With members of Vexx, Gen Pop and Sweeping Promises among them, who’d expect anything short of sheer awesomeness from this Seattle group? Sheer awesomeness is exactly what we get, of course. These eight songs are noise pop candy of the highest caliber, taking some cues out of the playbook of vaguely surf-, more or less JMC-influenced acts such as early Primitives, Joanna Gruesome, early Wavves, Male Bonding or, most recently, UV-TV, the underlying songs being strong enough to still work if you strip away the ubiquitous layer of fuzz, as they do in the gorgeous title track, a melancholy dream pop ballad.
Once again stupid me was way too late noticing that a new record by Cincinnati, Ohio's pop wizards Vacation has hit the shelves via Salinas Records, repeatedly proving their knack for crafting refined jewels of melodic noise at the intersection of oldschool nineties-style indie rock, graceful power- and noise pop. This shit is catchy as fuck without ever getting too formulaic or predictable. A rare breed these days and even more rarely does it ever come across as powerful and flawlessly executed as here. An album of twelve hits and zero misses as for this group, "pretty good" simply doesn't cut it.
This demo by a Cardiff group lures the listener in with an ultra-raw hardcore red herring, though it doesn't take long after that to realize there's a lot more to this burst of concentrated Lo-Fi energy as you blaze a trail through a thick layer of fuzz and distortion, which finally gives way to bright flashes of melody and an overall soundscape combining core ingredients of post punk and noise pop, coming across kinda like a beautifully deformed crossbreed between Sievehead and Piles.
An abrasive yet quite melodic wall-of-sound piles up on this Aarhus group's debut album, a sound inbetween the worlds of noise pop, art- and post punk, equally reminiscent of Teksti TV 666 and Open Your Heart-era The Men, 80's SonicYouth-isms and some MX-80 edge. And as if all that weren't compelling enough on its own, the addition of a restless brass section makes the whole thing outright irresistible.
Now that thing's a treat! Some group from Ciudad López Mateos, Mexico delivers a truckload of pure joy on this tape, condensed into three straightforward-as-fuck bangers made out of fuzzed-out garage- and bubblegum punk with some synth-sweetness on top, transmitting an undiluted sugar rush straight into your bloodstream.
Here's a holdover from last week by a single Milwaukee dude (i guess) that i first planned to omit here but on closer listening turned out to be much stronger than i initially thought. A catchy, dreamy, melancholic blend of lo-fi noise pop, organ-and-synth punk unfolds on these tapes that also radiates a good deal of oldschool Flying Nun-type psychedelia.
The recent recorded output by Los Angeles garage project Shimmer Bed is, to be quite honest, a bit too prolific for me to dive deeper into right now - which is why this excellent compilation tape put out by the spanish label Discos Peroquébien is such a welcome gift that made me aware of this dude in the first place. Over the span of a whopping 22 tracks we get to witness a remarkably diverse spectrum of sounds ranging from bedroom weirdo garage punk that might evoke the melodicity of Vaguess, the noise pop of Jah Hell and the playfulness of Dee Bee Rich, Nuts or Prison Affair, to psychedelic pop reminiscent Rat Columns or various eighties Flying Nun acts and inbetween al this, there's even time for some noisy post punk sketches.
Fun and tasteful no-frills melodic Fuzz Punk / Noise Pop from the UK, consisting mostly of crunchy noises, percussive noises and tape hiss. Regarding two of these Songs, On The House and Pedigree Chums… I've heard these before from a band/project called Crown Moulding so i assume some kind of connection here, genius pop music Sherlock that i am.
Didn't expect this to happen... A whopping seven years after his last EP, Oakland's Jason Hendardy aka Permanent Collection is reactivating his old musical endeavor and delivers a brilliant new album which - in spite of its rather fatalistic sounding title - dials back the sonic doom and gloom of his previous efforts, the dark post punk tone taking the back seat while the melodic noise pop & shoegaze aspects take center stage - a consistantly fun high energy ride from start to finish. If you ever wished acts like A Place To Bury Strangers or Ceremony (VA) woud spend less time less time spacing out and cut straight to the chase instead, this record ist for you.
