JJ Sizza is a dude you may have heard making noise before as a member of australian garage-/post punk acts like Kitchen People and Dr. Sure's Unusual Practice. On his second solo EP he now leans a bit more heavily into catchy-ass power pop territory than we've heard from these groups before and the shit fucking slaps, the opener 50 Cent Coin sounding like it could've either been a lost would-be '80s new wave hit or a forgotten early Flying Nun Records artifact, or also a modern-day garage single by the likes of Andy Human or Nick Normal. That one song contains multitudes already. Hold Music then sounds a bit closer to something out of the Dr. Sure's Œuvre and so does Panopticon Blues, before Skin On Skin combines some classic Ramones qualities with a modern fuzz punk / noise pop-sensibility not unlike Texas groups Sex Mex or, most recently, Eason. The closing tune Don't Wanna See is the weakest point of the record though, it's egg-ish art punk ingredients just not fusing together as well as they should but there's no arguing with the brilliance of anything else on this neat little tape.
Spaced-Out synth punk heroes Cosme of Ciudad López Mateos, Mexico have already slapped hard with everything they did on their three demos so far and now, on their first tape not explicitly labeled as a demo, they simply give us more of the same and what more could i ever ask for if that same is such a freakin' glorious and surreal lo-fi mess of classic power pop hooks colliding with the most melodic branches of mid- to late '80s punk and some new wave catchyness on top. Whatever these dudes touch remains such an insanely satisfying endeavour and so far they ain't showing the slightest hint of slowing down.
Much of this Chicago group's output so far felt just a bit too vague and impalable for me to make sense of it but their new longplaying debut now is playing in a different league altogether. I'm tempted to spew a platitude about how their sound is "clicking into sharp focus" here but really, it's more of an intentional soft-focus putting their jangly melange of power pop, art-, garage- and psych rock, splashes of '90s indie rock and '80s Flying Nun Records-esque psychedelia in just the right light. This shit sounds like something that should've been released about 15 years ago and looking back, it makes me wonder how it happened that particular, timeless subniche kinda went largely dormant since then. Or rather, it kinda was there in the margins all along, just waiting for an impressive, quality release like this to occur and, hopefully, shock the genre out of its self-indulgent mediocrity. There's a surreal, hypnagogic vibe pervading these tunes i probably haven't heard so strikingly since the early works of Rat Columns and Blank Realm at the beginning of the 2010s, though other, more garage-leaning stuff from that same era also comes to mind like the equally jangly and foggy early days of White Fence or Apache Dropout and i can't help but find a distinct note of '90s shoegazers Flying Saucer Attack in there as well. This is just the kind of wondrous, off-kilter weirdo pop album i didn't quite realize i've been missing so much since then.
This dude from Lawrence, Kansas who's apparently also been making sick noises with the likes of Ghoulies (not to be confused with the australian egg punks of the same name), Jackoffs and Drastic Plastic, now has another quite enticing treat for us in the form of a solo cassette that captivates right away with a make of somewhat glam-, southern rock and power pop-infused garage punk goodness that sits somewhere in the neighborhood of the early Sheer Mag singles, early works of Powerplant and more recently the incredible Elvis 2 LP. The last two tracks can't quite live up to that level of brilliance but damn, for such a quick-shot effort written and recorded in just a couple weeks this ain't shabby at all. Looking forward to more.
Any new 1-800-MIKEY record is always a treat of pleasantly predictable, uneventful comfort food from a dude otherwise known as part of Gee Tee among other things, whose own little niche on the garage-punk / power-pop spectrum has been well-established by now and though his music won't ever blow anyone away through sheer originality or innovation, it sure always does through the pure and innocent power of straightforward, no-frills songwriting brilliance! And so he does again on his third LP now, unleashing yet another batch of infectious and utterly endearing pop earworms that won't leave you terribly surprised but never fail to delight either in what may be their most relaxed and low-key effort so far, this time at points even fully embracing kind of an oldschool dream pop vibe, especially in the record's second half and tunes like K-Style and Falling In Love.
