The second EP by this Karlsruhe, Germany group is also the first taste we're getting of an upcoming album and just like their excellent demo tape at the end of last year, this thing combines the grimy dungeon-esque garage vibes the group obviously inherited from Thee Khai Aehm, whose members comprise half of this group's lineup, with a distinct flourish of proto punk primitivism, plenty of spaced-out psychedelic excess á la late Destruction Unit, some hardcore energy in Tear It Up and even some melodic flourishes in My Dawn, while the closing track Inte Mer Hem is nothing short of raw and simple dungeon punk perfection.
Having put out a pair of already quite impressive LPs in '22/'23, the third longplayer of this Hamilton, Ontario act really nails it this time. Following a brief ironic metal-ish intro, right out of the gate The Glove radiates a vibe of MX-80, Chrome and Metal Urbain plus just the slightest touch of The Cramps. This is some first rate fuzz-/garage-/space punk shit right here, weird enogh to keep you on your toes yet also sophisticated enough to keep you engaged, with just the right amount of ear candy sprinkled in like in Corpus Earthling Meets The Counter Culture, where a well-worn catchy standard punk riff gets the over-the top fuzz-excess treatment. Other times and especially in the first couple of tracks, there's some weird Hawkwind-goes-hair/glam metal energy going on. Just as well though, you might find similar sonic texture in a diffuse cluster of current acts such as Zoids, Thee Hearses, Monoburro, Mateo Manic, Mononegatives or Silicon Heartbeat.
A whole barrage of digital singles in recent weeks already appeared to foreshadow a new record by the London, Ontario group and indeed here it is, their second LP in all its glory, carrying an excellent new batch of their quite distinct, catchy as hell, always slightly off-kilter and quirky genre mixture containing elements of garage-, post- and synth punk, space- and psychedelic rock. You might compare some bits and pieces here to such groups as Pow!, Useless Eaters and of course the recent collaboration Telegenic Pleasures which also features some of the band members at work here - at this point though, i'd say they're pretty much carved out their own, instantly recognizable little niche.
What kind of twisted punk student exchange program would lead to an album being recorded both in London, Ontario and London, England? The band committing the deed appears to have connnections to some London's Gaggers and Miscalculations as well as some other London's Isolation Party and Mononegatives - the latter being the most obvious comparison though, as their very own brand of spaced-out synth- and garage punk reigns supreme on this record too, along with flourishes of Pow!, Useless Eaters, Freak Genes, Isotope Soap, Mind Spiders, Powerplant and Digital Leather. Fucking awesome shit, in other words.
…now that's kind of an insane move, dumping four to six LPs worth of material in a single album on bandcamp. Didn't see that coming at all, good thing we like insane shit here at 12XU HQ. With this album the group from Moffat Beach, Australia seriously earned the title "The Guided by Voices of space egg punk". Amazingly, most of this stuff is pretty freakin' awesome too, although a fair bit of fat and redundancy sure could've been trimmed off this 2-hour release for an even stronger 80-minute album to emerge in the process. Their high egg-factor mixture of Psychedelic-/Space Rock, Post- and Garage Punk might draw comparisons to the likes of Mononegatives, Neo Neos, Liquids, The Gobs, Set-Top Box, Print Head or Useless Eaters in its more high-energy moments while in the more relaxed and/or downbeat songs, groups like Die TV, Cool Sorcery, Snooper might come to mind or even an extra Lo-Fi version of the Woolen Men!
A thoroughly high quality new batch of 7"s and even a CD from the ever reliable italian garage punk institution Goodbye Boozy Records. Tee Vee Repairman is yet another project of Ishka Edmeades who you might also know from acts such as Satanic Togas, Set-Top Box, Research Reactor Corp., Gee Tee, Remote Control, Mainframe… this dude seems to be in pretty much anything out of the Warttman orbit and beyond that. Let's just say dude's been's a constant fixture on this blog in recent years and will sure crop up many more times because everything he touches tends to become instant garage punk and power pop gold. A different beast altogether is the 7" by Wayne Pain & The Shit Stains, a simple & stupid attack of decidedly oldschool fuzzed-out garage punk with that classic rockabilly edge to it. Speaking of rockabilly… Qinqs have a touch of that going on too, although in their case it reeks less of The Cramps and more of The Fall - The Great White Wonder might as well be called How i re-wrote Elastic Man - as well as more recent occurrences á la Shark Toys, Ex Cult, Parquet Courts or The UV Race. The newest tape by the mysterious Zoids then is another endearingly eccentric treat of minimalist electro-/space-/garage punk transporting more than just a little bit of a Suicide-meets-Metal Urbain / Dr. Mix and the Remix vibe. Also: Yeah, fuck vinyl 'cos the future belongs to the compact disc bro. Dadgad's tracks then serve as the perfect transition between the aforementioned electric space punk stylings and the opposite half of a 7" featuring - yet again - that dude known as Zhoop… or was it Feed? Djinn? Brundle maybe? I don't care really it's all good shit!
From some uncertain place in Bavaria, Germany comes this beauty of an EP meddling in a fittingly nebulous, fuzz-laden genre spectrum between garage- and acid punk, psych- and space rock. A required listen for, among others, connoisseurs of noise in the vein of Destruction Unit, Osees, Super-X, Hamer, Ounce, Faux Ferocious or Draggs.
Zoids keep things classy and weird on their newest tape, which will soon be physically available via Goodbye Boozy. Still clearly operating on the outer fringes of crude and dissonant garage-/post punk and highly demented space rock, this group or person of mysterious whereabouts remains a charmingly broken machine that doesn't need any fixing.
Garage-/synth-/electro punk from Cleveland, Ohio that carves out its own little place in the current landscape of similar groups by way of a certain psychedelic haze, kinda like a mix between The Spits, Silicon Heartbeat and Smirk, observed through some dense Chrome- or Metal Urbain-esque fog. Or you might describe it as some kind of garage punk incarnation of Murderer's hallucinogenic cowpunk nightmarescapes.
This tape by Melbourne group Super-X isn't exactly new stuff, but that shit is way to strong not to be mentioned here. Witness a sonic spectacle unfold, fusing the old garage-/proto punk fuzz of Fun House-era Stooges with spaced out vibes not unlike Destruction Unit or early Telescopes, all the while dragging along with it some traces of contemporary post punk.
