Time stumbles on. So does the clan DATSUN. Change the inevitable. Despite the ever warping landscape, the DATSUNS find those paths of least resistance up the mountain, and take their lifetime’s accumulated lessons & mastery of rock, up the proverbial giant rock, to dispel their latest riffage & learnings, from the highest point, upon the masses, with joyous savagery.
The workings towards an eighth volume of Datsun sonics proceed steadily. Though the clan have lost another drummer, Scandinavian thumper Adam Lindmark of Dead Lord fills the seat for upcoming 2025 live action. A host of Swedish drumming familiars also litter recordings thus far, to deliver the Stoogeoid evil, the powerpop crunch or the classic proto rawk assault & battery.
Lead string wrangler Christian, comes to grips with the literal new hand he’s been dealt, after a literal handicapped year, whereupon next level surgical intervention was required to save a paw ravaged.
Entrenched in the semi-rural NZ paradise, Phil has wracked mind & mitts to conjure up new weaving guitarring rhythms to dispense to his comrades across the seas.
In the lands of ice & snow Dolf has soundboarded hooks & crunch w/his like minded Scandinavian pals & also shot back many a reshaped idea & burst of rok energy to his Datsun brothers.
The newest eighth album (“Moonstruck Man”), the latest in crafted Datsun sonics teeters on the bridge of existence. To celebrate, the touring sets forth thru July 2026 cross Northern Hemisphered European lands, to share with the masses the in-the-flesh spectacle of Aotearoan strut & swagger. The promise beckons, of more running, riffing, dancing rock, in the Western calendar year of 2026, both studio wrecked & wrangled, and delivered hot wired alive.
Watching Australia’s Straight Arrows in concert stirs a visceral reaction. Throbbing, sweating, pulsating urgently across the stage, delivering melodious hits with an unrelenting, volatile energy before a final climactic burst, departing the podium and leaving a riled-up audience to contend with whatever lesser events the remainder of their night may hold. On record, Straight Arrows offer perhaps a little more nuance. Sure, the urgency and buzzing 60s punk-inspired energy is well and truly present, but this mingles with moments of the other-worldly and the truly sublime, across an array of eclectically influenced tunes. Amongst the brilliant chaos lie a few calm, introspective moments before the band subjects the dear listener to another catchy, melodious blast, relentless hooks still trailing through one’s mind. Just ask fans like Henry Rollins, Iggy Pop, or John Dwyer, the former two gladly hawking the group on their radio shows, whilst the latter gleefully dragging the band across Australia and the USA in support of his latest opus. Along with Oh Sees, Straight Arrows have shared stages with many friends and heroes: The Buzzcocks, The Sonics, Ty Segall, Black Lips, Jay Reatard, Deerhunter, and the New York Dolls – when the best in the biz hit Australia, they know who to call! At home they’ve appeared at the Hoodoo Gurus’ curated festival Dig It Up! as well as under the dome at the world-renowned Sydney Opera House as part of their hometown’s Vivid Festival. Not wanting to leave anyone out, they’ve also proselytised the good word abroad, having toured the UK/EU and the USA widely on numerous occasions and been invited to play at Memphis’ legendary GonerFest. After 11 45s, three albums plus a live LP – released across the USA, the UK and Europe on labels like Goodbye Boozy, Hozac, Spacecase, Agitated, Rice Is Nice, Budget Living and RIP Society – 2024 will see Straight Arrows thrust their fourth album across the globe, and what a feast it is! Entrees in the likes of the resoundingly rapid Fast Product, and the kaleidoscopic psychedelic blast of Walkin Thru My Mind have already delighted underground radio presenters, and audiences across the globe. Just wait until they hear the whole thing! Straight Arrows’ album number four will be available worldwide on record in May 2024, out on Rice Is Nice (Australia), Agitated (UK & EU) and Lollipop Records (North America). Straight Arrows: the fuzziest, most catchiest, escapist, good-times vending, rapscallion trampoline shiners this side of the Murray River” – John Dwyer “A new Straight Arrows record is always something to look forward to. What a great band.” – Henry Rollins
