This Melbourne group delivers some of the most straight-the-fuck-ahead, no-frills ancient-school '77 style (garage-) punk imaginable on their debut EP, kinda like a way, way more traditional sounding incarnation of Amyl and the Sniffers. The fact they're able to pull this thing off without sounding the least bit stale and dusty speaks for their chops as a band as much as the raw strength of their songcraft.
Wow, this group from Borée, France is juggling a shitload of different styles with striking confidence on their debut album. The thing starts out with a short, straightforward, simple blast of hardcore punk, then has them cycling through a wide array of styles including forceful postcore, hard rockin' upper-mid-tempo garage rock/-punk, groovy angular post punk and even some vaguely Pixies-esque, surf-infused oldschool 80s indie-/alternative rock. All of this they pull off with ease - there's not a single weak link on this record. Impressive shit all the way through!
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Heavily retro-leaning post punk, made in Berlin and sounding exactly like you'd come to expect by that fact. You might recognize a familiar voice grumbling about here, the dude having done a similar thing with his other band Maske, although the overall vibe here is even a notch more gritty, sometimes having a slightly Wipers-esque quality and, at other points, a touch of S.Y.P.H. as well as more recent phenomena like Aus, Hyäne, Die Wärme or Peter Muffin und die Heilsarmee. In other words: This might have come out sometime around '81 just as well. There's a couple of underwhelming filler tracks on here - forgivable and totally made up for by the undeniable highlights of this album. Just don’t try another attempt at funk next time, okay?
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Well here’s yet another batch of low-originality, high-enjoyability first-rate kickass Garage Punk, the straightforward no-frills kind that will help out those who are already showing their first Sick Thoughts withdrawal symptoms and the kind that won’t alarm fans of Dadar, Shitty Life or, at some points, Booji Boys too much either. These pretty normal Babies only drink beer after all, rather than blood. Admittedly, that’s mildly surprising indeed for a group from Trittsburgh, Trennsylvania.
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Not long after the kickass Schedule 1 EP we get to hear yet another group reviving the spirit of late 2000's / early 2010's melodic post punk, once again brought to us by the punk powerhouse that is Dirt Cult Records. This time the folks responsible are from, lemme see… Bielefeld, Germany?!? Are you fuckin' kidding me? No, no, no this can't be right. Musically this is your familiar, somewhat oldschool Wipers-influenced, song-driven approach and the songwriting chops on display here are more than able to pull that shit off. This is a hell of a treat for fans of stuff á la The Estranged, Anxious Living, Daylight Robbery, Xetas, Red Dons or, more recently DDR and the aforementioned Schedule 1.
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My favorite british punk group of the moment has yet to write a song that isn't as infectious as fuck and their most recent digital (?) single release delivers another two of their strongest so far and once again will effortlessly conquer the hearts of every connoiseur of Television Personalities-influenced strumming á la Suburban Homes, Neutrals or Freak Genes.
It's been a whopping five years since this Paris group's debut EP but the wait has paid off handsomely on their first full length release, delivering an endless stream of high-octane melodic (garage-)punk smashers in the vein of groups like Cheap Whine, Short Days, Red Dons and Telecult… you might also sense a hint of Marked Men, Royal Headache or The Thermals. In a few instances, the songwriting doesn't quite cut it and that's when they veer dagerously close to shallow pop punk territory. However, when they hit, they hit hard and even manage to evoke a subtle retro 60s power pop vibe along the way.
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Guadalajara, Mexico group Mess recently put out yet another EP whose totally unashamed oi!-ness is, to be perfectly honest, a bit too much for me to bear. This more post punk-leaning two-track digital single they released just a week earlier is pure gold though.
A kinda unexpected and excellent music submission came in here by a group from Zagreb, Croatia playing a variety of dark oldschool post punk with a very slight goth edge, reminding my at different points of contemporary groups like Daylight Robbery, The Estranged, Primitive Teeth, Anxious Living, Criminal Code or Xetas while of the old guard, there's certainly some Wipers-esque guitar work in there and maybe some mid-80s Naked Raygun? In the second half of the album, things get increasingly more melodic, gaining some kind of melancholic Leatherface-, HDQ- or mid-to-late 80s Government Issue vibe.
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No wonder this shit feels familiar. The Wind-Ups is a new solo project of none other than Jake Sprecher of Terry Malts and Smokescreens fame. Much rawer and louder than any of his other groups have dared to sound recently (albeit not quite reaching early Terry Malts levels of speed and fuzzyness), this at times sounds like a fusion of Terry Malts' melodicity with slightly post punk-leaning garage groups like Tyvek or Parquet Courts, while in other moments you can sense a breeze of The Spits, Ricky Hell or anything Reatard(s)-related. Yet when he goes all-in on power pop, there are some undeniable british invasion vibes emanating from his arrangements and compositions.
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