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.
Louiseville, Kentucky group Shrudd has been around for a couple years already but only really started to strike creative gold with last year's Bizarro and Microbiome EP's, the former dealing with more hardcore-adjacent sounds while the latter dabbled in a kinda familiar garage-/synth punk territory, an aesthetic that also dominates their newest EP on which they considerably elevate the weirdness factor, veering into more of a pronounced eggpunk direction evoking the likes of Prison Affair, Victor, Set-Top Box or Paulo Vicious in equal measure to contemporary synth-/electro punk acts á la Isotope Soap, Freak Genes, Spyroids and Powerplant.
Now goth-infused minimalist synthwave is by no means among the genres i'm naturally inclined to get excited about, mostly due to its usually pretty formulaic and uninspired nature, but the newest LP by this Zagreb, Croatia dude, who already made a glorious impression opening for Nag in 2022, makes for a thoroughly pleasant exception to the rule. Admittedly, there's nothing exactly new and unheard to these Songs either, but in spite of their kinda simple, tried and tested essence, they are undeniably well-balanced and always hit the spot, bursting with catchy hooks and melodies, plenty of energy and an eerily familiar yet incredibly effective sense of melancholia. Maybe that's just my own bias, but rather than your average synth wave act i'm reminded way more of punk/garage-related acts like Digital Leather (yeah, that's the very obvious one), O-D-EX and, most of all, the totally one-of-a-kind 2017 Sex Tourists LP.
The second tape of this supposedly Tokyo-based group delivers the goods of simple and effective, garage-flavoured synth- and post punk that makes me first of all think of frenchmen and -women Catalogue and Belgium's Le Prince Harry, but might just as well be compared to the likes of Spyroids, O-D-EX, Mind Spiders, Powerplant, Crime Wave and Liquid Face... a less quirky Freak Genes maybe? Dunno, what's important is this shit just works!
