First-rate new eggpunk goodness comes to us from one-man-band bedroom project Walter Ego out of Aschaffenburg, Germany. While this shit no doubt dabbles in, at this point, quite familiar sounding territory with varying echoes of such genre powerhouses like Prision Affair, Billiam, Beer, Set-Top Box or Nuts, it also never fails to hit the spot dead-on in a perfectly dialed-in mid-fi aesthetic balancing garage crunch with eggpunk whims and quirks and on top of it all, Race The Alps and even more so the closing track Forevermore (In The Dungeon) are nothing short of certified instant genre classics.
Last year’s full length debut of this Raleigh, North Carolina group already made a lasting impression and their latest EP via the local scene bulwark Sorry State Records continues in a similar vein, although there are also gradual changes to be gleaned here, with their overall aesthetic feeling more playful this time and not quite as grim as it still was on the LP, with those quirky toy keyboard vibes and a good deal of nutty ideas making for an excellent counterweight to their otherwise pretty much wrecking ball-like sound inbetween the worlds of Noise Rock, Post- and Synth Punk that once again reminds me a lot of groups á la Isotope Soap, Broken Prayer, Powerplant, Kerozine or Beef.
A hefty charge of synth-enhanced in-your-face hardcore and garage punk driving straight into the abyss in an act of blissful defiance, that’s what we’re geting on the debut tape of Buffalo NY group Havana Syndrome. On one hand this shit has a bit of an unhinged Lumpy And The Dumpers energy and a straightforward attack akin to that Feed/Zhoop/Brundle/Nightman/etc dude but just as much i feel reminded of a number of varyingly egg-leaning groups like Baltomore’s Quitter, Italy’s own The Bad Plug, the greek eggpunk pest that is Μπριτζολιτσεσ and there’s also an undeniable hint of early Skull Cult or Research Reactor Corp at play here.
Just a couple weeks after their debut, the second EP of the Beta Máximo dude’s new synth punk project simply picks up the strands right where they left them on the predecessor, yet there’s also some neat experimentation and surprise to be found in there which we haven’t heard before like the airy synth polyrhythms in the verses of El Fin De Los Días showing SYT at their most aloof so far but also rewarding the patience by segueing into some of their most catchy moments in the chorus.
These australians’ 2023 mini-LP was tons of weird-ass dungeon- and fantasy-themed fun already and their newest longplayer has an even stronger batch of headsplitting tunes made up of elements of garage-, synth- and post punk that right out of the gate delights with a distinct flavor of vintage Useless Eaters and Ausmuteants action in the opening track Pillager, complemented with a note of psych-/acid Punk á la Pow! in Moneyman while Big Hat – one of two holdovers first heard on their 2021 Mammon Machine EP – has a bit of a Strange Attractor vibe and Dopaminer may easily fool you into thinking it’s an exceptionally strong Why Bother? tune. Further, i can imagine friends of the likes of slightly more dungeon-flavored like Curta’n Wall or Oslo’s own eggpunks Molbo getting a kick outta this shit.
There’s some thoroughly fun and uplifting energy to this debut EP of spanish group Sonic Youth Of Today and if you’ve been paying any attention in recent years, it’s immediately obvious that it’s the Beta Máximo dude at work here, transforming the same melodicism and noise pop-ish vibes into a similarly quirky synth punk context that, in addition to his own work so far, also calls to mind bits and pieces of stuff á la O-D-EX, Digital Leather, Mind Spiders, Spyroids, Freak Genes or that recent Emmet O’Connor LP.
Now here’s some excellent new garage-/synth-/post punk shit that’s only tangentially egg-related but certainly a good bit Devo-fied nonetheless and best of all, pretty versatile and casually shapeshifting in its sonic parameters, as a result reminding me of an appropriately eclectic bunch of groups like Checkpoint, Kitchen People, Ghoulies, Fungas, Cherry Cheeks, Ausmuteants, early Powerplant, Electric Prawns 2 and Dr. Sure’s Unusual Practice.
It’s been a weak of smaller-fry (albeit excellent) releases and i’m behind on my blogging queue anyway so i’m gonna take the easy route of collating it all into a single blog post this time, okay?
First off, there’s some delicious new hardcore shit from Hattiesburg group Silo Kids, further bolstering the stellar reputation of that unassuming mid-sized Mississippi town for being on the forefront of inventive and quirky hardcore punk that just refuses to play by the established rules and conventions.
With Power Pants of Winchester, Virginia on the other hand, we kinda know what we can expect from a new release, of which there are quite a few already and the next one is never too far off anyway (their recent CS5 Cassingle having been mere weeks ago aswell). Their newest PP11 EP feels like a considerable level-up from anything they’ve done before though in a discography that just may have started to feel a bit redundant at some points. Not that anything fundamental about their catchy melodic garage punk sound had changed, but these are cleary some of the most rippin’ and well-crafted tunes we’ve heard of them so far.
Scrawlers from Tacoma, Washington then appear to scratch a quite similar – though also way more fuzzed-out and rough – itch of simple and effective garage punk delicacies that’ll sure have friends of S.B.F., Kid Chrome, Gobs or Robbie Thunder approvingly nodding along to.
Dallas, Texas group Thyroids have been going for many years now but really hit their stride in the current decade with their sound growing ever more unpredictable, evading clear catigorizarion and this holds truer than ever on their newest two-track single, on which elements of garage- and synth punk, noise rock/-pop and eggpunk bounce off each other to exhilarating effects.
Last but not least, there’s yet another Snarewaves EP delivering more of their patented electro punk formula that’s every bit as strikingly simple as it is out-there and pretty much unique right now and although you’d think that kind of thing would run into the law of diminishing returns at some point, so far every new release just has left me craving more of that good shit.
Here’s yet another kickass Billiam record once again delivering the goods of quirky-ass egg-ish garage punk in four tunes that nicely balance the comfortably familiar with, as always, plenty of novel ideas and unexpected detours. To me the absolute standout here are the pulsating post punk grooves of Planned Obsolescence but New Wave is an absolute wrecker too. Essential Feedstock Oils feel a bit like a welcome throwback to the very early days of Billiam and it’s just as glorious seeing Robbie Thunders’ 2023 insta-classic Houston We Have Rock being given its due in an absolutely vigorous cover rendition.
Excellent new shit, the debut EP of this Nottingham, UK group whose style feels kinda fluid, evading categorization as a whole even if the isolated components feel fairly familiar, the most immediately striking ones being the eggpunk-related eccentricities of Snooper, early Skull Cult, Busted Head Racket, Clarko on one hand and the considerably rougher weirdness of Warp, Beef, Scud on the other while at times even approaching the unpredictable off-the-rails eclecticism of Pressure Pin, Checkpoint or TY.
