My petty attempts at writing about music might've been even worse 10+ years ago than they still are in the present but at least there's little need for me being too embarrassed about most of the music i've picked back then. Case in point, the new LP of italian group Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger!, the first new music after six to seven years of silence by the group that had the questionable honor of being the subject of the very first 12XU blog post ever (the german language section that is, which goes back to the year 2013 rather than the english section which is less than half as old). Despite their slow pace of output you can't accuse them of lacking staying power, that's for sure! Their sound's progression over the years makes perfect sense to me as well, their excellent 2013 Forever Young LP kinda channeling the bygone late 2000s / early 2010s era of noise pop and fuzz punk groups á la No Age, Wavves and Male Bonding, which then morphed into a more relaxed, indie rock-leaning vibe with on their 2017 album Corners. With this new one, they finally settle into some ultra-classic shoegaze territory with just a hint of post grunge added to the mix, Bailterspace and Swervedriver being the the best comparison i can come up with. Here they slow things down even further without ever coming across as sleepy or boring - it takes a rare amount of elaborate construction work and song-crafting prowess to pull this shit off successfully and these italians deliver on it in droves, more than any other group has done in recent years as it's been a rather sad decade for the genre so far if you ask me, in which most of these groups certainly have all their effect pedals in place while lacking the songs, energy and vision to do anything for me other than gently lulling me to sleep. This one, it sounds kinda oldschool while absolutely not Slowdive-ish and that's like a breath of fresh air to me in these days.
Spanish noise pop overlords Beta Maximo return with a strong new batch of tunes. Hard to believe their prolific output began just sometime last summer… Starting out with what i'd consider more of an eggpunk-aesthetic, they've constantly kept changing things up, gradually evolving into a somewhat slower, dreamy and slightly shoegaze-y direction and these new songs strike me as the most realized and well-rounded stuff we've heard from them recently.
The full-length debut of this Tokyo group kinda plays out like a round-trip through some of the most jangly and melodic sections of late eighties to nineties indie rock, noise pop, post- and emocore, conjuring up the spirit of groups like Polvo, Superchunk, Unwound, Bitch Magnet, Lync, Dinosaur Jr. and many more, with the occasional flash of Slint thrown in for good measure and some shoegaze flourishes particularly of the Swervedriver variety - all of that bottled up using fittingly rough lo-fi production values. An altogether rare and refreshing thing these days, at least in its raw and undiluted form as on display here.
I rarely get too exited about the current generation of shoegaze-related groups, who for the most part seem perfectly content with just creating a pleasant soundscape to fall asleep to and soon forget about. This Paris group, however, does not only have the sonics, but also the drive and the hooks to make it stick, finding kind of a workable middle ground between the obvious golden-era Shoegaze acts (especially a strong Bailter Space vibe going on here), some early Sarah Records pop and more recent noise pop examples of the Gold Bears, Seablite or Flyying Colours variety.
Didn't expect this to happen… A whopping seven years after his last EP, Oakland's Jason Hendardy aka Permanent Collection is reactivating his old musical endeavor and delivers a brilliant new album which - in spite of its rather fatalistic sounding title - dials back the sonic doom and gloom of his previous efforts, the dark post punk tone taking the back seat while the melodic noise pop & shoegaze aspects take center stage - a consistantly fun high energy ride from start to finish. If you ever wished acts like A Place To Bury Strangers or Ceremony (VA) woud spend less time less time spacing out and cut straight to the chase instead, this record ist for you.
Another lovely treat from Austin label Digital Hotdogs. The rather quirky kind, rough around the edges and full of sweetness inside, strange and familiar at the same time. Just like you've probably come to expect of anything released by this outlet. There's barely any info on the actual band in question. I found two bands of this name listed on bandcamp, but i don't think we're dealing with either of those here. What we get instead is a sheer wealth of catchy as fuck tunes wrapped into dreamy, yet powerful soundscapes somewhere in the realm of post punk, noise pop, shoegaze and 90s Indie Rock, somewhat reminiscent of the early Lo-Fi adventures by Eric's Trip, Guided By Voices, Flying Saucer Attack, maybe even a bit of Sebadoh. Or you may choose to draw comparisons to more contemporary acts in the vein of The Molds, Treehouse, Pardoner, Rat Columns or Teardrop Factory. Whatever your viewpoint on this, you've got impeccable taste, sir. You are made for this record.
Last year's long playing debut by Seattle group Big Bite already struck me as an anomaly of the most welcome kind. Now their sophomore effort comes across as no less brilliant - once again breathing new life into a particular 90s niche, oscillating somewhere between straightforward, no-fuss but high-thrust indie- and alternative rock plus a bit of shoegaze. Think Sugar, Polvo or Swervedriver when it comes to bands of the aforementioned era, or of more recent acts like early Ovlov, Pardoner, Milked or Dead Soft. Psychedelic moments are given a bit more emphasis here than on their first, while in the album's final stretch you can sense a subtle post punk vibe of the Teenanger or Constant Mongrel variety.