This thing popped up on the re-branded former Pigeon Bandcamp so Tense may be the exact same folks or they may not, but that's just the usual murkiness we've long gotten used to from the notoriously anonymous Berlin post punk arena, always keeping a low profile. It they're the same though, their sound has surely gone through a bit of a transmutation and strikes me as the most focused and uncompromising it's ever been. Though still pretty much textbook Berlin school post punk in many ways, this shit is setting itself apart nonetheless with levels of doom and anxiety truly goin' through the roof here, feeling kinda alarming even in light of most other things coming from that neck of the woods - the most deliberate blow we've heard from there for a good while, delivered with ice cold precision and unforgiving rotational momentum, its hyper-economical not-a-note-wasted procedure making sure all the pain point gets struck without fail while having me bobbing along in pure ecstatic bliss all the same.
So let me try to get this right. It appears this new-ish Soft Shoulder LP ain't so much a compilation of stuff released on various lathe-cut EPs and -singles over the past couple years rather than a collection of songs recorded years ago that deliberately first got put out in that piecemeal way starting in 2022, but was intended from day one to eventually make up a full LP, which we now have in front of us. Phew, that sure is some kind of clunky roundabout way of doing things and i'll say it's just fitting for one of the most intentionally clunky, roundabout types of bands of our time, one that's been around way longer than this blog, is probably gonna outlast it too and has never failed to amaze with their cluttered and messy, though also totally unmistakable, singular vision of vagely The Fall-inspired, No Wave-informed post punk and noise rock. And you know what? I think it's the greatest thing the (in its current incarnation) one-man-band from Tempe, Arizona has ever done even after the knockout double whammy of 2023s Smile Building's Exit and It’s A Small World After LPs, as i'll say these new old tunes hit even harder in their collected, re-sequenced new form - so much creativity and brilliance concentrated into a dense 21-song 45-minute record that refuses to get tedious for even a second and the added punch and clarity of a stellar new mastering job also sure contributes a good bit to making this thing gel together and rise way above just the sum of its parts.
Holy fuck how the hell did i miss this Vienna group's debut record when it first came out in April? This is for sure nothing less than one of the standout releases of this year on the more oldschool end of the post punk spectrum with a sound feeling like a welcome throwback to the simpler days of the genre's 2010s resurgence with more than just a fleeting glimpse of bands á la Rank/Xerox, Negative Space, earlier works of Institute or The Estranged, maybe a hint of Nervosas even or the very first Diät single? There's also a healthy pulsing garage punk edge to this shit in tunes like Collecting Dust, as well as a neat topping of Wipers-Esque guitar work. This is exactly the kind of stripped-down no-frills direct-impact energy i would sure appreciate more of in this day and age.
Austin, Texas group Guiding Light already had a pretty exciting, if still kinda messy debut EP out via Stucco / Down South Tapes in 2024, who are now also responsible for the cassette release of their first full length record (viny is availablel via Post Present Medium), on which they up their game in pretty much every aspect of their sound as the the folk-ish strummy melancholia of Shackled By Lust makes immediately clear and even though that tune ain't fully representative of the rest of the album, it keeps on resonating as a thoroughly impressive opening salvo nonetheless. That greatness persists all throughout the record where their folk- and cowpunk-adjacent strummery somewhere inbetween the likes of Angst and Volcano Suns keeps colliding with eighties Post Punk right between the chairs of, say, Burma, Saccharine Trust, Man Sized Action and early Minutemen, though spiked with occasional bits of Flying Nun Post Punk Psychedelia, catchy Jangle Pop guitar leads and -harmonies, though if instead you feel like naming more recent Folk-/Cowpunk/Post Punk hybrids á la Leche, Cardi O., more recent Rolex or Optic Nerve, i'm gonna say you're right on the money too. Can't miss this one if you're into any of that shit.
After an already quite thrilling demo tape in 2023, the group from Oslo, Norway finally makes good on the promise and impresses with their fully realized vision three years later on their first longplayer, wildly elaborating on their eclectic sound that incorporates such things as a bit of the frantic and anxious early Iceage energy unravelling here, a touch of early Poison Ruïn high-stakes dungeon punk drama, coupled with a momentum somewhat reminiscent of Stay Home-Era Hank Woods & The Hammerheads and there's also plenty reference to be found of another New York Band Hank Wood has been in, the existential psychedelic cowpunk nightmarescapes of Murderer. Further i'm reminded of that unpredictable recent Forcer LP, the epic frankenstein song constructs of the 2020 Tom Lincoln solo album und its sort-of full band incarnation / successor Metho, whose line-up including the great Jackson Reid Briggs then again leads me to the realization that tunes like Trollmandens lærling also have quite a bit of a Split System energy to them. So yeah, what this band is pulling off here covers a lot of ground and whatever these dudes touch seems to turn into pure gold instantly, while the more garage-like mid-fi production values of the previous EP give way to a more hard- and postcore-infused vibe with slightly metal-infused overtones on this, matched up with just the right kind of vicious, unrelenting performance here to make that shit stick. This record is a wildly creative grab bag brimming with pure wonder and breathless ecstasy.
