The seventh album from this Montreal one-man-band guy. It sounds old-timey, with a country-ish ELVIS PRESLEY twang mixed with a TAV FALCO sound. The music is rough and raw and has a great sound. Catchy, fun, and sultry.
I’m not too familiar with the countrified one-man rockabilly stomp of this Canadian crooner, but I see that he’s collaborated with a who’s who of modern garage rock heavyweights. Much less unhinged and more restrained than personal favorites of this genre like the mighty HASIL ADKINS or even contemporaries such as LIGHTNING BEAT MAN, Mr. Bill (lol) adheres to a more traditional and stiff variance of Sun Records worship. It’s quite good, though, with scratchy, old timey production effects that could have this being sandwiched between CHET ATKINS and DUANE EDDY without making a staunch purist cry fowl. This reminds me of some of the stuff ex-skinheads were getting up to in the ’90s and being that is when he got his start, I might not be far off in my comparison. What are you waiting for? Grab your gal of any or non-gender variance, jump in your jalopy and head to the hootenanny.
I imagine this is a big deal to a lot of people. It’s classically Australian in many ways. It’s driving. It’s melodic. It’s intense. It’s furious. It’s unrelenting. But more than anything, it’s rock’n’roll. At times, the pace is mild. Other times, it gets quite quick. At times, it’s like AC/DC. Other times it’s like MOTÖRHEAD, particularly with the snarly, growling vocals. There’s a lot to like about this record. On the flipside, at least for me, it’s a little too rock’n’roll. I could use a little more punk. I could use a little less extracurricular lead guitar work. I realize for a lot of people, neither of things are drawbacks. I’d love to see these guys in a small bar in the middle of nowhere.
These Sydney darlings of neo-garage/egg, who began as a one-man bedroom project and got regurgitated repeatedly until spewed out as an unhinged live force to give the SPITS a slow jog for reigning synth punk deviant kingship, are back. They’ve made the big time (as in Goner Records) and will probably be played on repeat in every cafe and kratom-slinging vape shop in middle America real soon. Very deserving are they though, as this might be their best. It’s big car driving music, and no two places have long distances like Australia and the US of A to cruise and enjoy hits like “I Hate (Drivin’ in the City),” “Heart Throb,” and “40K,” as well as the engine-revving title track. I feel like I’ve said enough here, and you could have written this a million times yourself from your prime seat on the bandwagon. Just nod hello and keep your cool.
A spun-out frenzy with smears of MARK E. SMITH vocals lift over a wild sorta FALL / GUN CLUB / SCIENTISTS guitar collision, and the sickest rhythm section in modern punk. This is a dense total sound, tastefully stealing from both classic Manchester and L.A. punk as needed! What else is there to do in these end times we are stuck existing within but make a sound that reflects your record collection with your friends? HASH REDACTOR features the rhythm section of NOTS and a couple EX-CULTers too, so Memphis maniacs you already know you need this right? It swaggers and goofs in a most endearing fashion: off-kilter and groovy, like trying to leave a crowded party and drunkenly walking into a swamp. One of those records where you wish the label had sent a reviewer copy!
