A delightfully strange little beast, this Florida group’s second EP which kinda plays out like a mix-and-match version of early Siouxie, B-52’s and Delta Five being transformed into some kind of shambolic Urinals aesthetic while also having plenty of a contemporary eggpunk flourish to it, with another comparison coming to mind being the Lo-Fi art punk of NY group Exo.
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An incredible three-way split tape bringing together some groups you should definitely keep your eye on in the forseeable future. Chicago’s Answering Machines start things off with a remarkable bang in the form of catchy pop tunes that seem to combine many of the most striking qualities of the late-aughts to early 2010’s fuzz punk excesses by the likes of Wavves, No Age with the propulsive power pop by groups such as Bad Sports, Warm Soda, Sonic Avenues or Scupper, while the overall fuzzed-out aesthetics and production values call to mind stuff on the rougher end of that same spectrum á la Violent Change, The Wind-Ups, Famous Mammals, Honey Bucket, Germ House, Far Corners and maybe also early Chronophage.
Good Flying Birds from Indianapolis, who’ve also released an absolutely stunning debut tape just a day prior to this, then present three smashers occupying some of the whitespace inbetween the worlds of eighties jangle pop, C86-related pop goodness and plenty of late-eighties Sarah Records indie pop vibes. Pulling Hair is a tune for the ages i’d say.
Rounding out things is St Louis art rock outfit Soup Activists whom i’ve admittedly had kind of a difficult time warming up to at first and still think are best enjoyed in small doses. Well, what we get here is certainly a suitably small dose of their craft and i have to concede there probably couldn’t have been a more perfect, relaxed and low-key conclusion to this amazing little cassette.
Just as on their three demos leading up to this new EP, New Jersey group Feeding Tube are bringing about yet another depraved orgy of pure sonic perversion in a quirky-as-fuck blend of angular egg- and post punk full of choppy rhythms, odd time signatures and blown-out sonics.
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The time between the years is – as far as punk rock is concerned – usually defined by those rather tiny and more obscure nuggets, scraps and crumbs that randomly pop up. Same thing this year, so here’s a little roundup of some of the curious little short-playing treats that washed up in the last few weeks.
London’s Rifle already delighted with two excellent EPs before and their newest one is another full-on blast inbetween the worlds of garage punk, postcore and old KBD-related noise somewhat reminiscent of groups as diverse as Ascot Stabber, early Golden Pelicans, Mystic Inane, Launcher and Rolex.
Madrid group Raya, whose debut EP a couple already left me impressed a couple months ago, has another two-track single out now and guess what, it’s yet another excellent burst of quirky garage-/eggpunk most reminiscent of other spanish acts like Pringue, Finale and Prison Affair but also international bands like Beer, Set-Top Box and Gremlin.
Vacation from Cincinnati have long proven to be a treasure trove of high-octane songcraft in the realms of Power Pop, oldschool Indie Rock, Garage- and Fuzz Punk and their track on a new split single is another high-caliber weapon in their arsenal. The other track by Madison, Wisconsin post punkers Whippets is also really fucking good, reminding me a lot of canadian groups Dead Cells and that recent Psychbike LP.
Another high-class gem comes to us in the form of a new 7″ by Perth group Pleasants who set off another two explosions of simple and confident power pop that admirers of the likes of Teen Line, Bad Sports, Tommy and the Commies, Mr. Teenage or Corner Boys shouldn’t miss.
Speaking of catchy tunes, english group Cream Soda have two more of those on their debut 7″ via Spinout Nuggets. They have equal amounts of both a Buzzcocks- and Television Personalities-energy to them or alternately, you might name old US underground acts like Broken Talent or more recent shit like Britain’s The Suburban Homes and Silicone Values, Australia’s Nasty Party or earlier stuff of canadian greats Neutrals as reasonably valid references.
And finally, there’s another high quality bit of heavy metal-infused fun from Austin’s Ninth Circle. It’s been an interesting last few years as i actually wouldn’t have thought – having lived through the embarrassing, metalcore-infested period from the late ’90s to ’00s – that the marriage of punk and metal-related sounds would ever produce any more offspring i could get behind, being forever tainted by the era’s blunt moshing and cringy display of hypermasculine rage. But here i am in the 2020s, regularly finding much delight in metal-ish sounds from bands that aren’t necessarily named Poison Ruïn. Having ignored the metal industrial complex for a long time, i’m severely impaired when it comes to naming any references so i’m just ganna say these two songs fucking rip and that’s all you need to know anyway.
So, that’s it for this year. As usual i’m gonna take a 2-3 weeks long vacation from blogging and you’ll hear back from me when next year’s release machine gets into gear again. See you in whatever depressing abomination the year 2025 is shaping up to be.
