Giglinger

Reviews

Giglinger Shrapnel EP

Hailing from Helsinki, Finland, GIGLINGER makes the kind of hardcore punk that isn’t conservative when it comes to incorporating influences from outside the genre. Their four-song EP Shrapnel displays that very clearly. With vocals that sound like they’re coming out of a megaphone, a strong rhythm section, ear-candy guitar layers, and sudden changes in song structure, you can tell that they have a unique vision to create their own sound. My only complaint—and I can’t believe I’m the one saying this—is that this EP is too short. Like, annoyingly short. Don’t get me wrong, it’s really good and it left me wanting more, but all this pent-up frustration is killing me. Maybe that’s just me, though. If you’re on the run and the original versions of those two songs are way too long for your personal taste, you’re in luck—the band kindly included shorter versions on the B-side. You know, some people (like a band I know called GIGLINGER) are busy making cool music and don’t have the time to listen to a four-minute single.

Giglinger React 12″

If you’re familiar with GIGLINGER, this may be a far cry from your expectations…React starts off with an eight-minute track (the shortest of the four cuts is five-and-a-half) that mixes post-punk with jammy psychedelic noise rock. Am I at rave? A cavern in hell? Right, Finland.  Looking back on their discography, I found a totally different band—straightforward, lo-fi punk that was great!  Take, for example, their full-length cassette 13 from 2021, that is two sides of riff-driven, fast-paced punk rock, like a group that enjoys the DAMNED. Whether these slower, longer, more spacious songs (with a much cleaner production) are a new beginning for GIGLINGER or an experimental layover, I don’t know.  I like parts of this, and I’m reluctantly pigeonholing the band by saying I miss the heart found in previous releases. But hey, they’ve been at it over two decades; it’s your band, get weird!

Giglinger 13 cassette

A long-running Finnish outfit that has remained primarily under the radar, GIGLINGER seems content to keep plugging away at bare-bones punk rock with a distinct dark Euro vibe. Classic Finnish punk (not hardcore, punk) with touches of M.O.T.O. and EA80 makes for a compelling lo-fi listening experience. I didn’t know much of the band before this tape came across my desk, but I’m about to get hooked into a modest discography that spans more than two decades.

Giglinger Money, Power, and Corruption / Pay No More 10″

This is a release of two three-song EPs from this long-standing Finnish smart punk outfit. They got the licks, but they got the lyrics too. Just dirty grungy anthemic punk rock with an anarcho-political bent, sounds like the ’80s all over again.