Having already tasted some of their new LP in the form of a perfect teaser EP a couple weeks ago, we finally get to hear the full debut LP by the dungeon punk wizards of Karlsruhe, Germany and oh boy, we're in for a fucking treat that combines a couple of new recordings of tunes already heard on their 2023 demo with plenty of equally strong new material into a breathless thrill ride that's further helped along by a perfectly fitting and outright filthy lo-to-mid-fi production that sounds as if the whole thing had been recorded in some fucking parking garage. There's tons of sparkly psychedelia to the garage rock of the opening track Locket, a primitive proto punk punch and simplicity in Tear it Up while tracks such as As Loud As Me and My Dawn lighten things up with unexpected flashes of melodicism, the latter of the two having a distinct vibe of early The Men to itself. Contrast to that the hardcore-meets-motörpunk attacks of Give Me Beat and All This Heat, the oldschool Sabbath leftovers fused with the space rock abandon of late Destruction Unit in Supression, which is simultaneously being embedded into some vague post punk context á la Nag. The dungeon punk hymn Fomo Boy remains every bit a destructive force as we've already gleaned from the demo and the new track Inte Mer Hem following that one has much of the same momentum and qualities. Fuck me, this thing slaps.
The Minneapolis group's debut EP bursts onto the scene with a fully formed and -realized vision, dabbling in a lovingly oldschool and timeless set of flashbacks to the more left-field staples of '80s-'90s US postcore and -punk. Lap It Up kicks things off with some kind of '90s AmRep-meets-Touch&Go pastiche, then suddenly develops into more of a Dischord-like soundscape most reminiscent of Rites Of Spring and early Nation Of Ulysses. In Untitled / Back Inside, the likes of Mission Of Burma, Wipers, Moving Targets and Volcano Suns loom large in addition to some overtones of Bitch Magnet... before eventually seguing into some Angst- and Dinosaur Jr.-esque folk-ish strumming. Freak Disease then gets wedged inbetween grungy '90s alternative- or even outright cock rock territory and some postcore flourishes you rather might expect at the slow end of the Drive Like Jehu, Jawbox or '90s Gray Matter spectrum. Life Takes Time then has more of that distinct Burma vibe but i also can't help but be reminded of Really Red and Saccharine Trust.
What started out as a duo fronted by Corey Plumb of Spray Paint fame has now grown into a fully fledged band lineup and accordingly, this new LP marks a further step towards a more airy and organic sound aesthetic for the group, which at this point also sounds the most reminiscent so far of his previous Spray Paint work, especially of their later, heavily electronic-leaning phase. That said, this is far from being a lazy retread of times past, as his trademark dissonant guitar work on here blends in a uniquely natural way with a plethora of pulsating sound both organic and electronic, which on one hand have a distinctly industrial feel to them while quite paradoxically retaining a surprisingly playful and warm quality throughout.
Even in the face of pretty much anything that loose collective of musicians gathered around the New York label Decoherence Records has done so far, Gay Cum Daddies still stuck out as one of its most baffling agents of chaos and mischief. In a way, their newest LP is almost what you'd expect of this group at this point, an unwieldy bastard made of atonal and chaotic, no-wave-ish noise that, despite all the clutter and cacophony, never seems random. More than ever before, i get a sense of this group being totally in control of their craft at all times, their nerve-racking jams never leaving a trace of doubt that these dudes do indeed have a master plan. A weird, convoluted and disjointed one for sure, but a plan nonetheless. Once you've re-wired your brain to almost make sense of it, it feels like the most transgressive and shocking thing ever when Ribboning Boulder Hands Over Data actually has a discernible 4/4 beat playing for, like, a whole 30 seconds.
Brandon Monkey Fingers of St. John's, Canada feel kinda out of place in this day and age and y'all know i'm a sucker for that kind of shit. Their debut album covers a sonic range somewhere inbetween oldschool fuzz punk, '80s and '90s (proto-) grunge and indie rock seasoned with just a hint of sludge-y Amphetamine Reptile-style noise rock flourishes. Among the old guard, you might consider U-Men and early Mudhoney among their spiritual ancestors or the rougher ends of the Sebadoh sonic spectrum. Of more recent ocurrences, i'd name Dog Date and Hellco as possible references as well as early Pale Angels or a less melodic California X. Darth Vader's Boner carries a similar vibe of garage-infused noise rock to The Cowboy and Flat Worms. H.M.P. sounds a bit as if contemporary noise rockers like Metz, John (timestwo), Greys or Vangas got imbued with heavy overtones of Angst-esque psych folk while Norbit has quite some Dinosaur Jr. and Cloud Nothings energy under the hood on its way to a '90s Weezer-esque melodic conclusion.
