This Philadelphia group's 2024 Nyuck Nyuck Boing LP was among of the most unlikely stunners released that year, a weirdly anachronistic-feeling, unwieldy behemoth of a record that seemed equally heavily inspired by US post punk/-core acts like Saccharine Trust and Minutemen as by british art punk of the Swell Maps and The Pop Group strain, with further echoes of mototik kraut-y grooves, no wave atonality and '60 acid rock excesses. So here we have the successor now, on which many of these things still hold true while the band also manages to package their ecclectic influences into a somewhat more coherent-feeling and tangible package by mainly leaning into the psychedelic side of things here with a slow burn tension building throughout the first half, doing away almost completely with the previous LP's funky post punk grooves, although those do make a brief comeback too in The Big Hit, which kicks off a comparatively lighthearted and, at times, leaned-back second half - the yin and yang of a group that still won't give half a fuck about neat genre categories and our own conceptions thereof.
Australia's garage punk whizz kids are at ist again with a new EP which presents them going all-in on the monotonous acid-rockin', psyched-out side of their sonic spectrum, though you can make a clear distinction here between the first two tunes, having a more minimalist formula and darker tone reminiscent of groups such as Mononegatives, vintage Oh Sees and Pow!, and the following two tracks, which i'm gonna say are the real jewels on here (though the other two are perfectly accomplished pieces in their own right) and add a more melodic, albeit deeply melancholic vibe to the mix through which flows what you might describe as a classic dreamy synth wave quality. Good shit, as always.
Hamilton, Ontario group Corpus Earthling mad quite a splash at least in my own backyard with their 2024 The Glove LP and followed up on that with another neat EP and a whole LP full of cover tunes. Their newest EP of original songs has yet another excellent batch of spaced-out psych punk tunes for us that on one hand sound inspired by old art punk groups of the MX-80, Chrome and Métal Urbain variety but on the other, also fits in quite well with a number of contemporary groups like Pablo X, Stdees, Zoids, Silicon Heartbeat, Mateo Manic and Thee Hearses.
Considering the rave reactions i've heard so far about this Melbourne group's shows, their good-not-great 2024 debut EP so far had convinced me that their probably incredible live sound has been struggling a bit to translate into recorded form. Well, i can certainly say that this is less of an issue for much of their new mini LP which makes an overall much stronger impression for their sparkling sound that at times kinda reminds me of the psychedelic and variably surf-infused garage rock of Crsytal Stilts and Disappears mixed with a hint of early No Age and maybe White Fence, in addition to the eccentric monotonous fuzz escapades of City Yelps and the ethereal, abstract post punk melancholia of Kitchen's Floor and Mother's Milk... A quirky mixture that is for sure but it works quite admirably. Even when the band runs an acute risk of overstretching their most airy qualities in the record's slow middle stretch, the bet pays off and shit just refuses to come apart, however precarious it might look at first glance..
I wasn't entirely sold on the novelty-rocker vibes of the bluesy, hard-/dad-rockin' preview tune Hairy Man, but damn, does this new record not only get better from there on (plus, Hairy Man does work a lot better in the album context too), but there's also easily some of the groups best material to be found on here with the following tracks Beef and Fire having plenty of an oldschool Useless Eaters and Pow! feel to them while Out Of Touch gradually dials up the levels of psychedelic haze that we've known at its most pronounced from their previous Perspex LP, before Hell (or rather, the first part thereof) finally kicks open the floodgates of catchy-as-fuck garage punk/fuzz pop goodness as we all know pretty much any Electric Prawns 2 record eventually does. The second circle of Hell (or maybe they're better understood as two seperate songs, both called Hell?) takes all of the above and imbues it with a slightly campy goth note not unlike more recent Powerplant. Other notable highlights are the burst of ultra-classic aussie rock'n'roll that is Piece of Me and the in equal measure melodic and blues-infused bubblegum vibes of Waste, all of it arguably making for their overall strongest record so far. Who would've thought, making albums of conventional length may not be the worst idea after all!