A new LP from these synth punk Aussies, this sorta reminds me a bit of SCHOOL DAMAGE with less C86 and more Messthetics? Well, it turns out this features a SCHOOL DAMAGE (and a PARSNIP! I guess as with every other sick Australian group each member must play in fifty-nine other equally cool bands). Neat and witty pop constructions that have a basement band new wave feel, sometimes can have a background music quality, rather than “must listen to this and do nothing else.” This is unfair, because this band is obviously going for a different style/feeling, but I am thinking of when the last TOTAL CONTROL LP came out, and how totally overpowering it was. But then sometimes it feels like “Outdoor Miner” being played by FELT, which is a dream. “Pang” is perfect! More of this please! There’s an ironic playfulness with sharp radical underpinnings too, and while some of it blends into one, for the most part it is a really pleasurable blend?! Plus the LP title is beautiful/cool/gross…
Back in 2019, a handful of Memphis musicians (folks from NOTS and EX-CULT) put out an LP under the name HASH REDACTOR. The music they played was part wry post-punk, part brash noise rock, part swampy garage punk, and 100% my shit—easily one of the best records of the year. Alas, like most good things, HASH REDACTOR wasn’t made to last. About a year into the pandemic, they announced they were ramping down operations. But they also offered a silver lining: three quarters of the band would continue on as a new project, IBEX CLONE. So, when Goner announced this debut LP two-ish years later, I was stoked. Now, I don’t know what I was expecting from this outfit, but I did not foresee a pivot to adult-oriented jangly guitar rock. It’s gotten me all out of sorts. I’ve listened to this album countless times at this point, ready for it to click, but it just hasn’t. It’s certainly no fault of the production. This thing is sonically incredible, probably the best a guitar will sound on record all year! But the songwriting is leaving me cold. The label copy calls this “post-pop,” a term I’ve never heard before but instinctively want to say is inaccurate (for context, the band that popped in my mind was HOME BLITZ)—there’s just not enough pop here. They also mention XTC and GUIDED BY VOICES, which, yes, absolutely. If anything, I’m tempted to call this post-slacker rock, as it’s clearly indebted to the latter act while featuring enough of the former’s intricacies and proggy-ness to leave no doubt these songs weren’t just casually tossed off. But therein lies the problem. This is decidedly uncool music. It’s music for grownups—stuff that needs to be actively appreciated rather than passively enjoyed. And, look, that’s fine, it’s just not what I’m looking for in my punk records. I’m looking for drecksounds.
Bleak anthems that evoke a late-’80s post-hardcore musical landscape: dark shards of guitar and vocal intonations, with desolate lyrical incisions into the void of macho culture… A total sound, a wall of guitar where there’s something for people that want the big guitar sound somewhere between the CULT and BIG BLACK, but also require a punishing hardcore pummel. The post-punk flange sound is stripped of any aesthetic pose and used as another aural weapon. There’s a weary fury to this: what are men for, what destruction do they do to those stuck around them in the stands of sporting grounds, in the family home? There’s no respite to the totality, no answer, just a lived experience expressed through sound.
I haven’t caught up with these Aussies since their debut LP Dogging back in 2017, an album I loved, especially in headphones during the rainy months. Well, their third record has appeared in time for the rainy season again, and despite the years between listening, the band has returned with a record that has everything I found so appealing on Dogging, but just ever so matured and nuanced. I’ve always imagined the LOW LIFE sound being created by some smirking lads, loose and laughing on lager, having made off with the CURE’s gear circa Faith and Pornography, but starting a hardcore band with it instead. Stomping and pushing their chorus pedals to sound less blissed-out and distant than pharmaceutically blurry and smothering, replacing a limp strum with a harder attack. Sonically, there’s some special studio accents like trumpets, orchestral strings, and acoustic guitar textures; song-wise, there’s fewer barreling ragers and more moody meditations, but always brimming with desperation and frustration that frames the album’s spirit around the layers of watery chordage. LOW LIFE is in classically fine form and begs for repeat listening and time for full immersion.
Third (duh) album from Memphis’ NOTS, now a trio (duh again). NOTS’ unique take on punk—wild psych tinges and tight post-punk rhythms, always driving in inventive directions—is one of my faves in recent memory, and 3 finds the band operating at their most economic. The songs are more exacting and, coupled with a recording / production that peels back much of the shadow and effect from prior releases, their finest batch to date (see “Rational Actor” and “Woman Alone” especially!). These slight adjustments in attack and presentation all come together to propel a more natural sound, albeit one still permeated with drum pound, synth bleating, and guitar workout. I’m also really struck by Natalie’s vocals here as well: she has never sounded better or punker on record. While I’ve been on board with their prior releases, I flat-out fuckin’ love this one. Highest recommendation.
