Another kickass Painter's Tape by yet another Detroit garage group excelling in a moderately egg-ish take on more-or-less contemporary Garage- and Synth Punk that, once you made it past the cheesy intro, doesn't sound very cute at all and much darker than expected with a distinct post punk-ish feel to tracks like Paranoia and quite a bit of stylistic freedom and flexibility reminding me at different points of such groups as S.B.F., Ghoulies, Spits, Stalins Of Sound, Kid Chrome, Lost Sounds, Mind Spiders, Sex Mex, Exit Mould, The Gobs, Broken Prayer and Kerozine.
This Milan, Italy group has already made some smaller ripples in the garage punk scene with a constant drip of singles and EPs starting in 2022, but i'm gonna say they're really coming into their own on their newest EP on which they streamline the old records' comparatively blunt force into a more compact and wieldy vision overall, their high-impact garage-/synth punk mixture holding an ultra-stable balance of catchyness and relentless propulsion while still leaving plenty of room for experimentation and general weirdness, most notable here being the title track which may qualify as a contender for the most unhinged Village People cover tune ever, transferring that old sock about touching and feeling everyone's bodies into a kind of sonic insanity that reminds me more than just a little of the early works of Skull Cult.
Here's a new short-playing dose of madness from that Lansing, Michigan one-man-band and who would have guessed - it's yet another delightful attack of chaotic synth-/electro-/sample punk so blown-out within an inch of its life it leaves me wonderin' whether i'm hearing a guitar or just a mutilated synth in the opening track. Thus, high quality new fodder for friends of other disconcerting noises á la Beef, ISS, Heavy Metal, Klint, Spyroids, R. Clown or Kerozine.
The artwork appears to not very subtly hint at a dungeon-related thing and this almost sounds plausible with the riff-heavy opening track, though after that, the spanish group's newest EP settles into that familiar sound of dreamy, egg-ish noise pop and synthpunk we all know and love them for, albeit with a few unexpected nuances like the aformentioned opening, occasional emo-ish sprinkles, some hints at straightforward, classic indie rock and moments channeling some C86-by-way-of-early shoegaze kind of aesthetic in El Valle De La Muerte and the closing track Sesos En Bandeja.
These New Yorkers' new longplaying cassette is quite a stunner, showing incredible growth from its already thorougly enjoyable predecessor, 2022's Fancy! EP. While that one still had a kinda cute power pop and new wave-ish quality to itself, this one manages to come across as simultaneously more abstract and more mature. Less Television Personalities and more eighties The Fall in its minimalism and repetition, yet at all times feeling very deliberately put together, this further channels the aesthetic traits of old british DIY á la Desperate Bicycles, Membranes, Swell Maps or early Mekons, while a thick load-bearing layer of melancholy interconnects some of the album's most memorable tunes and reminds me quite a bit of a certain strain of aussie groups like Wireheads, Kitchen's Floor and the more downbeat moments of Eddy Current Suppression Ring. Another decent reference point would be yet another not-so-famous famous group - Philadelphia's Famous Mammals - along with a number of other US-based shambolic post- and art punk acts like Society, Germ House, Spiral Rash and Toe Ring.
On their debut cassette carrying the quality seal of the ever-reliable Detroit label Painters Tapes, what this Ohio group pulls off here is nothing short of some top-notch weapons-grade guitar-less synth punk excellence that kinda bridges the gap between oldschool '70s-'80s acts like Nervous Gender, Units, Visitors and Screamers on one hand and some more recent, varyingly egg-ish groups running the gamut from the unpredictable, hyperactive approach of, say, Checkpoint, Titanium Exposé, Pressure Pin to the more minimalist attacks of Beef, Busted Head Racket and some shit right inbetween those worlds like Quitter, Slimex, Isotope Soap, earlier Freak Genes or Billiam's synth punk project NTSC>PAL.
An insanely fun debut EP by this St. Louis, Missouri group that sounds like... no one group in particular really, which in our heavily genre-codified times may be among the best compliments you can make. Rather, this is some freewheeling choose-your-own-adventure-style shit mixing-and-matching an abundance of synth-enhanced garage punk influences with varying degrees of egg-ishness into a super catchy, coherent whole that at different points may call to mind the likes of Skull Cult, Print Head, Warm Bodies, Rearranged Face, Snooper or Wax Minds.
Silicon Heartbeat have been a constant presence at the periphery of the 12XU-relevant sonic spectrum for years now, yet it appears i've never given them a blog post so far for some inexplicable reason (though you've surely stumbled upon them on a couple of my mixtapes). This has to be rectified immediately i'll say and their newest EP is the perfect occasion for that, not only featuring some of their strongest tunes so far but also being further elevated by the production work of garage punk royalty Erik Nervous, whose magic touch adds plenty of oomph and contour to their somewhat Spits-indebted, catchy and psychedelic synth- and garage punk sound. I sure hope that, in spite of its title, this ain't actually the last we're gonna hear of them..
The debut EP of this Portland group is kind of all over the map stylisticly but also fucking brilliant at all times, with the first two songs leaning into a sound between angular garage- and post punk, holding a delicate balance of dissonant textures and catchy hooks like you may have heard previously from groups such as Reality Group, Print Head, early R.M.F.C., Exit Group and Beef. Technology Discriminates Against The Poor then sounds a bit like a kraut-y Spray Paint fused with the likes Mononegatives or late Useless Eaters. False Reality reminds me somewhat of the spaced-out garage punk of Pow! while Identify has a quality of catchy minimalism similar to shit like Busted Head Racket and Daughter Bat and the Lip Stings. Beat Struggle then goes all-in on the motorik kraut-y vibes before the record gets to its worthy conclusion in the form of a neat cover tune of old dutchmen Ivy Green and the slow-burn synth punk grooves of Conflict Driven Entertainment.
I'm rarely ever posting compilations here 'cos, quite honestly, most of these are too much of a mixed bag. I'm gonna make an exception here though as this shit has been put together by none other than see/saw dude Evan and just as you'd expect from him, this thing is certainly a couple notches above your average "Everybody send me your unreleased stuff for a good cause"-type comp and absolutely stacked with exclusive tracks by what amounts to a massive who's who of the international punk underground right now. That, plus your 10$-or-more donation will be spent in support of those affected by the Los Angeles wildfires. Win/win i'm gonna say! What's not to like?
