Skull Kontrol, "Camouflage"

Monorchid sequel approaches supergroup status, implodes. Thomson–Thompson dualism goads the fruitful collision of everything clouding its hindsight — DC, SD, Delta 72, Universal Order of Armageddon — and overcommits to neither "chaotic" formulae nor their sassy white-belt sanitizing. Even Froberg skulks, serpentine, in the back room. Braintrust?

"Camouflage"

BRUNCH: Electric Eels

Gruff glam slop, pre-anything. Form and content, if nothing else, careen in perfect Cuyahogan communion: nuclear destructovisions, tension, and bile. Cut it, press it, distribute it.

"Cyclotron"
"Agitated"

Waifle, "Calling You Ten Nights in a Row"

Pained breakfast violence straight from the griddle. Another version graced the seven-inch that both constituted and exhausted the genre; this one will do. A study in contrasts: earnest but absurd, plenty "tight" but steadily rushing the breaking point. Cereal everywhere.

"Calling You Ten Nights in a Row"

Double Dagger, "No Allies"

Isolationist harborcore scorns strength in numbers. Four strings only, abetted by their good friend the fuzzbox: technical savvy flourishes in and around limited means, perfectly apportioned, tactically deployed. Hip-shaking in its own way: an anthem by which to slay the gentry. The name, though, is pure shop talk: they're typographers.

"No Allies"

BRUNCH: The Nutley Brass

Every schoolchild should have this one.

Fiend Club Lounge

Red Eye, "Scarlet Night"

Non-obvious soundtracking from Ulysses ex-pat. Near-motorik organization arises from dilatory intro, signals crossing and swerving. Canonically imperfect grrrl voice — Sharon Cheslow's, specifically — duels with electronics atop the glorious repetition, some 3000 miles from the embassy.

"Scarlet Night"

The Crabs, "Market Size"

K-pop surf and turf with faith in the backbeat. Wickedest Farfisa in the West, to be sure, nudging the bass guitar still further into irrelevance. Maritime twee for a summer of shellfish.

"Market Size"

Reagan SS, "Pests"

Unreconstructed. Certainly the best SS squad — Dearborn, Tampere, Black, etc. — despite, or on the strength of, their relative parsimony. Old sounds new, and somehow angrier still. Eureka.

"Pests"

BRUNCH: Sno*Boy

Lilting indie with Tullycraft ties but fewer manias: lazy, lame, but sanguine all the same. Loose, levitating ditties burn slow, drift toward casual climax. Protracted somewhat, but thoroughly pleasing, the scrappy rejoinder to what easily, bloatedly passes muster under that compromised flag.

"Mow Your Lawn"
"Parris Song"
"Glittertop"
"Bubblegum"
"Dragstrip Prizer"
"The Problem with 5"
"Stay"
"Something Special"

Lost in Bazaar, "Akdeniz"

Shambling shardcore, a farrago of flavors swirling and recombining with the tide. Not unlike La Quiete, but viciously original: 'cross the Adriatic, 'cross the Aegean, something is right. From the still-warm demo, which begs the question of what could possibly be in store.

"Akdeniz"

Weekend Nachos, "Trapped in a Scene"

One-time two-piece PV square pegs. Toward a methodology of organization: an indictment: power violence as marketing scheme: "Hide behind your genre, no need to be real / You'll all move on in less than a year." Lifers here.

"Trapped in a Scene"