Nightwatchers of Toulouse, France, one of the higher profile acts that sprung up in the probably Youth Avoiders-induced 2010s french wave of variably Oi-!influenced, melodic post punk/-core groups, has at times struck me as a somewhat spotty, shaky affair on some of their longplayers. On their newest EP they’re operating in the golden zone from start to finish though, churning out four certified bangers with workmanlike routine and while their sound has never deviatied too much from that established formula and won’t reinvent itself here either, they make up for that easily through the sheer strength of the underlying tunes and an unflinching, tight and vicious performance.
Anything these Londoners have touched so far has been a fuckin’ treat from day one and it still holds true now on their first full-length effort, even though they may have somewhat streamlined their sound in the meantime and traded in some of their early fuzzy garage- and Hot Snakes-esque postcore vibes for something of an Oi! and classic eighties punk- and hardcore-affine aesthetic. That said, what’s always stayed the same in their discography though is the straightforwardly constructed but always structurally sound nature of their catchy and thoroughly whippin’ punk attacks and there’s no lack of that on this record either, which starts out strong and only gets better from there, as they’ve saved up some of their most infectious tunes for the second half here. Once again this is some must-listen shit for admirers of such groups as Ascot Stabber, Beast Fiend, Crisis Man or Wymyns Prysyn just to name a few.
Awesome new shit from Basque Country-based label Mendeku Diskak. First off there’s a new EP of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania group Iron Breed on which they serve four delicious treats of catchy garage-flavored Oi! shit with an oldschool strummy power pop-ish quality to boot. The debut EP of Gare Du Nord, a group of somewhat nebulous international origin then feels a bit like the more rough and old-fashioned flipside to that same thing as they churn out no-frills catchy tunes with both a distinct ’77 and eighties europunk flavor, kinda as if the current breed of french and belgian garage/oi!/post punk groups went all-in on their original inspiration.
Okay here’s yet another of these francophone (though in this case seemingly not french) Oi!-infused garage punk groups and i have nothing new to add here but also no complaints whatsoever ‘cos the quality is right up there with the genre’s best and friends of shit á la Telecult, Stalled Minds, Distance, Nightwatchers, Litovsk or most recently Laxisme are gonna have a ball with this one as well.
In recent years, french Oi! has come to stand for an unlikely level of excellence in a genre that i wouldn’t have put much stock in just over a decade ago. Admittedly, the overall parameters of its current incarnation can still feel a bit samey and formulaic but that’s certainly not an attribute i’d pin on this group from Nantes, whose second full length effort starts out kinda oldschool-ish with a somewhat Gun Club-esque garage vibe and another great but kinda genre-standard punk tune before their songs subsequently take on a more independent and unique quality, more thoroughly exploring – and eking just enough variety out of – the (to be fair, not exactly unlimited) possibilities of the contemporary garage-/Oi!-/post punk framework with enough song-based oomph under the hood to never get tedious for a second.
Now these chaps are from Spain yet their sound rather makes me think a whole bunch of predominantly french bands, their sound sitting inbetween the coordinates of post punk and -core, melodic garage punk and Oi!, calling to mind the likes of Youth Avoiders, Telecult, Nightwatchers, Bleakness and, most recently, Distance or the french-singing Leipzig, Germany group Laxisme. It would thus be easy to dismiss this as yet another artifact of a recently quite ubiquitous subgenre but that would be kinda unfair and discounting what a massive fireworks of powerful hooks this way-above-average record is setting off from beginning to end.
This Montreal group’s previous two EPs were already each a fat bucket chock-full of sleazy-ass rock’n’roll bliss and now they really hit it out of the ballpark with their first full-length effort, on which they considerably expand their stylistic color gamut and dial up the catchyness to eleven of their already dangerously combustive recipie made up of garage punk, hard- and postcore elements, a slight hint of Oi! and lots unapologetic dabbling in sweaty ’70s hard & heavy dad rock territory while in tunes like Never Enough, there’s an undeniable hint of roots-y folk- and cowpunk going on aswell. Immediately this shit strikes me a bit as a significantly dumbed down version of that recent Punter LP and further reminds me of a colorful bunch of sleazecore acts á la Cement Shoes, Golden Pelicans, Flea Collar, Cülo, Cutters, Polute and Chain Whip.
New fodder for dungeon dwellers and other medieval punk scum. Sword Breaker of Utrecht, Netherlands made a strong impression with their Demo in 2022 and their full-length debut now delivers more of that same kind of headsplitting fun which can easily be categorized as “Poison Ruïn and their ripple effects”, although that doesn’t mean that their tunes won’t deliver some exquisite thrills in their own right, approaching the microgenre from a way rougher and simpler angle (despite an ever-so-slightly cleaner production aesthetic) which feels way more ’70s hard rock- than ’80s heavy metal-inspired while also leaning harder into classic Oi!- and garage territory with addidional traces of Wipers and subtle touches of british psychedelia.
This group from Bordeaux, France at first glance appears pretty much in line with that omnipresent background hiss of french groups playing rather basic, mildly Oi!- and Post Punk-infused catchy punk hymns but damn, do these folks just hit the bullseye with their debut EP, getting pretty much the optimum bang out of a subgenre as restricted und ubiquitous as this. Friends of such groups as Telecult, Litovsk, Bleakness or Nightwatchers absolutely shouldn’t miss this one!
On their freakin’ brilliant debut EP, this San Diego group dabbles in a quite oldschool sounding approach of gruff and dark post punk with a slight hint of Oi! that doesn’t try anything new but does everything right and is sure gonna please discerning genre afficinados and admirers of groups like Impotentie, Pyrex, Rank/Xerox and Institute, while standing out among the pack thanks to a pronounced melodic sensibility adding frequent flashes of color to that well-trodden genre formula, reminding me a little of early Iceage or of more recent works by the likes of Corker and NRG.