Incredible full length debut by this St. Petersburg, Florida group that kinda plays out like a comprehensive roundup of pretty much anything that refused to fit into any of the neat categories of eighties to early nineties hard- and postcore. So much great shit echoed here, from the more left-field segment of the early '80s scene... think like, Minutemen, Saccharine Trust, Crucifucks, Really Red, Dicks and Flipper, also spanning the classic eras of both '80s (Gray Matter, Embrace, Rites Of Spring, One Last Wish) and '90s Dischord-related sounds (Crownhate Ruin, most of all...), also taking some cues from the Touch & Go camp (say, Rapeman, Scratch Acid, early Shellac) and last but not least, freely plundering the legacy of Drive Like Jehu. And that's just barely scratching the surface here. In the current landscape, i'd say groups like Deodorant, Optic Nerve, Big Bopper and Straw Man Army are of a similar spirit. All the while, Work Stress are considerably dialing up the unpredictability and apparent randomness even compared with most of the mentioned acts (though actually i think they're acting quite deliberately here), a trait that pays off spectacularly in songs like Building From Abject Failure, in which dissonant, slow-crawl staccatto rhythms alternate with unexpectedly catchy punk hooks.
This Walsall, UK group comes at us with an intentionally overpowering, uncompromising and maximally nasty clump of dissonant, kinda monotonous noise bridging the gap between only the most confrontative fringes of post punk, noise rock and postcore. Interestingly, almost all of the comparisons i can come up with right now already date a few years back, reminding me of how much of an unexpectedly fertile decade the 2010s were for unwieldy noise rock fare, a genre i struggle to find much excitement in, looking at the current landscape. This record takes me right back there, to the genre's second golden era of groups such as early Metz, USA Nails, Keepers, Overtime, Death Panels, Greys, Vangas, Tunic or John (timestwo). Well, at least a couple of these are still around. Then again, the thick veil of constant, dissonant blown-out noise texture these songs stay cloaked in at all times, somewhat reminds me of the short-lived US post punk sensation Dasher, while the cacophonous saxophone parts call to mind Nearly Dead and the kinda obscure australian 1980s post punk act Fungus Brains or, whenever they add some melodic overtones like in Crime, i can even sense a bit of australian post punk / proto-noise rock powerhouse X.
I was actually expecting that, at this point, i'd be through with these veterans of the current UK post punk scene as i thought their kinda sterile, synthetic (hah!) and overproduced sounding 2022 album and other bits and pieces released since then carried all the hallmarks of a group imminently to be swallowed whole by their own ambitions, like so many other UK groups who've at some point started biting off way more than they could chew. As it turns out though, Girls In Synthesis have plenty of chewing power to spare and their newest LP is a fucking excellent piece of dark, atmospheric, smart and epic post punk equilibrium. From the very first note of the Wire-esque album opener Lights Out to the monotone closing track A Damning Lesson, these songs are boiling down this group's unique qualities to their very essence like never before while coming up with a good deal of variety and neat ideas along the way to keep things engaging and thrilling all the way through.
Following a quite stunning debut EP last year, this israeli group just keeps up the energy level of their very own brand of exquisite structured chaos on their first full length record. This is yet another unmitigated, noisy kick in the balls being performed somwhere inbetween the rough specs of noise rock, post punk, hard- and postcore, bearing some very slight similarity to groups such as Cutie, Big Bopper, Brandy, early Patti... add to that a generous helping of Big Black on top!
These New Yorkers' latest LP is basically just an expanded version of their 2021 EP Triangulation by way of Strangulation, though i'm gonna say the addition of the four opening tracks elevates the whole thing to another level altogether, counterbalancing the kinda rigid, somewhat more late-eighties noise rock-leaning tracks of said EP with a fresh infusion of chaos that really seals the deal here, quite obviously taking cues from local no wave history - both the unstructured noisy kind and the funky James Chance-isms - as well as a bunch of other early eighties proto noise rock acts á la Flipper, Primitive Calculators and, most of all, No Trend.
