Dizzy Daze - Proto-Being

Ex­cit­ing shit in the realm of noise rock, post­core and garage punk on this Tokyo group's newest EP show­cas­ing quite a bit of styl­is­tic va­ri­ety. Pro­to-Be­ing crash­es right out of the gate like a mix of Mul­ti­c­ult, Tar and Dri­ve like Je­hu. Slug then ex­hibits a more catchy, melod­ic sen­si­bil­i­ty akin to, say, Bitch Mag­net, Pol­vo or Chavez. Ev­i­dence has some acid-drenched pro­to punk vibe to it like MX-80 col­lid­ing with ear­ly The Men plus a hint of Wipers and last but not least, Dis­con­nect ra­di­ates some dis­tinct Hot Snakes-meeet-Na­tion Of Ulysses kind of en­er­gy.

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Pleaser - Pleaser

Fol­low­ing up on their in­cred­i­ble 2021 de­mo, this Copen­hagen group de­liv­ers an equal­ly ex­cit­ing de­but full length. On one hand, this sounds vague­ly fa­mil­iar as the lo­cal leg­ends Low­er and (ear­ly) Iceage have sure left their mark on Pleaser's mu­sic - hav­ing a sim­i­lar ap­peal of larg­er-than-life dra­ma tan­gled up in chaot­ic and emo­tion­al no-holds-barred per­for­mances - in ad­di­tion to less­er known Copen­hagen groups like Melt­ing Walk­men, Echo Peo­ple and Spines. But then again, Pleas­er to­tal­ly hold their own ow­ing to top-notch song sub­stance and plen­ty of neat lit­tle sur­pris­es like some black met­al flour­ish­es in the in­stru­men­tal The World Says Its Name, Mor­ri­cone stylings and a Mur­der­er-es­que psy­che­del­ic cow­punk haze in Dri­ve of Dis­tress while Light and Fire and This Is How I Die have some dis­tinct Poi­son Ruïn vibes to them. Last but not least, in The Dream, a good bit of Rites of Spring, Dag Nasty col­lides with some 90s Leather­face or Sami­am vibes as well as some­what younger noise pop acts á la Star Par­ty, Times Beach, No Age, Male Bond­ing or Joan­na Grue­some.

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The Present Age - Radio Static Intelligible

This Oshkosh, Wis­con­sin group is cook­ing up a va­ri­ety of in­ven­tive and adap­tive anochro­nisms rough­ly in the realms post punk and post­core, garage punk and clas­sic '90s in­die rock, com­ing off as re­fresh­ing­ly out-of-place and -touch in today's land­scape. Some '90s Dischord-meets-Touch and Go feel is go­ing on in tracks such as Ph­tha­late Mates and the groovy psy­che­del­ic clos­ing epos Clum­sy As­cetic. A hint of Pro­tomar­tyr in Locks Fas­ten, psy­che­del­ic flour­ish­es in The De­liv­ery and hints of Swervedriv­er in songs like Ra­dio Sta­t­ic. Fur­ther, at dif­fer­ent points, you might be re­mind­ed of re­cent post punk/-core acts like Bat­piss, Stuck and Bench Press, groups on the in­ter­sec­tion of garage- and post punk like Tyvek, Par­quet Courts or Flat Worms in ad­di­tion to groups on the more melod­ic and jan­g­ly edges of post- and art punk á la Go­tobeds, Sleepies, Tape/​Off and Shark Toys.

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Piss Shivers - Piss Shivers

A bril­liant new re­lease brought to us by Gim­mie Records, the record la­bel ex­ten­sion of the fab­u­lous Gimme Gim­mie Gim­mie blog-/zine em­pire. Piss Shiv­ers are a Bris­bane duo whose de­but LP kicks up a high­ly flam­ma­ble fuss lo­cat­ed vague­ly in­side the Garage-, Post Punk and Post­core co­or­di­nates, some­times re­mind­ing me of a Cri­sis Man-meet-Hot Snakes hy­brid while at oth­er points you might be re­mind­ed of ear­ly Teenanger, the pitch-black post­core dystopias of Video, VHS or the fu­ri­ous anger of Wymyns Prysyn. Fur­ther i'm re­call­ing the likes of Xe­tas, Gaffer, As­cot Stab­ber and Bat­piss… maybe a bit of Zhoop/​Djinn/​Feed en­er­gy aswell in the more prim­i­tive, straight­for­ward mo­ments.

