Gym Tonic

Reviews

Gym Tonic Sanitary Situations 12″

A quartet of Berlin-based grown-up punks bring us their second release, and it’s clear from the six tracks on here that they’re having a good time. Do you need to pick up a copy? Depends on how much you love perfectly adequate garage-y synth punk. Imagine something between LOST SOUNDS’ maniacal darkwave and SERVOTRON’s stilted robot rock, maybe mixed with a little contemporary egginess. Honestly, it could be worse. It’s also kind of educational, like a German synth punk THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS!  Did you know you could catch mono from someone’s tears? I certainly didn’t until listening to this record.

Gym Tonic Good Job LP

Phantom has reissued the synth punk reveling Good Job, originally out on Et Mon Cul C’est Du Tofu? in 2019. This debut has its moments of quiet, slow wandering, apparent on “Hiroshima,” with mod-wheel-driven synth lines and spoken word, but moreover turns up with dance beats on the likes of “Tourists of Death,” which is catchy by the end of the first listen. These dark song subjects made me feel as if I had GYM TONIC pinned, then they slip in egg-punk tracks like “Car Sick” and “B12 Injection.” And did I mention they’re named after an ’80s French workout show? Needless to say, they’ll keep you guessing! Can’t get enough? Also out on Phantom is their new Sanitary Situations EP.