The follow-up LP to the unwieldy two hours, 69 tracks long 2023 opus Prawn Static For Porn Addicts by Moffat Beach, Australia group Electric Prawns 2 is yet again a quite generous affair in the context of the current garage-/eggpunk-adjacent wave, spanning 15 kinda eclectic, genre-hopping tunes that once again prove the impossible-to-contain, wildly creative drive of this group. The opening track Reaction sparkles with that vaguely familiar vibe of neon-glow psychedelia you might expect of a Mononegatives or Pow! record, plus a hint of Isotope Soap, maybe? What follows then is a nonstop fireworks of all-killer-no-filler tunes showcasing a great stylistic variety and, at one point or another, reminding me of a bunch of like-minded groups á la Ghoulies, Billiam, Nick Normal, Alien Nosejob, Erik Nervous or Busted Head Racket, to name just a few. The most incredible thing about this record comes right at the end though, in the form of the closing track Who I Am in which a sense of widescreen drama akin to The Wipers’ Youth Of America or God’s garage one hit wonderMy Pal gets condensed into an ultra-compact hook-fest á la Split System. Holy fuck, what just happened there?!
Following a couple of releases which largely dabbled in mellower sounds, Spain’s prime eggpunk-/noise pop act Beta Máximo at long last is cranking up the speeds again while applying and consolidating all the lessons they’ve learned at previous excursions for the benefit of their newest EP, which easily marks their strongest release so far made up of nothing but hits and gelled into place by plenty of simple but rock-solid, top-notch songcraft at its core.
Melbourne’s Kitchen People as a band are about as old at this blog and although it took them a couple years to turn into the highly combustible garage punk force we know them as today, their 2020 EP Planet Earth sure saw the group in creative overdrive and their newest six-track cassette once again is nothing short of brilliant! No wonder, since these folks are partly responsible for other top-rated groups such as Ghoulies, Pleasants, Aborted Tortoise and Dr. Sure’s Unusual Practice, all of whom are perfectly suitable references for describing these quirky and slightly egg-ish garage-, post- and synth punk tunes, in addition to such household names as Ausmuteants, Checkpoint and Research Reactor Corp..
The newest LP of Brazil’s prime purveyor of quirky, hyperactive garage-/synth-/eggpunk goodness certainly takes a gamble or two, being full of collaborations with other egg-minded acts all across the globe… or the cosmos, if you wanna roll with the concept and i’m sure the likes of Tombeau, Billiam and Goblin Daycare don’t need any introduction, right? I mean, right? Not everything works here (especially the funky R’n’B stylings of She’s Kinda Cute and OMG They Look So Bad just strike me as ill-considered speed bumps, interrupting the record’s otherwise considerable momentum) but most things certainly do and where the record hits the mark, it hits hard, at times approaching the level of anything-goes chaos and eclecticism of Trashdog or Checkpoint. And after all, i very much prefer a record that tries boldly and fails in some places over one that’s not even bothering.
Here we’ve got yet another excellent burst of garage- and synth punk by yet another Melbourne group that, despite some shared sonic parameters, hits just a good bit harder than your average quirky eggpunk act. Rather, i’m reminded of the likes of Quitter, Beef, Busted Head Racket and Broken Prayer plus, at some points, that ever-present Djinn/Zhoop/Nightman/Brundle/RONi, etc dude.
This latest EP by this Winnipeg, Manitoba group treats us to four excellent blasts on the rougher end of the garage-/fuzz-/synth punk spectrum, hammered home by a completely unhinged madman vocal performance. This EP is a safe-bet crowdpleaser guaranteed to delight connoiseurs of shit á la The Gobs, 3D and the Holograms, Ghoulies, Daughter Bat and the Lip Stings and Factory City Children, concluding in a fully charged burst of hardcore punk evoking further comparisons to groups such as Witch Piss, Spewed Brain and Geoduck Diodes.
A magnificent debut single by a nebulous group from nowhere serves up two undeniably tasty synth punk anthems reminiscent as much of the 2000s indie rock era (as in: Remember when Pitchfork was a thing?) as of more recent phenomena in the Cherry Cheeks, Ope or Smirk vein, with a frosting of Digital Leather-esque flavors on top. What’s not to like about that?
The Leipzig post-/garage punk scene never ceases to amaze, as Autobahns already did on occasion of their split EP with the also brilliant S.G.A.T.V.. Now here’s their full-length debut co-released by three usual-suspect labels from around the globe and this one’s a treat, folks! Right from the start there’s some strong Billiam-esque energy to these songs, moderately egg-ish garage punk smashers that also call to mind stuff like Tommy Cossack, Set-Top Box and further eccentricities of the Snooper, Beer or Prison Affair kind or maybe Germany’s very own Egg Idiot. Tellin’ Ya transports some of the best traits of recent Vaguess records into a more distinct eggpunk context. All the while, Autobahns operate as a super-tight unit here, expertly kicking up a hell of a storm while never losing their ironclad grip on their melodic sensibilities… this is some catchy shit all the way through, reaching its peak in the undiluted noise pop ecstasy of Loss Of The Rights.
This Sydney group already stirred up some waves not too long ago with a pair of strong EPs and this newest one is their finest one yet, operating in a golden zone between garage-/synth-/post- and psych punk that kinda bridges the gap between the garage-/post punk melancholia of weird outliers like Die TV and DBR, the garage primitivism of shit á la Buck Biloxi, Giorgio Murderer and the spaced-out psychedelic expanse of Zoids, Mononegatives, Mateo Manic, Silicon Heartbeat, Pow!, Cthtr or even some stretches of Electric Prawns 2’s monumental ’23 album Prawn Static For Porn Addicts.
This Varese, Italy group follows up a fun demo from two years ago with an even stronger digital two-track single. Go Skate evokes the pounding electro punk aesthetics of, say, Spyroids, Freak Genes, O-D-EX or the most recent Shrudd EP. H82W8 then has more of a fluffy garage pop vibe much in the vein of groups such as Slimex, Daughter Bat and the Lip Stings, Ghoulies, Gee Tee and Busted Head Racket, among many others.
