Nnevtelga-s/t CS (2013)

Apparently weirdos do indeed live in a city overflowing with technocrats and bankers. Brussells' Nnevtelga (say that five times fast!) warps and woofs layers of sonic brutality around your austerity-weary mind on their debut. These Flemings traffick in a nasty brew falling somewhere between ambient drone and noisecore, with a dash of the Swans thrown in for good measure.

Monotony is an essential part of much noise, but Nnevteiga's controlled use of rhythm & guitar breaks up the glacial slide of synthshittery. The first five tracks are straightfoward beat-noise-beat-noise nastiness, but "Soko Inede" shows how dynamic the band is. It's nothing but a propulsive beat and a repeated vocal line, but damn is it catchy, in an abrasive sort of way: throwing this on at a shitty '80s dance party would totally clear the floor, allowing you to dance alone while huffing up the blow left behind by irate revelers.

The second half of the LP finds the band walking this same delicate line between "fuck-you-listener" and "nah we're really just a noise band": just when you want them to settle down into sadism they drop another disturbingly punchy bit in. It's really quite catchy in its own perverse way, especially "tshlobl:" imagine a zombie on Xanax singing for the Vyllies.

Check out this piece of Flemish fuckery here. Then, go buy a cassette copy from Tendresse Records!

Dungeon Kids-Oh How it Hurts EP (2013)

 Dungeon Kids' upbeat, off-kilter garage thrumming doesn't really fit with what you expect from Baltimore, s a city best known for Edgar Allen Poe, The Wire, and grinding poverty.* I guess it's just further evidence that the internet has completely decentered physical space and its influence from how musicians work?

Getting off my pseudo-insightful high horse, Dungeon Kids offers thee five tracks that fall somewhere between garage rock and Fugazi-style postpunk. It's a strange mix that I've never really understood, but these kids is good at it. The lead song, "Is there Light?," perfectly encapsulates their sound. It opens with fullforce guitar fuzz and a mushy rhythm section that propels the band forward. Then, around 20 seconds, the song jerks into a midtempo verse that sounds like the chorus. It comes complete with the noodling guitar leads that never break through into catharsis. This is the third band in the last year that reminds me of the Unicorns without really sounding like them at all. Anyway Dungeon Kids are more interesting if only because it sounds like they in fact give a shit about the music they're playing. Same goes for Celestial Shore & Shopping Spree, the other two bands.

The "sounds like____" formula is escaping me right now, but this is the sort of album that my friends in Olympia would blast when it's noon, we're stoned and unemployed, and the sun hasn't come out for about a week. That sorta stuff.

Get stoopid then get a job with Dungeon Kids, over here!

*Oh, and this band!

Death Evocation-s/t 7" EP (2011)

This one's a bit of a throwaway post, but that's not to disparage Death Evocation. Personally I can't stand most metal-between the Nazi undertones of a large part of contemporary Black Metal and the overall macho wankery of the genre as a whole, there ain't much goin' on with metal power.

Death Evocation, however, delivers the goods. Those goods consist of colossal, wailing, [fill in the blank hyperbolic adjective ehre] guitar blitzkrieg,a  pummeling rhythm section, and a singer who just barely manages to stay within range of the rest of the band.

These three tracks are suitable for doing activities that make you angry, feel powerful, and/or outraged at [fill in the blank injustice here: war, the NSA, Obama, Asad, whateverthefuckthisismetalwhogivesashitreally].

YOU CAN'T COPE. Death Evocation seems to be one of those "mysterious" bands with no internet presence, so I can only recommend that, if you're interested in buying this record, go find the nearest junky crustpunk nodding out in a gutter, and offer him $10 and/or a bag of heroin in exhange for his/her copy.

Crazy Pills-Restless LP (2013)

Behind all the gloop 'n'glop,  many of us-even at this late date of the beshitted year of our Lord 2013-still prefer bare bones, moronically straightforward rock 'n roll over contrived, overly-complicated gimmicks and/or too-kool-for-skool-retreads. Of course, doing your best to sound like Jerry Lee Lewis' band fronted by a woman is fundamentally reactionary. But the last couple of years' worth of subcultural (anti-)cultural slop have largely focused on rehashing the 1990s. So takin' it back to the '50s seems downright revolutionary-by-way-of-reactionary at this point.

Whatever, in Crazy Pills, Brookyln belches out yet another sweet rock 'n'roll group that strips away all pretense and just dishes out snazzy tunes to dance to. This sort of rock is exactly opposed to longwinded disquisitions on why it's good; it just is.

So crack a beer, comb some pomade through your hair, and go down to the local sleazy rocker bar. Pop a quarter in the jukebox, then get irate with the bartender when Crazy Pills doesn't show up. Then insis, at top volume, that he look this band up HERE, and FUCKING ROCK OUT DOOD. Yeah. I totally impressed a girl enough with this sort of gimmick for her to make out with me last weekend, Scout's honor.

Multiple Man-s/t CS (Major Crimes Records, 2013)

Yeah, I'm as surprised as you are that I crawled out of an alcoholic slumber to start posting rad new shit but there ya go....

....and the "there," as is often the case these days, is Brisbane, Australia. Multiple Man is twins Sean & Chris Campion and they deliver the goods with five tracks of weirdo, minimal synth fuckery. "Built Wrong" is a slow-burning bit of persistent, almost-menacing goof-goth with percussion that sounds like someone kicking a piece of aluminum siding with steel-toed Docs. Things get nastier with "Photo Arrays," which shortens the beat to autistic levels while ramping up the distortion. It sounds like how you feel after a night of drinking 15 light beers and wrecking your bike while out on the town. That good.
"Typecast" is the best track here, and could easily have crawled out of some Viennese synth-geek's lair circa 1984. Clean, crisp, automated ambiance washes over a hysterical rhythm and mindless, monotone vocal tracks. It creates the illusion that the Iron Curtain is still just across the Danube and it's always raining so fuck it gimme another beer and turn up that bootleg of live Joy Div you just smuggled in from France. 

The next two tracks are just as good but I don't wanna ruin the fun for you fuckers (clue: settle in with downers and whiskey for "Whipping Boy"). Those of you who enjoy the benefits of the European welfare state are just getting back from summer holidays. This is the perfect piece of cold, fuzz-fucked minimalism to usher in fall and yet "another year with nuthin' to do," as Iggy Stooge said so majestically in 1969.

Listen to Multiple Man HERE or HERE. Major Crimes is sold out of the cassettes, but email Matt over at Eternal Soundcheck Distro and he might still have copies kicking around.