West-coast fever dream denizens Hooveriii have been cracking the cosmic egg for years now, slowly amassing a catalog of releases scrawled with garage, glam, psych-pop and prog. Initially started as the solo guise of Bert Hoover (Jesus Sons, Mind Meld, GROOP), the band has evolved into an enigmatic magnet for L.A. heads and likeminded wanderers as their ranks have swelled and releases grew from bedroom burners to widescreen wonders. Carving their way out of a long tour following the release of their last album, Pointe, the band was instantly ready to return to the task of new material. Self-imposing a tight timeframe, the band wrote the bulk of the new record in in a month and entered John Dwyer’s short-lived, but much loved, psych-punk pressure cooker Discount Mirrors with Eric Bauer at the controls. Making full use of Bauer’s prowess with big, bilious guitars, the resulting Manhunter is one of the band’s most massive records yet. With Bauer behind the boards, the goal was to grow the album’s sound to massive proportions; a record ripped on guitars and fed on amplifier fumes. Not that the band’s light on riffs in their catalog, but here, each song growls with an instinctual catharsis. The tighter turnaround added to a more prominent sense of urgency and an ozone-fried tension in the air. That tension turns the album darker. Fueled by a time of personal upheaval for Hoover, the record’s themes ruminate on discomfort and unease. The darkness smelts with a surreal paranoia that seeps in from van rides and hotel hole-ups spent ingesting dark alleys and double crosses in the films of Michael Mann and William Freidkin. The album’s title nods to Mann’s Manhunter, a film that informed the record’s live wire air and creeping dread. Like their cinematic counterparts, more than a few tracks skid around corners with a look over their shoulder – wild-eyed, popped vein rockers sipping adrenaline by the ounce. True to Hooveriii’s history, the assembled crew have already evolved, but left here in the blast shadow of the session the listener can hear them at their most hackled. Hoover and Matthew Zuk’s guitars have been mutated to monstrous heights by Bauer. Paco Casanova’s synths slither through darkened corners, coiled with menace, and Modaff and Mirblouk anchor the record with the constant crush of rhythm. The band even brings in Sheer Mag’s Kyle Seely to kick the heat and sear a solo on “Heaven At The Gates.” At its core Manhunter devours the speakers, breathless and bitten, but as it skids to a close on the penultimate track, “Godawful Planet,” the band takes a moment of reflection after the caffeinated careen of the last thirteen tracks. The record was written long before the societal walls were as close to crushing as they are now, but even then, the writing on them was apparent. “It’s some God awful planet, “sings Hoover, “I can’t stay.” Truer words, as they say. But, for now, Manhunter’s here to give you a stick to bite on during the dire times. We’re gonna need it.
Who knows what possessed Mick Collins, Kid Congo Powers and Bob Bert to hook up for the Wolfmanhattan Project? But good thing they did, because here we have giddy garage contraption which combines Collins’ sci-fi obsessions, Powers’ hallucinogenic visions and Bert’s power-house pound-along with a hefty helping of fuzzy r ‘n r mayhem. This first full-length follows the “Smells Like You” single from 2015 (included here at track seven) in fine, trippy, weirder-than-you-were-expecting style. The three principals are all legendary in a crusty, underground way. Mick Colllins spliced electric blues to garage stomp in the Gories, then rifled through Motown, Detroit House and Bubblegum in the ever-entertaining Dirtbombs. Kid Congo Powers played a role in two of American punk’s defining outfits, first the Gun Club and then the Cramps; more recently he’s backed Nick Cave in the Bad Seeds and recorded a string of wonderfully warped, tripped out garage albums with the Pink Monkey Birds. Bob Bert was Sonic Youth’s first drummer (before Steve Shelley), and he’s also played with the Chrome Cranks, Pussy Galore and Lydia Lunch’s Retrovirus. (Lunch turns up for a cameo in “Jar in the Staircase.”) That’s a lot of rock and roll history right there, but none of it weighs on their hard-knocking, rough-housing, just-out-of-true grooves. They play hard, with joy and eccentric intelligence right here, right now. – Jennifer Kelly The Wolfmanhattan Project
Independent music mainstays Shannon & The Clams are known for their feel-good, vintage-infused, garage-psych sound. Their sonics go from black and white to technicolor on their forthcoming new album, The Moon Is In the Wrong Place, produced by longtime collaborator Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. Faced with the unimaginable sudden loss of singer-bassist Shannon Shaw’s fiance, Joe Haener, in a car accident weeks leading up to their wedding, the project is a holistic exploration of grief and celebration of life coupled with the most expansive, exciting songs and arrangements of their celebrated catalog. Shaw’s bandmates, guitarist Cody Blanchard, keyboard player Will Sprott, and drummer Nate Mahan, rallied behind her to create their most ambitious, emotionally searing work to date. The title is drawn from a conversation in which Haener, an astrology novice, attempted to ask if Mercury was in retrograde. This ominous precognitive statement became the basis for the record. The Moon Is In the Wrong Place marks Shannon & The Clams’ 7th studio album together and showcases their 15+ years of tight-knit collaboration.
