A new EP by the San Antonio, Texas group and as always i’m happy to say that Sex Mex still sound very much like Sex Mex, their mixture of garage- and synth punk, noise- and power pop transporting the aesthetics of only the most catchy and melodic artifacts out of the whole Reatard era. Reliable shit that doesn’t try anything funny and instead just delivers on the hooks!
The EP suffers from non-embeddable bandcamp disease, but you can listen to the whole thing over at their bandcamp page.
New shit by these Olympia, Washington Lo-Fi punks and you kinda know what’s gonna hit you: More of that deliciously blown out and catchy-as-fuck garage-/electro/fuzz punk dementia for the moderately desensitized mind, hellbent on damaging your speakers, corrupting your soul, spilling your booze and puking on your carpet. Very negative influence these kids, stay away!
Following up on their much rougher, hardcore-leaning International Heartthrob EP of last year, Indiana’s Spewed Brain take their sound into a catchier, slightly egg-ish direction on their new LP while staying delightfully fucked-up and unpredictable, at different times reminding me of groups as diverse as, say, Trauma Harness, Print Head, Exwhite, The Gobs, Snooper, Rolex, Witch Piss or Slimex.
Following their perfectly appetizing (and as far as i can make out, completely vanished off the face of the internet by now) Black Box EP in 2022, we get this group’s debut full-length courtesey of Dirtnap Records and this time around, there’s actually some tangible background info available. No wonder these folks sounded familiar the first time around, since we’re dealing with a duo consisting of US garage punk royalty Mark Ryan (most notably of Radioactivity, Mind Spiders and Marked Men) and Micah Why, whose previous bands i don’t think i’ve ever come across. Their minimalist synth punk certainly has retained some of that Mind Spiders vibe although this shit is a lot darker, more stripped-down and abrasive, having a certain oldschool vibe to it wich echoes of Minimal Man, Nervous Gender, Screamers, Units or Visitors but you might just as well compare them to more recent phenomena like Powerplant, Pow!, Spyroids or a somewhat less spikey version of Lost Packages crossbred with the digital insanity of Nubot555, the more minimalist moments of Digital Leather.
Alrighty, so here’s a new Billiam record doing all the awesome tricks a new Billiam record’s supposed to do and by now i’m sure you’ve long since made up your mind about the dude and whether you love or hate his schtick – kinda the musical equivalent to a Wes Anderson flick i guess. I’m firmly in the “love” camp concerning both Billiam and Wes Anderson though and even if they’d both just continue to re-make that exact same kind of film/record for the rest of their lives, i can always take one more of that!
It’s shaping up to be a pretty awesome week for eggpunk already, helped further along by another genre fixture of the last couple years, Melbourne’s Metdog, having just released their full length debut after an impeccable string of EPs and singles. They promised shit about computers and oh boy do we get shit about computers here, leaving more questions than answers though, most of which begin with “What the fuck…?”. Perfectly underscoring the subject matter we get to witness the group at their most electronically inclined so far, their overall vibe here being reminiscent of a bizarre 8-bit mashup of vintage Ausmuteants with the distinct added flourish of Windows 3.11 midi files.
Having first come to my attention via a split tape with AJ Cortes and The Burglars, this group from West Palm Beach, Florida has only gotten stronger with every new release and this one is no exception, delivering a new round of catchy, compact blasts in the somewhat eggy realms of power pop, synth- and garage punk evoking thoroughly favorable comparisons to the likes of Gee Tee, Erik Nervous, Vaguess and Satanic Togas.
Already having a couple EPs under his belt, this Whittier, California dude’s first full length cassette, also his first release following over five years of radio silence, immediatley clicks with me. That shit is right up my alley with its endearingly crude, moderately psychedelic mix of garage-, post- and synth punk carrying the traits of so many household names, among them the likes of Mononegatives, Useless Eaters, Die TV, Electric Prawns 2, Beef, early Powerplant, Pow!, Freak Genes and Lost Packages.
Always an occasion of pure, unmitigated joy, new songs by Schleswig, Germany solo viking synth punk warrior Klint. The self-released new Stark EP delivers six-and-a-half excellent new blows of the equally rough and noisy, weird and catchy as fuck synth punk action we all know and love. His Should be Honey / Sherbet 7″ released simultaneously via italian garage punk institution Goodbye Boozy then goes on a thrilling experimental side quest involving heavy use of ancient brass and vocal samples pulled from 1920s swing records. This is something… kinda random, baffling and unexpected for sure. Sick shit!
Two new EPs by some Louisville, Kentucky group who’ve apparently released a ton of shit already but are certainly new to me. The Microbiome EP delights with quirky and energetic garage-/synth punk in the vein of Billiam, Spodee Boy, Gholies, early Erik Nervous, Spits, Why Bother? as well as classic Reatard-related artifacts. A nice companion piece then is the more hardcore-minded Bizarro EP dabbling in a way rougher aesthetic of fuzzed-out oldschool mayhem.
