, Unwound, early Shellac and late Bitch Magnet, a hint of Chavez or Polvo and even traces of ’90s Dischord propulsion can be found in Do Something. Of more recent groups, earlier incarnations of Pile and, even more so, Luggage suggest themselves as closely related examples.
Now here’s some brilliant shit i’ve been totally unprepared for, certainly having a mind of its own and being delightfully out of touch with the zeitgeist! Sure, the whole thing feels kinda old. I’m kinda old too, so i like that. Imagine the likes of Saccharine Trust, Minutemen, Swell Maps and The Pop Group partaking in an occult ritual to conjure up an ancient ’60s acid rock demon, an unholy crossbreed of psych- and math rock. This is quite terribly self-indulgent of course, but that aspect kinda comes with both of those genres, i guess. At this point i’m pretty sure you’ve already made up your mind about it and know if you’re gonna love or hate it. In my humble opinion, what the Philadelphia group hallucinates up here is pretty fucking swell and totally should be legalized!
Cleveland’s Knowso for sure have been among the most idiosyncratic and memorable groups of the past couple years. Their newest full length shows them at the height of their strength once again, their amalgamation of post punk, noise- and math rock still coming across just as quirky and whimsical as it is tight, rigid and angular all the same, combining a seemingly procedural and efficient, mathematical approach with an amount of fun and catchyness you wouldn’t really expect inside these rough parameters. At this point, their sound is pretty much their own thing but if you absoiutely must compare them to other groups, you might find some similarities to stuff such as Brandy, Landowner, Big Bopper or maybe Nag in their more approachable moments.