It’s been nearly a decade since Montreal’s PYPY (pronounced like ‘ ‘…with a long ‘i’ or a rather than long ‘e’, thank you very much) landed with their debut Pagan Day (Slovenly), but the same lunatics behind CPC Gangbangs, Red Mass and Duchess Says are back with Sacred Times on Goner Records. One might recall the thunderous pop of their banger She’s Gone carving out a place for itself in the high-end fashion world, becoming the soundtrack to Yves Saint Laurent’s 2016 show. If that album bounced, punched and clawed like Delta 5 covered in dirt and trying to get somewhere in a booted vehicle while dodging lightning rod guitar licks the whole way, Sacred Times takes things to somewhere far beyond the proverbial next level. Co-vocalist/founder/multi-instrumentalist Annie-Claude Deschenes’ (Duchess Says) signature howl and vocal acrobatics are present but so is a tendency towards beautiful melodies. Bassist Philippe Clement’s (Duchess Says) brings a nastier bottom end that locks onto Simon Besre’s drumming with a death grip for the entire affair. And guitarist/ co-vocalist Roy Vucino (Red Mass, CPC Gangbangs, Black Leather Rose, Les Sexareenos, a gazillion others) goes bonkers with wildass blown-out guitar that’s like hornets caught in yr hair. Lonely Striped Sock grooves along like Earthbeat -era Slits/ESG until the chorus transforms PYPY into something else entirely. Something huge. Something with monster riffs and wah wah that pins you to the back wall. So there is clearly a brilliance with dynamics here, and it proves to be a not-so-secret-weapon that repays the ear-vestment in dividends throughout. Then it’s time for She’s Back, a sort of part 2/continuation of Pagan Day’s best-known gem (the aforementioned She’s Gone ). This one packs a hook that’ll make your brain take out a restraining order. Erase is a (synth) noise-punk nugget; revealing a need for Brainiac-meets-Blondie we didn’t know we had…deceptively kicking off with a no-fi drum machine that is immediately lost in the massive pop din. Poodle Escape is two minutes of perfect (and perfectly distorted) synth-punk and I Am A Simulation – with lead vox from Vucino – is yet another hit that deviates from the noise a bit and pays homage to both Devo and classic late-70’s power-pop, but with a manic nature that is 150% circa right now. 15 Sec serves up a stanky-brown bass line, Deschenes’ gorgeous vocals, wonderfully combative white hot guitar rips, and a stunning coda. The album’s title track is a love letter to Hawkwind. Vanishing Blinds is like being chased through the rain-soaked streets in an unknown dystopian nightmare from 40+ years ago. RIYL: Christina Monet, ESG, Oh Sees, Bush Tetras, Lost Sounds, Mercier Descloux/Ze Records, early Comets on Fire, Au Pairs, Brainiac
Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds are on tour to preview their new album “That Delicious Vice” by Kid Congo and The Pink Monkey Birds due out in 2024 on In The Red Records. “That Delicious Vice” is 5th full length album for In The Red Records and marks the band’s first as a 3 piece with legendary Kid Congo Powers (The Gun Club, The Cramps, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds), Mark Cisneros(Hammered Hulls, Des Demonas, The Makeup) and Ron Miller ( Switchitter , Tire Fire) . Recorded in the scorching summer of 2023 in Tucson Arizona at Jim Water’s Waterworks studio, the band were thrilled to collaborate with LA Chicana punk icon, singer of The Bags and author, Alice Bag on songs “Wicked World” and “A Beast, a Priest”. Kid has recently released a memoir “Some New Kind of Kick” on Hachette Books (US) and Omnibus Press (UK) . The Spanish translation “Ese Vicio Delicioso” will be released in October on Liburuak Libros (SP) . The late Mark Lanegan said “They should build Kid Congo Powers his own personal hall of fame. Some New Kind Of Kick is an instant classic of sex, drugs and punk rock by one of underground music’s most legendary kings of cool” . As well Kid has released a recent, rocking “Live in Saint Kilda” album recorded in Australia, out now in In The Red Records . Not to mention the viral sensation of Kid era Cramps tune “Goo Goo Muck” from the Tim Burton Netflix show “Wednesday ” . Yes, the Pink Monkey Birds will be playing the tune!
