While their 2017 Pupal Stage EP still struck me as a bit undercooked, their newest tape shows these croatian punks (featuring members of Modern Delusion) refining their sound into something way more consistent and enjoyable, made up of straight-ahead punk rock that sometimes veers slightly towards the KBD-inspired garage sound of groups like Launcher, Freakees… at other times taking some cues from melodic, post punk-leaning acts in the fashion of Red Dons, Xetas, Anxious Living or earlier The Estranged.
Having released a strong debut EP in 2017, Melbourne group Super-X now deliver their first full length, once again packed with tons of spaced-out sonic force. Classic Stooges energy collides with psychedelic fireworks á la early Telescopes, some unexpectedly high amount of post punk and a hint of MX-80, while they manage to keep things interesting and versatile throughout the whole journey, evoking a rather diverse cluster of comparisons such as Public Eye, Writhing Squares, Destruction Unit, Faux Ferocious, Bailterspace, The Cowboy or Open Your Heart-era The Men.
Two noisy new artifacts brought to us by New York's exquisite D4MT label. First, there's a new extended play by hard-/postcore powerhouse Kaleidoscope on which their sound comes across a tiny bit more more simplified and straightforward than on last year's killer debut LP, yet as inspired, playful and inventive as ever. Similar things can be said about the debut album of Straw Man Army, a duo i can't find much information on, but at a quick glance they seem to consist of none other than Kaleidoscope's drummer boy and some other dude. Just as you'd expect, this is another quite adventurous ride through the realms of dark post punk both classic and contemporary, sometimes bordering on Crass-style minimalism, Wipers-esque melancholia while also reminding me of more recent eccentricities by the likes of Murderer or Wymyns Prysyn.
As was to be expected, this Atlanta group's first full length effort is thirty minutes of pure post punk bliss, reminding me, at several points, of some of the genre's best contemporaries - the rigid rhythms of Knowso and Nag come to mind, mixed with the more playful flourishes of Patti or Marbled Eye. Other valid comparisons might be acts like Bruised, Sarcasm or Labor.
Baltimore's Lip first won my attention through a split EP with Nag a while ago. While there's definitely some similarity to said Atlanta post punk group, i'd say what they're pulling off on their latest EP bears a much closer resemblance to groups like Sievehead, Rank Xerox or Criminal Code. At times, their sound has a more pronounced oldschool goth/death rock vibe to it though, bringing to mind Disjoy or, more recently, Clock Of Time.
Two years after their promising, though at times somewhat undercooked debut LP, we get to hear a way more consistent sophomore effort by this Auckland, New Zeeland trio. Their rather abstract yet always catchy compositions somewhere on the fringes of Post Punk and Noise Rock - plus a hint of Industrial - at several points remind me of Acts like Girls In Synthesis, Haunted Horses, Ice Balloons or Tunic - with a small dose of Lightning Bolt sprinkled in for good measure.
Some Los Angeles group consisting of a truly all-star garage lineup delivers a pleasantly quirky mix of garage-, post- and synth punk, sometimes coming across like a crossbreed of Nots and Pow!, or like Primitive Calculators-meet-Useless Eaters in other moments.
It's quite fitting that the first-ever 12" record on US garage überlabel Total Punk starts with a thumping groove reminiscent of ISS, whose most recent EP might have been the last 7" ever to be released on that label - the transition into a new Total Punk era couldn't feel any smoother really, reassuring us that despite a change in format, the label's spirit is still the same, is alive and well. Grown up a bit, maybe. New York garage noise group Brandy sound their most compact and forceful on their sophomore LP after having cut their teeth already on a rough and brilliant debut album and on another 7" - guess on what label that one came out… More ever before you can feel some distinct Feedtime influence, while in their most abstract moments there's some kind of a Spray Paint vibe going on. But even more than that, i'm reminded of contemporary post punk acts Knowso and NAG, both of whom had released records on Total Punk in the past - just amazing how things come full circle here.
After releasing a true shitload of EPs over the past few years and their sound showing a steady increase in maturity, it's really no surprise that their debut album comes across as the most accomplished batch of songs by this London group yet, their very own formula made up of post punk, noise rock and postcore elements fine-tuned and engineered into a smoothly running, high precision machine while still occasionaly expanding their musical vocabulary - like some Wire-meet-Big Black-isms in Set Up To Fail for example or the bleak doomscapes á la early Uniform in Human Frailty.
Another Berlin group whose members already made some waves elsewhere in the 12XUniverse, namely in Bands like Diät, Ausmuteants or Vexx, although Diät certainly are the closest match here in terms of sound - with a somewhat more pronounced 80s death rock vibe, maybe. Also there's some similarity to a slowed down incarnation of Pretty Hurts, Criminal Code or austrian colleagues Red Gaze.
