On their second longplayer, New Orleans group Waste Man have gotten rid almost entirely of the hardcore elements that were still front and center on their incredible 2018 tape A New Type Of Worry, but that doesn't mean their newest LP is any less thrilling. Quite on the contraty, this has become both their most ambitious and well-rounded release so far, a captivating and unpredictable ride at different points reminding me of smartypants garage punk of the Vintage Crop, Dumb or Uranium Club variety, art punk akin to Lithhics or Patti as well as contemporary post punk in the vein of Public Eye, The Gotobeds and Bambara… at the same time emitting some distinctly oldschool vibes - faint echoes of Wire and Saccharine Trust being the most noticeable ones here.
This is already the second awesome release for this week coming out of Mexico. To be fair, this record is already a few months old but still… there's clearly something brewing over there. The debut album by this group is a highly concentrated caffeine shot of drum machine-driven full-speed-straight-ahead garage punk with some slight similarity to groups like S.B.F., Kid Chrome or Arse. Sometimes noisy, sometimes melodic, always catchy and exhilarating.
Dollhouse's 2019 demo already was a thoroughly respectable blast of forward-thinking noise and even more so is their new EP that came out recently via Toxic State Records, thanks to a comparatively slick production putting their sound emanating from a gray area between modern hardcore, post punk and postcore in just the right light, balancing abrasive scuzz with sheer force. The whole thing calls to mind a refreshingly diverse cluster of groups like Mystic Inane, Hot Snakes, Wymyns Prysyn, Launcher, Cement Shoes or Liquid Assets.
DWP is the current solo project of Sloane Flashman who has also been playing the guitar in Seattle post punk group Nail Polish. If you're already acquainted with the latter band's no-wave inspired noise, you might already suspect this EP is gonna be a rather bumpy, adventurous ride as well and you'd be totally right. Over the course of eight abstract, droning sketches a soundscape of experimental Art Punk unfolds that appears to draw equal amounts of inspiration from Suicide, Wire and Glenn Branca, among many other things.
Another excellent EP by Rhode Island's Germ House, a solo project of Justin Hubbard who also happens to be playing in Far Corners. These three songs once again sparkle with his familiar stripped-down lo-fi charme and a sonic range that stretches from abrasive post- and art punk - which surely owes a thing or two to The Fall or Desperate Bicycles - to classic garage rock and contemporary garage punk, while also revealing a surprising catchyness, deep melancholy and a playful vibe reminiscent of The Woolen Men.
This Melbourne group has been around before. That was sometime during the 90's and back then, their sound could be described as your typical, slightly emo-fied postcore style of that period with echoes of Chavez, Slint and Polvo. Their first new songs in a quarter-century however are quite far from a nostalgic retread of their earlier tunes. Instead, we get presented an all-new and slick post punk sound clearly belonging into the present day, which doesn't look out of place among acts like say, Sleepies, Gotobeds or Drahla, at the same time sounding rather timeless and mature in all the best ways, at times also evoking a subtle Moving Targets or Volcano Suns vibe.
It's been a few years since i last heard of London group Sarcasm. On their latest and, apparently, last EP their ultra-minimalist post punk with strong hints of Crass and more recent bands like Marbled Eye, Rank/Xerox or Labor still sounds pretty much as if not a minute has gone by since then, which is totally fine with me. Quite possibly, these songs were recorded not long after their 2017 Malarial Bog EP.
More quality shit courtesey of Deluxe Bias. This absurdly short cassingle of noise in the realm of KBD-informed weirdcore, garage- and post punk will sure be a delight to folks who've already developed a huge boner for Mystic Inane, Rolex or Fried E/M.
Following last year's somewhat more refined full-length debut, the second LP by Atlanta dark-/post punk group Nag feels more like a throwback to their earlier EPs - and i mean that in all the best ways. These songs are raw as fuck, the arrangements almost as sparse as you can possibly stretch the genre before it's gonna collapse. Why write a goddamn novel when all you need to get across is a single but rather desperate sentence?
I already liked this Philadelphia group's first tape a lot but its successor raises the bar even higher for their own mixture of garage-, post- and dungeon punk that doesn't shy away from allowing quite a bit of very oldschool "heavy" metal into the mix - in regards to the movie just as much as the genre.
