The six tracks of this Leeds, UK group’s debut LP take themselves plenty of time to allow for their cold and analytic post punk grooves and textures to sink in and do their work with steady, sprawling, kraut-ish repetition, poured into an overall sonic form that sorta reminds me of postcore- and noise rock leaning acts like John (timestwo), Metz, Cool Jerks and early Greys as much as post punk groups of the Criminal Code and The Cowboy kind, but most of all i’m sensing a lot of kinship with the recent Machiavellian Art LP with these songs kinda playing out like a sped-up, streamlined version of that shit.
The successor to these Melbourne punks’ excellent car-themed EP from past December has them considerably streamlining and improving the structural foundation of their songs while also diversifying their musical spectrum, giving them a more post punk-ish feel overall yet this is also the most noisy and concentrated attack we’ve heard of them so far, which even holds true in the case of the midtempo post punk jam TV Screen, while closing track Tough Cunt still closes things out with a bit of hardcore energy akin to their previous material. Anyway, i’m reminded of so much goodness of the last decade-plus by the likes of Romance, Vexx, Cel Ray, Gen Pop, Warp, Downtown Boys, Fugitive Bubble and Warm Bodies just to name a few… plus maybe just a hint of old aussie noise rock / post punk greats Fungus Brains? Yeah, this is some highly combustible shit for sure!
Now if you thought the 2022 EP of this Montreal group was kinda weird and bananas, Pressure Pin be like: “Hold my beer” ‘cos you’ve seen nothing yet! For their second EP, they considerably raise the bar both in terms of sophistication and of unpredictable chaos and mayhem in their totally nuts compositions whose rough characteristics hover somewhere around the spheres of garage-, synth-, art- and eggpunk with a pronounced element of devocore, all the while being hellbent on nuking the confines of those genres respectively. This kind of eclectic anything-goes approach reminds me most of recent works by Trashdog and Checkpoint, though if you take it one stylistic ingredient at a time, you might also find bits and pieces of the ’90s-midi-style pop excursions of Metdog, the Devo-isms of recent Isotope Soap, the sparkling joy of Snooper and the quirky, catchy garage-/art punk explosions of Smirk and Cherry Cheeks. These dudes put more ideas and inspiration in a single tune than your average garage act does in a whole album.
Another awesome EP by that that completely off-the-rails Los Angeles hair punk / egg metal act cementing their status as the severely brain damaged evil cousins of electro punk greats ISS and Heavy Metal, combining an absurd stylistic premise with lyrical contents of only the most deranged quiet-part-out-loud / “Did he really just say that?” variety into a thoroughly ridiculous and fun bit of delightful chaos.
The restless Berlin post punk scene delivers yet another high-class artifact – brought to us by Cincinnati, Ohio specialists Future Shock Recordings – on which they masterfully balance a good deal of dark abysses and atmospheric expanse against an endless succession of concentrated, precise impacts. On one hand, this stuff unmistakably carries the signature of the Berlin scene and groups like Pigeon, Glaas, Clock Of Time, Pretty Hurts, Kalte Hand and Liiek. Yet, i also sense a close kinship to such anarcho-influenced US groups like Kaleidoscope, Straw Man Army and Fantasma, the recent LP of british punks Subdued, Sydney’s Negative Gears… and a bit of Criminal Code maybe? Anyway, this is some first rate shit right here!
Wow, now that’s is one marvellous debut EP by this Philadelphia group dealing in a kind of earthy, dissonant and eccentric, yet equally graceful blend of art- and post punk. The monotonous no wave-ish strumming of the opening track The Shield calls to mind the minimalism of Shop Regulars or Honey Bucket while Green Man has more of an early eighties The Fall vibe with further commonalities to, say, fellow philadelphians Toe Ring and B.E.E.F. 39X. The vicious grooves of Gangstalker, holding a delicate balance of dissonance and catchyness, are then approximately channeling some more spiky version of Lithics coupled with some dissonant Glenn Branca- and eighties Sonic Youth guitar work, a bit like we’ve more recently heard from Self Improvement, for example.
This Leipzig group could quite easily end up filed away right next to other german-language post punk acts like Hyäne, early L’apell Du Vide, Kalte Hand and Die Wärme… you know, the genre’s – mostly berlin-based – usual suspects and as natural as this comparison feels at first glance, there’s quite a bit more more going on here than just another competent rehash of the tried-and-tested formula and i see just as much similarity to a bunch of international acts – Criminal Code first and foremost but also comparisons to the likes of Negative Gears, Sievehead, recent Longings and Pyrex don’t seem all that far-fetched to me.
Finally, here’s the debut album of Cleveland, Ohio art punks The Carp, a group comprised of folks also connected to acts like Perverts Again, Knowso and Cruelster. With most of these songs already having made an appearance on their 2022 demo, here they’re given some final polish here with the increased production values adding plenty of punch, while their sound overall kinda bridges the gap between the sonic traits of Knowso and Cruelster, combining the elaborate yet rigid structures of the former with the straght-ahead fun and energy of the latter, with even a bit of a cowpunk vibe á la Murderer in The Old Ways.
The successor to last year’s kickass second EP of this Cincinnati, Ohio group makes no attempt at fixing what ain’t broken and instead delivers four new blows of that very same awesomness incorporating elements of noise rock, post-, garage- and synth punk with various bits and pieces reminding me of the likes of Busted Head Racket, Brandy, R.Clown, ISS, Spyroids and Knowso, De()t, Toy Brigade or Nervous Tick and the Zipper Lips.
Almost exactly six years after their debut LP, we finally get to hear some new shit from Houston’s The Hammer Party which, sadly, is also group’s swan song. Or rather, the band appears to have been disbanded years ago already and these are their final recordings which have been re-mixed and put up on bandcamp at long last, documenting the group at the height of their powers. On here, their songs have acquired more of an earthy and sinister quality imposing a new layer of muck even on the couple of tracks previously known from their first LP. There’s no lack of propulsion and compelling hooks either, as exemplified by the the 1-2-punch of Antidepressants and E.M.B.R.Y.O. in which lots of folk-y strumming lays the foundation for an impressive explosion of catchy melodies. As before i sense a similar melancholy quality to Atlanta groups Mothers Milk, Wymyns Prysyn and Uniform while in other moments, the likes of Sievehead and early Low Life don’t seem too far off either.