OPTIC SINK is the latest project from Natalie Hoffmann of NOTS, giving her an opportunity to explore some of the darker electronic influences that have been brought into that band’s wiry post-punk approach over the course of their last few records. Pairing up with percussionist Ben Bauermeister for this debut LP, Hoffmann creates strobing, analog synth-driven soundscapes guided by early minimal wave and electro-industrial outfits like the NORMAL and CABARET VOLTAIRE, with her detached-yet-commanding delivery of lines like “Can’t survive / You’ll always try” (from “Personified”) and “You can watch yourself / Under glass” (in the social media-as-identity-performance critique “Exhibitionist”) only underscoring the insistently paranoid instrumental pulse. In the year 2020, when the term “dystopian” gets thrown around at seemingly every turn to describe music that in any way reflects the harsh truths of the countless oppressive systems governing our daily realities, this is one record that truly earns that qualifier—if you’re up for it, embrace the void.
The name of this band along with the title of this LP made me expect some kind of caveman-themed metal band. Instead, this Melbourne foursome (featuring members of DRUG SWEAT, OOGA BOOGAS, and VOICE IMITATOR) delivers a relaxed and sunny brand of garage rock that never takes itself too seriously. Singer Leon Stackpole sounds effortlessly laid-back, while Mikey Young’s guitar work is impressive without being showy. While some songs are straightforward rockers (“Land of the Fire,” “Conservative Instincts“), they also get to stretch out into some more experimental territory on “Infinity and 90” and “Swimming in a Bathful of Ghosts.” It’s all exceedingly pleasant and playful while never being dull. I’m reminded of Rotterdam’s LEWSBERG and fellow Australians THIGH MASTER. A fantastic debut.
Before the third wave of the great commodification, punk was always a safe haven for weirdos. Experimental and eclectic to the point of being true only to self. A place equally for anger, angst, and creativity. Thinking DEVO, TALKING HEADS, SPARKS. Following in that mind line come QUINTRON AND MISS PUSSYCAT. More theater kids, less leather. This full-length is filled with snotty, swampy anthems that are humorously political, socially scathing, and most certainly would fill a dance floor live. Disco beats, circus organs, homemade instruments, dueling majorette vocals, plus a talk box master. It’s like if John Waters managed the early B-52’S.
A non-stop auditory assault that hits all sensory levels. I think I could taste blood. Violet Archaea storms the three-piece Louisville band through their debut album on Goner Records. The glam garage of THUNDERS, TEENGENERATE swagger, and that Goner-esque sound akin to EX-CULT are here. The liner notes reference the important influence of GUITAR WOLF—particularly the epic movie Wild Zero in which the band battles aliens trying to take over the earth. And it’s here, as the album plays like a soundtrack to guitar sword battles, exploding heads, fake blood, and broken hearts. Trivia: the first album Goner ever released was GUITAR WOLF’s debut, so it’s a fitting base to launch ARCHAEAS.
Fourth LP from father/daughter team Kenny and Inez McClain, the EXBATS take flight from the deserts of southern Arizona. At first glance, I hear the song writing sensibilities of ’60s girl groups (the BANGLES, with drummer/vocalist Debbi Peterson, to boot) on songs like “Best Kiss,” but with heavier influences from the punk genre, and similar to early ’00s the LIKE in this convergence. But EXBATS don’t pigeonhole themselves. Themes of country twang appear in “Practice On Me,” and “Hey New Zealand” describes eco-disasters, atypical of jangly garage pop.
Excellent guitar pop from this Australian band, doubling-up and over their cool debut from a few years back. Having seen them perform a smattering of these tunes a few times on their recent US sojourn, I can definitively note that the various isms relative to that lauded Flying Nun sound — the one they’re most often saddled with — all just chime a wee bit harder in their hands. There’s this real-deal buzz underneath their tunes that makes itself known at well-planned intervals, never allowing things to get too terribly saccharine or to move too far away from their core — relatable, acerbic DIY pop scrappiness, big as some of the hits may be. Assuming you’re on board with the wares of now-time compatriots like PRIMO or TERRY, all aboard here…I find this lot maybe most impressive of the pack.
