Still having compared their last digital single mainly to the established Mission of Burma formula, i'll expand that assessment to a more nebulous triangle of Burma, Wipers and Sonic Youth in face of the newest tracks by the Wollongong, Australia group - an aesthetic hovering inbetween the worlds of post punk, noise rock and fuzz punk which you might as well compare to more contemporary groups like early No Age or recent italian sensation Orrendo Subotnik.
Coming off a series of neat EPs last year, Marmora, New Jersey garage group or, probably, solo artist Die TV returns with a new album presenting their tunes in an even more stripped-down, low-key manner at first glance, yet underneath the unassuming surface unfolds a spectacular fireworks of DIY creativity. While at some points you may still find the occasional speck of Spits or Stalins of Sound in there, Die TV's strummy, jangly blend of garage- and post punk with sprinkles of psychedelia comes into even sharper focus here, the minimalist production providing plenty of breathing room for the melancholy, sparkling guitar arrangements with more than a little hint of Desperate Bicycles in some places, Power Plant or Freak Genes in others, even a touch of Digital Leather in the muted pop vibes of Goner. Don't let first impressions fool you, this is quite potent and awesome shit from start to finish!
A sonic experience wonderfully out of touch with the zeitgeist, crafted by some Bellingham, Washington group. Prime influence here seems to be a whole battery of early-to-mid eighties, loosely SST and Touch & Go-connected stuff - on the more strummy, folk-infused side of things admittedly, but never afraid of spontaneously morphing into short bursts of hardcore punk either. Most obvious amoung those influences would probably be shit among the lines of Angst and Meat Puppets, early Dinosaur Jr. and, secondarily, U-Men, Mudhoney and 80s Scientists, some very slight hints of Dicks and Wipers. Or alternately, you might think of more recent Acts like early Milk Music, Dharma Dogs, Chronophage and Damak.
Our weekly dose of eggpunk insanity comes courtesey of some mysterious Stockholm act, way too short but potent and catchy as fuck nonetheless. Friends of shit á la Nubot555, Egg Idiot, Prison Affair, Set-Top Box, Nuts and Pringue, among others, will surely approve of this.
What kind of twisted punk student exchange program would lead to an album being recorded both in London, Ontario and London, England? The band committing the deed appears to have connnections to some London's Gaggers and Miscalculations as well as some other London's Isolation Party and Mononegatives - the latter being the most obvious comparison though, as their very own brand of spaced-out synth- and garage punk reigns supreme on this record too, along with flourishes of Pow!, Useless Eaters, Freak Genes, Isotope Soap, Mind Spiders, Powerplant and Digital Leather. Fucking awesome shit, in other words.
A neat little yet-to-be-pressed 7" by a Sydney group sounding a little as if a more spiky version of Lithics collided with the likes of noisy post punkers Brandy, the recent noisecore of Shove, a very slight hint of Wipers and the ancient recordings of noise rockers World Domination Enterprises.
It took the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania group a few years to tie up the loose ends and finish the production of this LP but here it finally is, giving us more of their synth-, garage- and post punk that will once again elicit comparisons to Digital Leather - especially the similarity of the singer's voice to DL's Shawn Foree always strikes me as uncanny - although Deletions at this point sound more like a cruder, yet simultaneously pretty straightforward and catchy-as-fuck version of that. In the second half things lean heavier towards the post punk, slightly goth end of things, bearing some similarity to, say, Powerplant, Isotope Soap, Why Bother? or early The Faint as well as some flourishes of Devo and Desparate Bicycles… even a touch of Morricone in Diffuse and Confuse. Not every single effort on here pays off equally well but when they hit the spot, they do it with bravado.
…now that's kind of an insane move, dumping four to six LPs worth of material in a single album on bandcamp. Didn't see that coming at all, good thing we like insane shit here at 12XU HQ. With this album the group from Moffat Beach, Australia seriously earned the title "The Guided by Voices of space egg punk". Amazingly, most of this stuff is pretty freakin' awesome too, although a fair bit of fat and redundancy sure could've been trimmed off this 2-hour release for an even stronger 80-minute album to emerge in the process. Their high egg-factor mixture of Psychedelic-/Space Rock, Post- and Garage Punk might draw comparisons to the likes of Mononegatives, Neo Neos, Liquids, The Gobs, Set-Top Box, Print Head or Useless Eaters in its more high-energy moments while in the more relaxed and/or downbeat songs, groups like Die TV, Cool Sorcery, Snooper might come to mind or even an extra Lo-Fi version of the Woolen Men!
Following up on their already quite awesome 2019 demo, Austin group Dregs shift their sound a good bit away from a more garage- and fuzz punk leaning sound, further towards a harder to pin-down mix of influences on the fringes of 80s-to-mid-90s hard- and postcore, among others suggesting the likes of X (US), Dicks or Flipper at some points, postcore groups like Gray Matter or Drive Like Jehu at others while more recent bands like Vexx, Cel Ray, Gen Pop or Little Ugly Girls wouldn't sound too far off either.
Apparently, formerly New Orleans-based group Waste Man have relocated to New York City recently. Sound-wise though, they stay true to themselves on their newest EP, by which i mean they stay unpredictable as ever and keep the listeners on their toes every second in their very own mixture on the intersection of Post Punk, Postcore and slight touches of Americana (the latter are less obvious here though…). Especially notable this time is the six-minute slow-burn track White Horse that plays out kinda like a fusion of early Shellac, Slint, Jawbox & Fugazi.