I’m just gonna assume that certain Nick G. mentioned in connection with this newest release courtesy of our favorite bullshit enterprise Discontinuous Innovation Inc. is that same dude who also gave us the underrated post punk highlight that was 2023’s Broken? If so, his sound has certainly evolved a good bit into a more catchy and melodic direction on his first EP under the NRG moniker while still being recognizable as having arisen from the same mind, adding psychedelic flourishes and sprinkles of melodic indie rock to the mix. Less Criminal Code and Sievehead this time and more in line with such highly regarded, more or less recent post punk phenomena as Marbled Eye, The Drin, Straw Man Army, Institute, Public Eye and Waste Man but eaqually having some distinct vibes akin to a bunch of indie rock-leaning post punk groups from roughly a decade earlier, like The Gotobeds and Sleepies.
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A thorougly mesmerizing load of monotonously pulsing psychedelic post punk bliss with echoes of the proto- and early art punk eras, this new cassette of Paris group Jazz V.O.S.T. comes across a bit like an unholy alliance of Métal Urbain, MX-80 and Chrome, maybe a bit of Swell Maps for good measure… or possibly even a couple of old japanese psychedelic and post punk acts like The Rabbits and early High Rise. All of this gets transferred into some vague semblance of a cold wave context while thankfully eschewing the overly mechanical, formulaic uniformity of what i might consider one of the least creative genres in recent years. No, the pulses, twitches and rumbles on this record aren’t caused by the cold rotations of some interchangeable machine but rather the joy of free expression and humanity of defiant spirits refusing to let themselves get crushed by harsh realities.
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Quality shit as usual from the ever-reliable spanish post punk stronghold Flexidiscos. On their debut LP, this Valencia group conjures up quite the storm of smart and angular, yet never tiresome noise that comes across like an amalagamation of the No Wave-ish noise rock / post punk abstractions of Spray Paint with a number of similarly genre-fluid crossover acts like the contorted, interlocking garage punk grooves of Uranium Club, Reality Group and Vintage Crop on one hand, the eccentric post punk constructions of acts á la Rolex, Knowso, Meal, Exit Group, early Marbled Eye and Patti on the other. All of it feels way less grating and catchier than you’d expect, propelled ahead with unrestrained drive and concentrated, punctually applied energy.
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A bit of a paradox, this record by a Berlin group which, on one hand, feels probably the most quintessentially Berlin-like of anything i’ve heard this year, yet eludes any straight comparison i could draw to any more-or-less contemporary group of that scene. The best of which that i could come up with are Hyäne, who put out two incredible singles and an equally good LP between 2016-2018, although this shit here feels even more rough, oldschool and primitive, rooted in more of an ’80s punk and hardcore background. All of that notwithstanding, i’d also say that fans of groups such as Die Verlierer, Kalte Hand, Maske, Pigeon and Gesture just might get a kick out of this, as there’s undeniably at least some sort of a common thread running through all of that stuff.
*edit*
In the time-honored tradition of me writing ill-informed stupid fucking shit, it turns out this group ain’t from Berlin at all (only their label is) but not too far from my own doorstep instead, somewhere in the wider Ruhr area. No wonder they’re this pissed then. Thrilling shit. How am i gonna fuck up next? Stay tuned!
In case the previous LP of this Leipzig/Berlin-based group was a bit too tidy, conventional and well-produced for your taste, then rejoice!… ‘cos that new cassette may be right up your alley as a hyperactive and noisy, glorious mess showcasing a band just following their creative whims wherever they may take them in thirty minutes comprised of found-sound interludes, zany bits and jokes and plenty of certified bangers along the way, once again approaching the weirdness and fun of their admittedly kinda hard-to-beat 2022 Estray LP.
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I never came across this Copenhagen group before, although they’ve apparently been around for well over a decade by now. Right out of the gate, their third LP radiates an eerily familiar vibe yet looking a bit closer, there’s more goin’ on with this record than meets the eye at first glance. While the slight folk- and cowpunk vibes of the openening track call to mind the folk-ish post punk acts Dead Finks, Optic Nerve and the nervous garage punk twitch of Hank Wood & The Hammerheads, i’d say that subsequently, this record settles into an aesthetic blurring the line between straight-up catchy punk rock and a darker post punk feel, similar in one way or another to such groups like Xetas, Red Dons, later Naked Raygun, Warp Lines, Dead Years and Telecult. Also, there’s some neat Leatherface-esque guitar work going on here and a melancholic quality that reminds me of shit like The Misanthropes and early The Estranged.
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