It took the Bristol group just shy of a year to come up with the newest installment in their, so far, absolutely spectacular and flawless run of (digital) singles. I'm glad to announce that i've got nothing new to say about this one - these two tunes are yet another masterclass of melodic post punk and power pop songcraft with clear echoes of Buzzcocks, Television Personalities, Mekons and many more artefacts of predominantly british DIY punk history.
This neat little EP by St. Louis, Missouri dude Nick G and friends delivers seven blasts of dark yet melodic, heavily song-based post punk - admittedly not a terribly original thing at this point but not too predictable either, solidly constructed throughout. A definitive treat for fans of stuff á la Criminal Code, Public Eye, VHS, Sievehead or Bruised… with occasional flashes of Trauma Harness or The Estranged to boot.
A thoroughly high quality new batch of 7"s and even a CD from the ever reliable italian garage punk institution Goodbye Boozy Records. Tee Vee Repairman is yet another project of Ishka Edmeades who you might also know from acts such as Satanic Togas, Set-Top Box, Research Reactor Corp., Gee Tee, Remote Control, Mainframe… this dude seems to be in pretty much anything out of the Warttman orbit and beyond that. Let's just say dude's been's a constant fixture on this blog in recent years and will sure crop up many more times because everything he touches tends to become instant garage punk and power pop gold. A different beast altogether is the 7" by Wayne Pain & The Shit Stains, a simple & stupid attack of decidedly oldschool fuzzed-out garage punk with that classic rockabilly edge to it. Speaking of rockabilly… Qinqs have a touch of that going on too, although in their case it reeks less of The Cramps and more of The Fall - The Great White Wonder might as well be called How i re-wrote Elastic Man - as well as more recent occurrences á la Shark Toys, Ex Cult, Parquet Courts or The UV Race. The newest tape by the mysterious Zoids then is another endearingly eccentric treat of minimalist electro-/space-/garage punk transporting more than just a little bit of a Suicide-meets-Metal Urbain / Dr. Mix and the Remix vibe. Also: Yeah, fuck vinyl 'cos the future belongs to the compact disc bro. Dadgad's tracks then serve as the perfect transition between the aforementioned electric space punk stylings and the opposite half of a 7" featuring - yet again - that dude known as Zhoop… or was it Feed? Djinn? Brundle maybe? I don't care really it's all good shit!
A new mini LP by Atlanta's post punk force of nature Nag - i guess everybody knows what to expect at this point and i'm totally okay with that as there still ain't a whole lot of groups quite like them. Despite the raw ingredients of their sound being as old as post punk itself, there's a unique quality to their vision, about as simplistic as you can get away with in some places while amazingly elaborate where it counts in others, with the occasional touch of psychedelia and hammered home with a rough and unrelenting force.
Side number four by Marmora, New Jersey garage troubador Die TV is yet another super-solid batch of garage-/synth-/electro punk miniature goodness. Not much more to add to that other than what i already said about his previous releases: Friends of weirdness in the same orbit as, say, Powerplant, Stalins of Sound, Erik Nervous, The Spits, Set-Top Box, Digital Leather… rejoice!
A super effective bunch of straightforward punk smashers by a Perth grounp - simple at first glance yet always carefully constructed for maximum impact. Plausible comparisons from recent years would include bands such as Xetas, Cool Jerks, Flowers of Evil or Dead Years while from long before that, you might see flashes of Naked Raygun, Laughing Hyenas, Hot Snakes, Man Sized Action and the like…
Wow, i didn't really expect this to happen. A good seven years after the group's sorta classic LP The Battle Of Brisbane we finally get another album by what at this point appears to exist as more of a solo venture by vocalist Matt Kennedy. His singular sound and vision in the realm of post punk, noise rock and that unlikely folk-y undercurrent comes accross as sharp and uncompromising as ever though, appearing beautifully out of step with the zeitgeist.
New shit from Nick Vicario aka Smirk, also known as part of such potent punk powerhouses as Public Eye, Crisis Man und Cemento. His second LP carries more of his eclectic post- and garage punk extravaganza sourced out of a generous grab bag of punk samples, bearing fleeting similarities to such diverse acts as ISS, Institute, Alien Nosejob, Cherry Cheeks, Uranium Club, Reality Group or Marbled Eye.
Damn, unforgivable how i could overlook this kickass tape already released this summer, containing delicilously excentric Lo-Fi post punk shit giving off a heavy smell of Desperate Bicycles, Swell Maps, early Mekons plus any random artifact of 80s cassette culture as well as some New Order-ish vibes in the closing track Dog Having Its Day.
The second LP by that Duo featuring none other than Spray Paint's Cory Plump as well as some mysterious Chris, who has in some capacity worked with Les Savy Fav, Trans Am and Scene Creamers in the past, delivers more of their addictive melange of post punk and noise rock with that certain industrial feel, as experimental as it's hypnotic and catchy all the same. Maybe it's just due to the mix and mastering, but the sonic spectrum appears somewhat decluttered here compared to the predecessor with an at times less claustrophobic, more natural feel and plenty of room to breathe. Still tons of Swell Maps or, alternately, Exek vibes to go around though and there's even a hint of Protomartyr in Rotting Profits, some echoes of Wire in Florida Gasoline.
