Apéro Cold Drinks, Cool Snacks cassette
Contrary to what you’d imagine given the band’s name, it’s straight to the main course as soon as you push play on this debut APÉRO cassette. Thumping, revved-up drum machine beats paired with tasty synth lines that seem to perfectly emulate the NACHTHEXEN tone push this kooky German/French egg-punk band forward. To look at the song titles, you may be a little confused if it’s just going to be total nonsense time or a tribute record to the strangest amalgamation of things, but the jokes seem to stop with the song titles. This is eleven songs of non-stop, synth-heavy, head-bopping mayhem with no shortage of catchy riffs. The tape culminates with an absolutely killer cover of “Safe Neighborhood (Shit on the Ground)” by MADONNA with her early group the BREAKFAST CLUB. I have always wanted to cover that song, but never followed through on it. Congrats, APÉRO, you win this round. If you’ve been paying attention to cassette releases over the past handful of years you certainly must recognize the label XTRO for their continually consistent scrambled output. Easily one of the big names to be mentioned when discussing modern synth and egg-punk releases, and APÉRO fits in nicely with the label’s output. As always though, wildly limited release numbers—only 25 of these exist, and I’ve already got one of them. Get on it if you want one.