People's Temple /​ Hood Rats /​ Hickey

Three hard­core re­leas­es es­pe­cial­ly stuck out this week, all of 'em more or less tread­ing off the genre's beat­en paths. The most con­ven­tion­al­ly sound­ing - rel­a­tive­ly speak­ing of course - is the EP by People's Tem­ple on NY la­bel Roach­Leg Records, giv­ing us an ex­treme­ly tune­ful vari­a­tion on 80s hard­core, at times com­ing across like a blend of Cir­cle Jerks with ear­ly-to-mid­dle-era Naked Ray­gun and with oc­ca­sion­al flour­ish­es of Hüsker Dü to boot. Of more re­cend Bands, Fried E/​m might al­so fit the bill.
Hickey's tape on Arch­fiend records then in­fus­es con­tem­po­rary strands of garage-, synth- and egg­punk weird­ness with plen­ty of old­school hard­core en­er­gy, along the way al­so evok­ing the some vibes of Flip­per, Spike in Vain, Bro­ken Tal­ent… With this re­lease, we might just be en­ter­ing the eggcore era!
Montreal's Hood Rats op­er­ate in a vague­ly sim­i­lar ter­ri­to­ry, al­so hav­ing a sound ground­ed in garage punk brim­ming with lo-fi egg­punk quirky­ness just as much as with an un­kempt KBD en­er­gy and the tunes to make it stick.

Al­bum-Streams →

Civic - Taken By Force

On their sec­ond full length, Mal­bourne group Civic con­tin­ue hold up the ban­ner of old­school garage punk of the heav­i­ly Bird­man-in­debt­ed va­ri­ety while still cau­tious­ly ex­pand­ing on their son­ic spec­trum. Blood Rush­es, for ex­am­ple, has some pow­er pop vibe to it, rem­i­nis­cent of ear­ly Sci­en­tists while in Trick of the Light, a touch of mid-eight­ies Wipers in the vers­es leads in­to some se­ri­ous New Christs-like riff­ing in the cho­rus.

Al­bum-Stream →

Day Residue - Day Residue

More awe­some shit cour­tesy of Painters Tapes by a De­troit group hav­ing a strong pro­to-grunge vibe to them that wouldn't seem out of place next to ear­ly Mud­honey, U-Men, Feed­time, X (the aus­tralian group) or 80s Sci­en­tists. Al­so you might find some traces of amer­i­can pro­to noise rock á la Flip­per, Bro­ken Tal­ent just as well as more re­cent groups rough­ly in the or­bit of TVO or Vexx in there.

Al­bum-Stream →

Silicone Values - Bystander Apathy /​ When The Future Seems Futile

It took the Bris­tol group just shy of a year to come up with the newest in­stall­ment in their, so far, ab­solute­ly spec­tac­u­lar and flaw­less run of (dig­i­tal) sin­gles. I'm glad to an­nounce that i've got noth­ing new to say about this one - these two tunes are yet an­oth­er mas­ter­class of melod­ic post punk and pow­er pop songcraft with clear echoes of Buz­zcocks, Tele­vi­sion Per­son­al­i­ties, Mekons and many more arte­facts of pre­dom­i­nant­ly british DIY punk his­to­ry.

Nag - Human Coward Coyote

A new mi­ni LP by Atlanta's post punk force of na­ture Nag - i guess every­body knows what to ex­pect at this point and i'm to­tal­ly okay with that as there still ain't a whole lot of groups quite like them. De­spite the raw in­gre­di­ents of their sound be­ing as old as post punk it­self, there's a unique qual­i­ty to their vi­sion, about as sim­plis­tic as you can get away with in some places while amaz­ing­ly elab­o­rate where it counts in oth­ers, with the oc­ca­sion­al touch of psy­che­delia and ham­mered home with a rough and un­re­lent­ing force.

Al­bum-Stream →

Sid Eargle - Cheap Thrills

I over­looked this this gem by South Car­oli­na dude or band Sid Ear­gle the first time around so i'm glad the greek la­bel Body Blows shoved this in my face a sec­ond time. Hid­den in­be­tween a mess of in­stru­men­tals and in­ter­ludes there's al­so an ex­cel­lent al­bum to be found plun­der­ing away at old­school garage and punk his­to­ry with an un­de­ni­able Dead Boys vibe, among oth­er things.

Al­bum-Stream →

Gaffer - Dead End Beat

A su­per ef­fec­tive bunch of straight­for­ward punk smash­ers by a Perth grounp - sim­ple at first glance yet al­ways care­ful­ly con­struct­ed for max­i­mum im­pact. Plau­si­ble com­par­isons from re­cent years would in­clude bands such as Xe­tas, Cool Jerks, Flow­ers of Evil or Dead Years while from long be­fore that, you might see flash­es of Naked Ray­gun, Laugh­ing Hye­nas, Hot Snakes, Man Sized Ac­tion and the like…

Al­bum-Stream →

Bart and the Brats - Bart and the Brats

The sec­ond full length of these french­men is a buck­et of su­per straight­for­ward, sim­ple and catchy-as-fuck old­school garage punk joy sparkling with '77 en­er­gy - there's noth­ing too smart about if yet plen­ty to de­light in nonethe­less when these folks kick up a prim­i­tive storm com­ing across a bit like a mix of Buck Biloxi and the Fucks, The Spits, The Uglies and - quite ob­vi­ous­ly - Sick Thoughts.

Al­bum-Stream →

C.P.R. Doll - Music For Pleasure

De­but tape of a Perth duo fea­tur­ing folks oth­er­wise known from Ghoulies and Abort­ed Tor­toise… just as you'd ex­pect from that, this thing fuck­ing rips! A Lo-Fi DIY garage punk vibe meets some old­school melo­di­ous '77 sim­plic­i­ty, oc­ca­sion­al­ly al­so cross­ing over in­to rather con­tem­po­rary sound­ing post punk- and egg-re­lat­ed ter­ri­to­ries. This is out on Good­bye Boozy and Un­der The Gun Records but this shit would al­so fit right in with the Warttman posse so it's prob­a­bly no co­in­ci­dence that some dude al­so in­volved with Tee Vee Re­pair­man and Sa­tan­ic To­gas con­tributed some cre­ative in­put here as well.

Al­bum-Stream →

Curleys - Curleys

An­oth­er prim­i­tive blast of no-bul­ll­shit hard­core-in­fused garage punk by a group kin­da pre­des­tined to get re­leased on To­tal Punk Records, con­jur­ing up on­ly the most pri­mal and chaot­ic ten­den­cies of acts like Cri­sis Man, Liq­uid As­sets, Launch­er, Mys­tic Inane, Fried Egg… and maybe a slight hint of The Men­tal­ly Ill on top?

Al­bum-Stream →