Buffalo, New York duo Ismatic Guru are a rare breed of a post punk act that not only constantly keeps raising the bar and refining their craft with every release over the span of six EPs so far - roughly one every year since 2021 - but in the process has carved out a pretty singular, unmistakable niche for themselves, sticking out even in a genre landscape that's about the most crowded and diverse it has been for decades i'm gonna say say. Made up of their trademark angular, funky-to-math-y rhythms and playful grooves, plenty of kraut-y peculiarities, a bit of colorful, kaleidoscopic psychedelia and a strong dub-ish undercurrent, this one's yet another half-notch about anything they're done before. Having ironed out the initial kinks of their art early on in their discography, they sound just insanely confident by now and almost as if can't do no wrong at this point. If you're into art punk shit that's equally quirky and classy, lively and intricate, you can't ever skip a new Ismatic Guru record.
They've been around for way longer than i first realized, this Cleveland, Ohio group featuring, among others, Mickey Mocnik of Nervosas fame who's later also been making awesome noise with The Missed and, most recently, Vital Stress. Anyway, last year's Adaptor EP certainly saw the group move on a bit from their earlier sound dominated by echoes of late '80s, early '90s punk and indie rock-ish vibes with a slight touch of Fastbacks toward a more fleshed-out, kinda contemporary-feeling, yet also perfectly timeless brand of fuzzy, garage-y noise pop with some subtle traces of psychedelia and post punk on top. On this new one, they once again channel their energies into an even more catchy and compact bundle of tunes which once again call to mind mostly 2010s groups like Feature, UV-TV, Slowcoaches or Monster Treasure.
Just about half a year after their brilliant previous Weston-le-Clay EP, its successor sees the Warford, England group once again upping their game in terms of both variety and compact-/catchyness of their, at times, subtly math-infused post punk, most significantly expanding on the more midtempo-ish section of their stylistic repertoire and as expected, that shit works just admirably here 'cos this dude (or these dudes?) clearly has the creative juice and raw musicality to pull that shit off. Just as before, smartypants contemporary post punk influences of the Landowner variety loom large over this one too, just as do ancient british DIY art punk staples from a quite diverse sphere inbetween, say, Mekons, Blurt and Television Personalities, though at the same time, Aidmoozic sound very much like themselves here more than ever. The seeds of this greatness were already noticeable on their two 2024 EPs, but Aidmoozic play on a whole different level in 2026 and i'm gonna say that in these short few recent months, Aidmoozic have catapulted themselves onto the cutting edge of contemporary art punk with razor-sharp, though seemingly effortless, precision.
This Dublin-based group's output so far is a bit of a, how should i put it... messy affair to say the least though it was never boring either, that's for sure. This new 2-track digital single may now mark their most successful attempt at uncluttering their creative vision so far and i'm nothing short of impressed with the classy oldschool indie rock vibes goin' on here, whose folk-ish strummyness recalls the glory days of Volcano Suns or one of their sorta-spiritual successors, the still active Tha Martha's Vineyard Ferries. The A-side Secret Bench In The Bardo is such a strong and striking example of that kind of thing the other tune Abacus Rubicon has to play second fiddle kinda by sheer circumstance, though that doesn't mean it's anything less than another perfectly pleasing late-eighties to mid-nineties postcore throwback in its own right.
Philadelphia's Sims Hardin aka Society probably doesn't need an introduction here after the splashes he made with the deliciously scrappy 2022 EP All Flies Go To Hell, whose rough proto punk-ish energy subsequently got channeled into a more concrete, fleshed out art punk sound on 2024's brilliant Social Flies cassette, to which Reign Of Flies now feels like a direct sequel, but not without some clear refinements and growth along the way, setting this record apart with a more pronounced post punk-ish vibe to these tunes and a tighter grip on his catchy hooks than ever before. Yeah this is another must-have for connoisseurs of rough, artsy and eccentric DIY punk oddities.