Levitation Room emerges from the heart of Los Angeles, a city where the weight of fast-paced culture can make your legs feel like pillars, yet this cosmic quartet defies gravity, lifting listeners into a dreamlike state with swirling, mind-expanding soundscapes and thought-provoking lyricism.
Announcing the debut LP from Brigid Dawson & The Mothers Network – “Ballet of Apes”. Tip-top of our osmosis list is the first quiver of tunes from Brigid Dawson and her newly minted Mothers Network: wise warnings dyed in dark hues, knotted and hard-won torch songs from the edge of a turbulent sea, bittersweet balladry spun in defense against evils familiar and unknown. Lovely though it may seem from a distance, the striation of loss quicksilvered throughout provides weighty balance to her contralto lilt. Those familiar with her harmonic counterpoint from her time in Thee Oh Sees or in OCS know she can belt as well as lullaby but there’s a fresh and smolderingly heavy swing in her step on display here that we mightily dig. “Ballet of Apes” tapestries together sessions that read like a who’s who from outside our own castle walls – in Australia with Mikey Young (Total Control/Eddy Current Suppression Ring), in San Francisco with Mike Donovan (ex Sic Alps), Shayde Sartin (ex Fresh & Onlys/lifetime ringer) and Mike Shoun (ex Oh Sees/Peacers), and in Brooklyn with instrumental heavy-weights Sunwatchers – and the results are spellbinding. At the focal point of this maelstrom, our lady, as if illumed by candlelight, intones, pleads, consoles – white magic perhaps but it carries with it the anodized tang of blood. This is thrillingly potent stuff and it’s out on Castle Face May 22 . Matt from Castle Face Records.
Melbourne punk trio CLAMM explore the confusion of what it is to be a young person trying to live an honourable life in this fucked up world. Their songs are about trying to navigate systems of power and oppression while retaining a healthy sense of self and mental health. Community, creativity, and catharsis are what they hope to achieve through their music. They released second album Care in August 2022, via Australian indie institution Chapter Music and UK label Meat Machine. Full of blown-out, dystopian punk power, Care found Double J rotation, was feature album on RRR, PBS, ZZZ, and saw the band score a Spotlight Artist feature on BBC 6 Music with Steve Lamacq. The album reached #4 in the AIR Charts and #19 in the ARIA Australian Albums charts and was written up by the likes of Chicago Reader, NME, Paste, Music Feeds, DIY Mag and Dusted. CLAMM’s 2020 debut album Beseech Me was a Triple R and FBI Radio feature album and sold out its original cassette pressing almost immediately. It was reissued on vinyl in 2021 by Meat Machine (renowned as the home for Canadian art-punk provocateurs Crack Cloud), which saw CLAMM featured on the cover of FrenchRolling Stone and played on BBC 6 Music. In Australia the band has played with Wolf Alice, Ty Segall, King Gizzard, Amyl & the Sniffers, the Chats and the Murlocs, and played festivals like Melbourne Music Week, Tentpole and Do the Pop. CLAMM toured UK/Europe in August 2022, again in February 2023 for shows with A Place To Bury Strangers andPreoccupations, and return for a run of UK/Europe summer festival shows in May 2023 including Wide Awake, Levitation and Badd Bonn. In late 2022 bassist Maisie Everett departed the band, and new member Stella Rennex (Parsnip, Thibault, The Toads) joined the fold. “CLAMM may not be the first group to venture out into the fuzzy Australian wilderness, but…they might just be the best.” – DIY Mag “CLAMM’s storm of cathartic energy disguises how intricately constructed the songs are…both exhilarating and engaging.” – All Music