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G.U.N. - G.U.N.

I hadn't heard from these Nashville folks for a long time af­ter their promis­ing de­mo in 2019. Well, they're back now and their sound's more fu­ri­ous than ever, brew­ing up a per­fect storm of garage-in­fused hard­core punk with hints of, say, Acrylics, ear­ly Elec­tric Chair, Launch­er, Liq­uid As­sets, Mys­tic Inane, Ce­ment Shoes and Cri­sis Man be­ing just a few of the things that pop in­to my head at first glance.

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Tricks - Body, Doctrine, Enjoyment

Garage punk meets math rock meets psy­che­delia meets post­core on this breath­less new tape by Min­neapo­lis group Tricks, at dif­fer­ent times bear­ing sim­i­lar­i­ties to re­cent groups as di­verse as Re­al­i­ty Group, Ura­ni­um Club, Yam­mer­er, Big Bop­per, Pat­ti, Ex-Cult, Rolex, Shark Toys, Sauna Youth… at times you might even per­cieve a slight 90s Dischord vibe á la Jaw­box, Fara­quet and Med­ica­tions.

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Texture Freq - Masochistic Episode

A beau­ti­ful­ly over­whelm­ing mud show­er of noise-in­fest­ed Post­core, the de­but EP of this Min­neapo­lis group clear­ly in­her­it­ing some of the DNA of the city's own Noise Rock-re­lat­ed his­to­ry while feel­ing per­fect­ly con­tem­po­rary all the same, main­ly re­mind­ing me of re­cent bands á la Doll­house, Launch­er, Mys­tic Inane, Wymyns Prysyn and Op­tic Nerve… with a touch of Hot Snakes thrown in for good mea­sure.

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Warp - Automatic Gratuity

I'd al­most for­got­ten about this San Fran­cis­co group yet here they are fol­low­ing up their im­pres­sive 2019 de­but al­bum with a new EP show­cas­ing their quirky and in­ven­tive sound on the fringes of noise rock, hard- and post­core in a shape both rougher and more re­fined at the same time, echo­ing some of the great­est noise-/weird­core re­leas­es of re­cent years in­clud­ing those by the likes of Warm Bod­ies, Snif­fany & The Nits, Vexx, Dots, Judy & The Jerks or Mys­tic Inane.

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Slogutis - Slogutis

An in­cred­i­bly self-as­sured de­but tape by a group from Vic­to­ria, Cana­da burst­ing on­to the scene ful­ly formed and ma­ture, bring­ing to life in­ven­tive, haunt­ing and elab­o­rate­ly con­struct­ed epics com­pact­ed in­to short, dense hard­core tracks in which they let on­ly the murki­est ten­den­cies of noisy hard-/post­core groups á la Acrylics, Vidro, ear­ly Bad Breed­ing col­lide with an over­all aes­thet­ic branch­ing out deep in­to the sup­pressed sub­con­scious, un­can­ny realms of death rock-/dun­geon re­lat­ed or oth­er­wise "black­ened" or met­al in­fused noise.

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Hellco - Hellco

A sim­ply de­light­ful de­but LP by this Philadel­phia group, brought to us via lo­cal la­bel SRA Records. I wan­na de­scribe this shit as a mixed bag in the best sense pos­si­ble, an ec­cen­tric repos­i­to­ry of slight­ly cow­punk-in­fused art punk hov­er­ing some­where be­tween garage- and noise-heavy hard­core shit with a cer­tain KBD-ex­ten­sion some­what rem­i­nis­cent of ear­ly Elec­tric Chair plus a touch of Soup­cans on one hand, and then on the oth­er, there are some ubiq­ui­tous echoes to be found of old acts on the in­ter­sec­tion of '80s noise rock and pro­to-grunge like, say, U-Men, Scratch Acid, Vol­cano Suns, But­t­hole Surfers, Min­ute­men, Sac­cha­rine Trust, Feed­time and very ear­ly Meat Pup­pets, just to name a cou­ple of the most ob­vi­ous ref­er­ences.

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