This Montreal group featuring Members of Puffer and Béton Armé unveils a fully evolved and classy vision on their second Tape following up on their admirable, if still a bit rough-around-the-edges 2023 Demo. The opener Insoutenable comes dashing right out of the gate with a pronounced Radio Birdman and early New Christs kind of energy which is joined by more contemporary sounding elements of melodic post punk á la The Estranged and Dead Finks, having much of a folk-ish, roots-y quality to it. Another standout is Rien ne t'empêchera, which strikes me as a perfect fusion of a catchy oldschool Oi! singalong with jangly power pop.
Cologne's longstanding art punk bastion Tics are at it again and on their latest 7" via local label Mörtel Sounds they come across the most well-defined and focused we've heard of them in quite a while. All the moving parts are interlocking admirably here, with the opening track Clad Faun being the closest thing here to the heavily Minutemen and Gang Of Four-indebted funky post punk of their earlier works. Simultaneously though, it also sees them opening up their sound to a variety of influences i might roughly locate in the '90s Dischord universe and particularly the more melodic outliers of Fire Party and Autoclave in this case, while the remainder of this EP leans more into the somewhat rougher, slightly math-y flipside of that same coin with the likes of Jawbox, Hoover, Smart Went Crazy, Bluetip and Kerosene 454 sure having made their mark on these songs in addition to further '90s mainstays such as Polvo, Unwound and Chavez. Just as well though, i can also smell the distinct odor of more recent australian and NZ acts á la Die! Die! Die!, Batpiss and Bench Press in there, or of US groups like Stuck and Rip Room.
Video game themed punk is not exactly a predictor of great creativity and artistic merit but thankfully, this Fresno, California group's second EP bucks the trend of toothless chiptune sounds and instead delivers some delicious treats of fuzzy lo-fi electro punk with plenty of bite which at different points you might find vaguely reminiscent of groups á la S.B.F., ISIS, Exit Mould, Penance Hall, Kerozine, Giorgio Murderer or that Zhoop/Djinn/etc.-dude's more electronically leaning alter egos Nightman and Brundle.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