The second LP of Minnesota's Yuasa-Exide starts off with a thrusting burst of fuzzed-out catchy mid-tempo punk channeling a mix of mid-fi era Guided By Voices, the more power pop-ish ends of the Bevis Frond universe and a slight hint of Eric's Trip or classic-era Dinosaur Jr. to boot in the opening track The Picture You Painted, just to increasingly and deliberately destabilize the sonic landscape on subsequent tracks. Their tunes and arrangements based somewhere inbetween the realms of '80s to '90s indie- and college rock, Flying Nun Records-style psychedelia and busy C86-ish strummery gain a more shambolic, hazy and surreal quality, always in acute danger of falling apart at the seams. Yet, quite wondrously, the looming sword of damocles never seems to strike, the tunes somehow always maintain their fragile equilibrium. The ability to pull that shit off already kinda struck me as their superpower on the previous Hyper At The Gates Of Dawn LP released earlier this year and i think it holds even more true here, a rare quality i previously found in early works by the likes of Rat Columns and The Molds over a decade ago and, maybe, the comparatively straightforward Psych Pop nuggets of Blank Realm's 2014 Grassed In LP which, then again, brings us back full circle on the aforementioned Flying Nun vibes.
Now that's some tasty shit coming our way from this indonesian dude or group, four completely blown-out bursts of Lo-Fi fuzz and noise existing somewhere inbetween the parameters of spaced-out art punk of the MX-80 and Chrome variety, japanese psych- & garage punk akin to 80s High Rise or whatever Les Rallizés Dénudés bootleg you've got laying around, spiced-up with a healthy dose of sleazy motörpunk. Neat!
Almost ten years after their last recorded sign of activity, the 2010s San Francisco garage punk mainstays Useless Eaters are getting the band back together and sound more determined and explosive than ever before, as i was already lucky to witness on occasion of their absolutely unreal and intense Cologne gig earlier this year. Now on their first new recorded artifact - available digitally already with a 7" release expected sometime via Goodbye Boozy - they're killing it once again, in some way continuing the spaced-out, kraut-y and post punk-ish psychedelic leanings of their most recent couple of releases pre-hiatus, propelled forward in an insanely tight, dense and unrelenting performance in which every little detail seems to fall perfectly into place with sleepwalking ease and certitude. Awesome to have them back!
A lovely and fun debut by some Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania group. The instrumental opening tune Liftoff Jam (White Boys in E) swells into a monotonous monster of psychedelic haze that sounds a bit as if MX-80 and Chrome were being fused with early The Men, only for the rest of the EP to settle into a slightly less cumbersome aesthetic of straightforward, somewhat Stooges-esque garage punk that occasionally approaches some hardcore speeds and energy levels and keeps setting itself apart by way of its subtle psychedelic overtones and a constant melodic undercurrent flowing through their catchy, oldschool garage- and proto punk stylings.
Electric Prawns 2 of Moffat Beach, Australia are back with not just one, but two new LPs, in a way highlighting two opposing vibes that have been part of the group's stylistic DNA all along. The very deep red of the Perspex LP's artwork could already be taken as subtle signal to proceed with caution and indeed this one is more of a downer by design, the driving Useless Eaters vibes of the opener Who's Been Laying Eggs Under My Skin? giving way to an increasingly bleak sounding make of psychedelic garage rock that oscillates somewhere inbetween deep sadness and outright bad trip territory, up in space as much as miles underwater and always aware of the fact that both space and the deep ocean are utterly inhospitable places and only a thick steel wall is preventing your body from instantly getting reduced into half a bathtub worth of reddish goo. Feeling awesome about your fragile existence already? Don't worry 'cos i've only told you half the truth so far, with (the so far only imaginary) side B of the record kinda staying in a vintage psychedelia realm but focusing on the much more uplifting parts of that whole affair, so sunny that you're gonna have flowers growing out of your ass in no time. The Heavy Shitters LP then is a lot closer to the friendlier, instantly recognizable vibe that has dominated much of their previous work and just wants to play and fuck around and rock out and crack lots of stupid fart jokes. Many of the record's biggest hits are saved for the second half and especially the marvellous six-song spree going from Sick to Farted In Her Sleep is the kind of thing a lesser group would fucking kill for.