Different flavors and intensities of cowpunk-related noise seem to be a running thread in the past two weeks and right on cue, there's also a new record by one of recent years' most impressive voices in the field: Reuben Sawyer's solo project Anytime Cowboy, as usual released without much fuss or even the slightest heads-up in terms of promotion and i like that - Anytime Cowboy certainly ain't a group in danger of getting dubbed an industry plant by kids just coming to terms with the fact that such a thing as the music PR business even exists, haha. Anyway, with how massive an instant classic last year's Demons Obey has been, it would surely be kind of a tall order to expect another of those right away and indeed, its successor doesn't even feel too concerned with one-upping that record and instead comes across as just another very, very good record that may feel a couple tracks too long at one point or another but on the plus side, shuffles things around with a slightly altered, lighter overall feel, leaning a bit heavier into a relaxed and upbeat indie rock vibe while still carrying that unmistakable folk-ish strummy, jangly feel and the uncanny, surreal quality to these tunes. At eighteen of those, the record predictably has a bit of a looser and more fragmented character, though if you judge it by the sheer number of certified bangers on there, i'm gonna say it's nothing short of another fucking winner.
This Boston group has six unresistably smelly puddles of oldschool-ish garage punk action for us that fit roughly inbetween the basic parameters of classic Reatard(s), golden-era Liquids and more KBD-inspired shit we've heard from the likes of Freakees and Launcher, with a couple pop-nuggets thrown in that remind me of stuff á la Dark Thoughts or early Vaguess. There's nothing terribly smart or original about it really but the tunes, performances and attitude are just spot-on and whenever i'm craving some basic no-frills catchy garage mayhem, this shit's just gonna fit the bill.
Chubby's still new-ish band EZ8 has now been properly renamed The Easy Eight and also has their first LP out via Static Shock Records which, to be fair, is actually just the first EP extended with four new tunes, which is also fine 'cos that EP was plenty awesome enough to be listened to over and over again and the new tracks are just as marvellous in that trademark Oi! / Power Pop fusion that only Chubby and his co-conspirators can pull off so infectiously. A good catchy tune and a stubborn, tight performance is all that's needed here, simple as that. I mean, what else do you expect of a new Chubby record? A progressive rock opera in nine chapters? No, you'll get this beauty instead, though there's still a couple of neat flourishes we haven't heard from any of his previous groups like that bit dungeon-esque oldschool heavy metal shredding throughout the verses of Fear As A Gift.
Just like that Celebrators LP i've just posted, the debut LP of Oamaru, New Zeeland group Cuticles is yet another really freakin' good 21-song LP that could have become a freakin' brillian 15-song LP just by cutting some fat but ya know... i'm not gonna complain about such an abundance of good, especially if that shit is so fucking up my alley. Featuring members of 2010s NZ DIY punk staples Moonrakers and Trendees, this group, which first really caught my attention with their excellent 2023 EP Pavlova, certainly shares some of that shambolic avantgarde DNA but channels it into a much more catchy and melodic whole, trading in much of that raw Half Japanese-style mayhem for a more approachable aesthetic, reminiscent among others of old british DIY acts in the neighborhood of Swell Maps, Television Personalities, Mekons and Desperate Bicycles. There's a good deal of old Flying Nun energy goin' on aswell plus some stray occurences of the more pop-focused end of the Pink Flag-era Wire spectrum in tunes like Making Up Shit. If i had to come up with more recent bands as comparisons, i'd say New York's Famous Logs in History, Philadelphia group Society and the early works of Adelaide's own Wireheads don't strike my as totally off either.
This dude based in Cincinnati has five catchy and explosive garage punk, power- and noise pop nuggets for us on his debut EP bookended by two undeniable knockout tunes roughly in the vein of old Marked Men, Sonic Avenues, early Mind Spiders, Bad Sports or Steve Adamyk Band, while the middle part branches out a bit into more relaxed midtempo territory with some surf twang getting infused into a piece of '90s indie-/slacker rock in Dock, a bit of eighties Flying Nun pop running through Acid Angel and the Psychic TV cover tune God Star doesn't shit the bed either. All in all, a freakin' enjoyable little package and i could definitely use more of that shit.
