I had a bit of a hard time warming up to more recent entries in that increasinly scrappy and loose sounding line of tapes of this Portland group fronted by Matt Radosevich of Honey Bucket fame. Now on their first acutal LP though, they mean business it appears and indeed they come across as focused as they haven’t sounded for quite some time. Less is more seems to be the maxim here with what basically amounts to five prolonged, equally monotonous and playful one-chord wonders (well, almost), in which texture and rhythm do most of the heavy lifting instead. Really, this is the kind of minimalism that makes early The Fall sound like progressive rock in comparison. Paradoxically, for a record making so few concession to preconceived notions of what a “song” goes like, the whole thing is radiating infectiously upbeat vibes throughout in what is probably gonna be the most joyous piece of abstract art punk you’ll hear this summer.
A fucking dream team of the current eggpunk wave joins forces on this new split EP in the form of two very unique and distinct groups, which have both already left quite a mark on the scene in just a couple years. Heck, you actually and reasonably might consider both groups’ sounds as having kickstarted their own little egg-subgenres. Altogether, this is a killer collection of hits, as you already might have suspected!
Here’s yet another quality artifact of a smartypants garage-/post punk hybrid that does nothing too new or groundbreaking yet delights with plenty of well-constructed odditiy, just the right amount of randomness coupled with an abundance of super-catchy hooks. All of that puts them roughly in the neighborhood of, say, a slowed-down Uranium Club, Vintage Crop, Dumb, Aborted Tortoise, Lithics or Pinch Points.
Now that’s an impressive debut LP by this London group, who’ve apparently been around for many years already but took until now to come up with a full length record. Right out of the gate, the opening tracks has some vibe á la early Saccharine Trust with a touch of Flipper. Outsude Looking In kinds plays out like a forgotten Wire track colliding with the likes of Volcano Suns, Mission af Burma in addition to more recent stuff by Institute, Peace de Résistance. Animals Eat For Free then starts out loosely resembling eighties The Fall before taking a quite melodic turn in the chorus. And so it goes on, this eclectic and testeful war chest of ideas and influences, among which you might also consider X (AUS), Membranes, Cravats, Fungus Brains, early, pre-dub-influence Swell Maps and many more old DIY (post-)punk greats, just as much as contemporary groups like Shark Toys, The Cowboy, Society, earlier Sleepies, weirdo frenchies Subtle Turnhips, other London groups like 2010s garage powerhouse Sauna Youth – of whom i’m reminded mostly in the more straightforward second half of this record – or maybe Tense Men, whose swan-song album, released post-breakup in 2018, bears some striking similarities to this thing. There’s absolutely no room for boredom inbetween these endless flashes of unhinged inspiration and creativity.
Incredible full length debut by this St. Petersburg, Florida group that kinda plays out like a comprehensive roundup of pretty much anything that refused to fit into any of the neat categories of eighties to early nineties hard- and postcore. So much great shit echoed here, from the more left-field segment of the early ’80s scene… think like, Minutemen, Saccharine Trust, Crucifucks, Really Red, Dicks and Flipper, also spanning the classic eras of both ’80s (Gray Matter, Embrace, Rites Of Spring, One Last Wish) and ’90s Dischord-related sounds (Crownhate Ruin, most of all…), also taking some cues from the Touch & Go camp (say, Rapeman, Scratch Acid, early Shellac) and last but not least, freely plundering the legacy of Drive Like Jehu. And that’s just barely scratching the surface here. In the current landscape, i’d say groups like Deodorant, Optic Nerve, Big Bopper and Straw Man Army are of a similar spirit. All the while, Work Stress are considerably dialing up the unpredictability and apparent randomness even compared with most of the mentioned acts (though actually i think they’re acting quite deliberately here), a trait that pays off spectacularly in songs like Building From Abject Failure, in which dissonant, slow-crawl staccatto rhythms alternate with unexpectedly catchy punk hooks.
So… it appears Neutrals have a new drummer bass player. Otherwise, thankfully not a whole lot has changed for this uncannily british sounding group from Oakland, California. It’s their most melodic and mellow effort to date, leaning in heavy on the jangle-/power pop side of things with the post punk elements, while still clearly present, taking a back seat here and what can i say… these folks still have the tunes to make it stick, remaining an endlessly charming, singular treasure among the humble circle of Television Personalities- and Mekons worshippers, and this time, i’d even say threr’s just a hint of The Wedding Present to be found in songs like Stop The Bypass.
The second tape of this supposedly Tokyo-based group delivers the goods of simple and effective, garage-flavoured synth- and post punk that makes me first of all think of frenchmen and -women Catalogue and Belgium’s Le Prince Harry, but might just as well be compared to the likes of Spyroids, O-D-EX, Mind Spiders, Powerplant, Crime Wave and Liquid Face… a less quirky Freak Genes maybe? Dunno, what’s important is this shit just works!
Dunno if you already noticed, but the UK’s most under-the-radar group of sheer awesomeness just recently released a compilation EP bringing together most of the previous singles plus three new tracks on french label SDZ Records, which is the perfect place to start if you haven’t already fallen for this band hook like and sinker. Anyways, here is their newest in that endless string of two-track digital singles already and as anything the group has touched so far, this is yet another instant classic of endlessly charming Mekons-, Desperate Bicycles- and Television Personalities-informed oldschool british DIY punk goodness.
Following a strong debut EP that still presented this Antwerp group from a more garage-leaning angle, the follow-up has them going all-in on a post punk vibe which on one hand takes plenty of cues from the James Chance-informed, funky end of the No Wave spectrum while also bearing a slight resemblance to the current Berlin scene and groups like Pigeon and Liiek in particular. I assume then it’s more than just a lucky coincidence this thing got released on Berlin post punk label Mangel Records.
Fantabulous new garage-/synth-/electro punk shit from Graz, Austria, using minimal means to actually bring some fresh and as-of-yet unheard impulses to the whole eggpunk clusterfuck as, at certain points, i can’t help but dub that shit Big Bl…Egg! Then again, there’s also no shortage of fluffy pop melodies on here. I’m not quite sure what to make of the closing track Freibad Fürstenwald though, which… fuck me, research that shit for yourself. Or maybe don’t, just… don’t.
