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.
Absolutely fucking brilliant shit once again arriving at our shores courtesy of Total Punk Records! Glittering Insects feature members of GG King, Predator, Wymyns Prysyn and Uniform (the atlanta group, not the NY industrial punk/-metal duo) and of these, it bears the most similarity to the latter two groups with the melancholy arrangements strongly echoing that distinct Uniform vibe. Overall the combination of gritty abrasive textures, the aforementioned sense of melancholy, a songcraft that comes across as sad and unwieldy yet melodic and catchy at the same time, reminds me a lot of australian noise-/indie rock gods Kitchen's Floor, the scuzzy post punk of City Yelps or, in its most catchy moments, the noise pop of early Treehouse. An exceptionally immersive and epic experience best taken in as a whole - a rare thing these days.
Over the course of the past year or two, San Antonio, Texas group Sex Mex have proven to be a reliable bet with their knack for catchy garage-/synth punk and fuzz pop tunes. Their newest batch doesn't disappoint either, delivering a pop goodness highly indebted, among other things, to the more melodic end of the Reatard-related universe, Lost Sounds being the most obvious comparison here but also newer shit á la The Gobs, Witch Piss or Ghoulies wouldn't be too far off.
A new LP by that finnish group with way to many guitar players… dunno, i think 666 was the number last time i counted. Here, the band is shifting their sound increasingly into a psych rock direction. Especially in TJ they're diving headfirst into Space Rock territory and the effort pays of admirably. In other places, they stay true to their brand of melodic indie rock, fuzz punk and noise pop with echoes of No Age, Wavves, California X, Happy Diving and some early The Men, which they then infuse with sprawling guitar drones reminiscent of Glenn Branca and 80s Sonic Youth.
Synth punk maestro Klint doesn't need an introduction here at this point, i guess. His half of this awesome split cassette gives us another three artifacts skimmed off the top of that bottomless pit of pure creativity that dude seems to magically conjure up as soon as someone allows him to plug a cable into anything. Orrendo Subotnik from Pisa, Italy then craft a very different, yet no less exciting soundscape. Having sent some shockwaves already with their ultra-rough second tape last year, their sound comes into much sharper focus here. A weird mixture that is, charging up the noise pop and fuzz punk of acts like early No Age, Male Bonding or Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger!, noisy and darkly melodic post punk á la Die! Die! Die!, Piles or Times Beach, with a decidedly hard-/postcore kind of energy and a sense of widescreen drama you might expect of Lower or early Iceage… among tons of other stuff i've yet to unpack.
Not long after the recent 7" on Goodbye Boozy Records we get the first LP of Sydney's Tee Vee Repairman on that other garage punk powerhouse label Total Punk. As you might've guessed this is another juicy treat of simple and stupid melodic garage punk and power pop delight well suited for fans of shit like Bad Sports, Tommy and the Commies and Bed Wettin' Bad Boys while of the dude's own other projects, you might be most reminded of a sugar-coated version of Satanic Togas or recent R.M.F.C..
An overflowing bucket of joy, the newest LP(ette) by some duo from Montreuil, France, generating a mixture melodic of garage punk, oldschool indie rock, fuzz- and jangle pop reminding me of a diverse group of more-or-less recent acts á la Dumb Punts, Woolen Men, Hermetic, Landlines, The Exbats, Tape/Off… or maybe a more down-to-earth P.S. I Love You, aswell as old indie rockers of the Superchunk, Archers Of Loaf variety. This record serves as a perfect reminder that you don't need to stage a huge spectacle if you just deliver on the melodies that stick.
The full-length debut of this Tokyo group kinda plays out like a round-trip through some of the most jangly and melodic sections of late eighties to nineties indie rock, noise pop, post- and emocore, conjuring up the spirit of groups like Polvo, Superchunk, Unwound, Bitch Magnet, Lync, Dinosaur Jr. and many more, with the occasional flash of Slint thrown in for good measure and some shoegaze flourishes particularly of the Swervedriver variety - all of that bottled up using fittingly rough lo-fi production values. An altogether rare and refreshing thing these days, at least in its raw and undiluted form as on display here.
I rarely get too exited about the current generation of shoegaze-related groups, who for the most part seem perfectly content with just creating a pleasant soundscape to fall asleep to and soon forget about. This Paris group, however, does not only have the sonics, but also the drive and the hooks to make it stick, finding kind of a workable middle ground between the obvious golden-era Shoegaze acts (especially a strong Bailter Space vibe going on here), some early Sarah Records pop and more recent noise pop examples of the Gold Bears, Seablite or Flyying Colours variety.
Wow, i didn't really expect that much enjoyment out of the most recent LP by this New York group... in fact, these folks have completely evaded my radar so far. What we get is a heavily Velvet Underground and Jesus and Mary Chain-inspired melange of fuzz-/power-/noise-/dream pop that convinces by sheer strength of the underlying song substance while in terms of sonics, they sure like to slow-cook their songs at low-to-moderate heat - the results are fucking delicious, just totally melting in your mouth as you relish every single hook, every speck of low-level texture in their rich sonic landscape.
