This New York group is kind of a curious, zeitgeist-defying beast in this day and age, wearing their fondness of late eighties to early nineties punk, grunge and indie rock on their sleeves with the opening track even being titled Nirvana, although i'd rather liken them to early Mudhoney and the noisy, early incarnation of The Pixies, maybe a hint of U-Men, Scratch Acid and Drive Like Jehu aswell. So basically, they're the kind of group that would've gotten various Pitchfork writers wet a decade-and-a-half ago, when the height of the first '90s nostalgia wave hit. These days though, they're kind of an obscure oddity and that makes this record all the more endearing to me.
This Sydney group brings a lot of local baggage to the table with its members having been, among other things, in groups such as Bed Wettin' Bad Boys, Royal Headache, Tim and the Boys and Mundo Primitivo. But honestly, they don't sound one bit like any of these groups. Rather, their rabid mixture of post- and hardcore reminds me a quite a bit of Atlanta wrecking crews Nag and Predator as well as other US groups like early Institute, Acrylics, Tube Alloys, Pyrex, Corker and Criminal Code or, alternately, Sydney's very own Arse and Xilch. Add to that some ultra-raw proto-noise rock edge á la Flipper or No Trend and you're roughly in the right ballpark. The unhinged bark of the singer, however, reminds me a lot of UK group Akne.
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.
Another marvel of covid lockdown-bred noise by a multi-generational british trio is arriving here with a roughly three-year delay. A breakneck-speed mixture of brass-enhanced garage punk, hard- and postcore, this stuff is combining the traits of more recent phenomena like, say, Cement Shoes, Crisis Man and Mystic Inane with some equally noisy gruff á la early-to-mid-eighties X, the australian group that is. Making the fun complete though is the infectious joy in the vocals of lead singer Eliza who, if my crummy math and the sparse bits of available information don't fail me, must've been around seven years old at the time of recording.
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!
It took the Sydney group like a half decade to come up with their third EP but here it finally is in all its glory and spectacle. Their very own fusion of noise rock, hard- and postcore has retained every bit of their frantic energy while mixing shit up just enough to keep things interesting, for example in Shame Bomb, in which they conjure up a previously unheard sense of melancholy. Other times, their speeds and levels of devastation are reaching the explosive force of their debut EP in songs such as Level Skipper and Prick in the Franger, after the slightly more forgiving previous Safe Word EP, while tracks like Night Shift Blues once again supercharge all the grime and dirt of oldschool Amphetamine Repile-style riffing with a relentless hardcore attack.
A dense and noisy post punk spectacle unfolds on this Richmond, Virginia group's debut EP, its four elaborately constructed songs making a fully mature and confident impression already. At times this has a curious vibe of, say, Straw Man Army plus a subtle trace of Poison Ruïn while in other places this shit reminds me a lot of some of the past decade's more melancholy and song-oriented post punk acts in the vein of early Estranged, Public Eye, Criminal Code, Bruised, VHS, Waste Man as well as Atlanta heavyweights Wymyns Prysyn and Institute/Mothers's Milk.
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.
(…) as focused as they haven't been in a long while (…) i wrote about their previous album Smile Building's Exit. Tempe, Arizona group Soft Shoulder then be like: "Hold my beer…" and come around the corner with yet another LP, recorded around the same time as its predecessor and presenting their sound in an even more snappy and compelling light. Their unique blend consisting of both contemporary and ancient post punk magic tricks, oldschool noise rock and distinctly no wave- and '80s The Fall-informed noise experiments has never had more catchy appeal and sparkle than on this record.
Chicago trio Luggage have, over the course of the past eight years, proven to be a true bulwark in the sector of unapologetically excentric, dissonant and unwieldy noise rock, postcore and math rock which they usually happen to throttle down to a sluggish crawl. If anything, they've just grown ever more uncompromising over the years, culminating in their newest deformed lump of an LP, yet another challenging outburst of noise heavily indebted to the likes of Slint, Tar, Shellac and if i had to name something more contemporary, i'd say the first two Behavior albums (especially the spectacular second one Bitter Bitter) make a close enough comparison as well.
