Datenight - Clueless and Hangless

At first glance i wasn't quite sure if this Nashville group's newest LP isn't gonna be just a bit too mel­low for my taste but even­tu­al­ly, the sheer strength of their Lo-Fi in­die rock songcraft wins me over once again, the whole thing hav­ing the feel of a scrap­py odds-and-ends col­lec­tion which might just be the case. This as­sess­ment is on­ly be­ing re­in­forced by the fact that the songs ap­pear in al­pha­bet­i­cal or­der here - the tunes them­selves are pure A-grade stuff though.

Al­bum-Stream →

Pleaser - Pleaser

Fol­low­ing up on their in­cred­i­ble 2021 de­mo, this Copen­hagen group de­liv­ers an equal­ly ex­cit­ing de­but full length. On one hand, this sounds vague­ly fa­mil­iar as the lo­cal leg­ends Low­er and (ear­ly) Iceage have sure left their mark on Pleaser's mu­sic - hav­ing a sim­i­lar ap­peal of larg­er-than-life dra­ma tan­gled up in chaot­ic and emo­tion­al no-holds-barred per­for­mances - in ad­di­tion to less­er known Copen­hagen groups like Melt­ing Walk­men, Echo Peo­ple and Spines. But then again, Pleas­er to­tal­ly hold their own ow­ing to top-notch song sub­stance and plen­ty of neat lit­tle sur­pris­es like some black met­al flour­ish­es in the in­stru­men­tal The World Says Its Name, Mor­ri­cone stylings and a Mur­der­er-es­que psy­che­del­ic cow­punk haze in Dri­ve of Dis­tress while Light and Fire and This Is How I Die have some dis­tinct Poi­son Ruïn vibes to them. Last but not least, in The Dream, a good bit of Rites of Spring, Dag Nasty col­lides with some 90s Leather­face or Sami­am vibes as well as some­what younger noise pop acts á la Star Par­ty, Times Beach, No Age, Male Bond­ing or Joan­na Grue­some.

Al­bum-Stream →

Daughter Bat and the Lip Stings - Secret Tape

This Syd­ney group has nev­er dis­ap­point­ed and nei­ther do they on their newest top-se­cret EP, so se­cret in fact, that even the song ti­tles shall re­main a mys­tery for the time be­ing. What i can tell you though is that this thing once again fuck­ing slams - an­oth­er per­fect run of lo-fi pow­er pop, garage-, fuzz- and egg­punk. Just don't tell any­one, okay?

Noise Violations & Sprgrs - Split

Aus­tralian la­bel Painscale Records de­liv­ers its strongest en­try so far in a se­ries of split cas­settes. Main at­trac­tion here is clear­ly the longer side com­pris­ing the de­but batch of Mel­bourne group Noise Vi­o­la­tions, who set ablaze an ir­re­sistible bar­rage of catchy hooks in a slight­ly egg-ad­ja­cent brand of garage punk with echoes of well-renowned genre pow­er­hous­es such as Sa­tan­ic To­gas, R.M.F.C., Ghoulies, Boo­ji Boys, Met­al Gu­ru, Erik Ner­vous or Gee Tee, to name just a few.
The oth­er side then con­tains the pre­vi­ous­ly re­leased 2022 EP by Grana­da, Spain group Sprgrs, which is well worth an­oth­er lis­ten for fans of dance­able Lo-Fi punk stuff in the vein of, say, Prison Af­fair, Beer, Nuts, Pringue, Dee Bee Rich and Be­ta Max­i­mo.

Al­bum-Stream →

M.O.T.O. - The Wall of Phlegm

What a god­damn beau­ty! Paul Ca­por­i­no of cult garage punk /​ pow­er pop vet­er­an project M.O.T.O. at long last has com­piled a new set of beau­ti­ful­ly fuzzy record­ings in the well-worn 4-track so­lo fash­ion, kick­ing things off with a fuckin' Motör­head cov­er of all things and sub­se­quent­ly pulling off what must be his most high-val­ue, hook-laden set of tunes in a long time, noth­ing short of a new lo-fi pop mas­ter­piece if you ask me. Many songs have al­ready ap­peard on one oc­ca­sion or an­oth­er but hon­est­ly, who cares re­al­ly as this thing kin­da plays out like an all-killer-no-filler best of from his re­cent decade-plus of cre­ative out­put, pre­sent­ed in uniqe, un­heard record­ings.

Al­bum-Stream →

Balloon Thief - Balloon Thief

Fol­low­ing up on a neat first EP from last year, this Prov­i­dence, Rhode Is­land group's sec­ond batch of tunes is a marked re­fine­ment in pret­ty much every as­pect, their mix of garage punk and pow­er pop hav­ing reached a whole new lev­el of catchy­ness that al­so wouldn't sound out of place next to shit like Sweet Reaper, Pow­er Pants, Gee Tee, Alien Nose­job, Set-Top Box or Sa­tan­ic To­gas.

Al­bum-Stream →

Busted Head Racket - Junk Food

A strong pack­age of catchy weirdo synth punk tunes by that group from New­cas­tle, Aus­tralia who made a great im­pres­sion al­ready with their songs on a split EP with Cologne's Teo Wise. Its two songs are fea­tured here aswell, in sig­nif­i­cant­ly more crunchy record­ings - a de­light­ful mid-fi aes­thet­ic some­what rem­i­nis­cent of, say, ear­ly Nots, Slimex, Toe Ring, Daugh­ter Bat and the Lip Stings.

Al­bum-Stream →

Beer - Beer I

For our week­ly dose of egg-re­lat­ed brain­fuck, some dude or group from Charleston, South Car­oli­na is vol­un­teer­ing and they've brought beer with them, nice! Though not ex­act­ly rein­vent­ing the wheel here, this is an­oth­er rock sol­id new pack­age of quirky funky lo-fi garage pop good­ness that fans of shit á la Prison Af­fair, Set-Top Box, Nuts, Eu­gh or Pringue are guar­an­teed to have a mas­sive ball with.

Al­bum-Stream →

Exwhite - This Is Future

Last year's steam­roller of a (mini-)LP named Estray is a tough act to fol­low up for sure but the (prob­a­bly) Leipzig/Ber­lin-based group man­ages to do so ad­mi­arably well on their newest al­bum, re­tain­ing all of their pre­vi­ous qual­i­ties while ex­pand­ing their garage punk sound with quite a bit of an abra­sive noise rock edge which re­minds me a lot of NY noise-/garage punk act Brandy and ear­li­er Sci­ence Man. A good deal of melod­ic pop smash­ers á la Wouldn't You, Fo­mo or Get Clean is still present here so fans of that catchy, some­what Boo­ji Boys-es­que pow­er pop won't feel duped ei­ther.

Al­bum-Stream →

Faulty Cognitions - Demo

This San An­to­nio, Texas group de­lights with a throw­back to the most melod­ic parts of eight­ies punk, in­die- and col­lege rock, clear­ly in­formed by the likes of Hüsker Dü, Re­place­ments, Mov­ing Tar­gets, Guid­ed By Voic­es and Di­nosaur Jr. in the more jan­g­ly melod­ic mo­ments, as well as some ear­ly Naked Ray­gun in the straight-ahead rockin' tunes, all of it held to­geth­er by fric­tion­less song­writ­ing that wouldn't feel too out of place with more re­cent bands á la Boo­ji Boys, Bad Sports, TV Crime or Bed Wet­tin' Bad Boys ei­ther.

Al­bum-Stream →