Pocket Croc Manateees

When you hear the name Manateees, what do you think of? I think either of Animal Collective when they were truly bizarre and inventive (and at time indecipherable and unlistenable) or Rick & Morty for some reason – the drawn out e’s should be uttered with maniacal glee. Because listen to Memphis punks Manateees, there is nothing off the table – instead its been plunged in a gravel & spit mixer and vomited on a graffiti-marred wall in garish, visceral colours. Case in point – their new release, Croc N My Pocket. You can see the impressions of Jack Oblivian’s fingerprints on this dissonant gems, but Manateees are adept at breaking their own rules without rough royal help, thank you very much. ‘Under The Gun’ is the perfect bitter cyanide pill impossible not to swallow, but everything here is some shade of golden – especially love the grinding, gurning and mating with prog metal interlude ‘River Of Death,’ the death dirge 'Witch', and the galloping rock and low-down whistles (and jaw harp?) of ‘On The Run’. I think Croc N My Pocket isn’t as depraved as, say, Soupcans (who we spoke about earlier this week), or as abrasive as Wet Ones (another band mentioned recently), but Manateees have their own bent brand to bear that is infectious and infecting. They are all kinds of insane, and therefore all kinds of awesome. Grab Croc N My Pocket through 12XU here.

A Soft Party Needs Hard Soupcans

The past couple weeks I’ve gone from wistful guitar pop to sandpaper-to-the-face punk based on a bevy of acrid releases by the likes of Wet Ones and Chrome Cranks. Prepare to up the ante then, as I have just gotten my fetid paws on Soft Party, the misanthropic noise record from Toronto’s Soupcans. Going from breakneck speed punk (‘Razor Face’, ‘Crimes 1’) to Cro-Magnon thump and run (‘Psychosomatic Rash’) the album has everything. There are touchstones to The Bronx (‘DOB’) and Pissed Jeans (‘Nice Nife’, ‘Soft Party’ – my favourite tracks here), but Soft Party is as relentless as they come, covering the gamut of anguish and anger with every diseased and distorted aesthetic they can get their grubby lips around. A couple of sub-minute thrash punk tracks here, some doom’n’dirge there – you will only find Soupcans inhabiting the lowest forms, devolving even as they evolve, living off the detritus of the human condition. It’s great.

Hits From The Box #83 - Still Kickin'

It was my Dad's 60th on Thursday. I'm currently at Hervey Bay in an apartment overlooking the ocean, drinking a beer. Seems weird that I'm benefiting from Dad's birthday - but then again I guess I am every day (awwww...) He's having a lie down now, so I'm here with a cool brew and an hour to kill. Sounds like it's time to trawl through the ever expanding inbox...

Canada's Geyser have a tasty 12" EP out which starts out with a killer angular garage rock track ('Feel It All Day'), pare it back with a slightly darker meander through the paint cans and charlatans ('Copper Wish') before launch into a lecherous lurch through the B-side ('Jocko', 'Junkie'). The bottom end bass is the true centrifugal force here, propelling everything forward with a cocky jaunt that feels almost comical in the quieter moments, yet is totally vindicated when everything explodes/implodes. And the vocals go from crooning, to maniacal screaming, to carnivalesque chanting of "junkies" like they are a sideshow attraction -which they pretty much are. Good stuff.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I threw on Two, the new album from Chicago band Owls. The cover art is all kinds of ridiculous (a battered, blood smeared Noel Gallagher is kinda funny though). But as soon as the chugging guitar and hypnotic trance combine on killer opening track 'Four Weeks Of Art...' (all songs end with ellipses...), I knew I was a winner. I had no idea that Owls were a band some ten years or more ago, let alone that it included Tim Kinsella of Joan Of Arc. Makes sense though - Two is an album of constant contradiction - its an angular rock album that refuses to rock out; its an amiable pop record that refuses to be anything by cryptic; it's an accessible guitar band that continues to confound with hiccupping breaks and half-turns; Kinsella's lyrics are at once personable and impenetrable. Basically, it's Two. And I'm happy with that.

Pittsburgh lurkers Shaky Shrines have this five track EP Hocus Bogus coming out very soon, and it's a slick piece o work, wavering between organ-fuelled garage punk, Rocket From The Crypt style ('Shower Curtain'), to more windows-down-driving-through-the-night-with-a-sultry-mistress-and-blazed-on-high-quality-stimulants grooves ('Hypnotic Eyes', 'Beyond The Door') and something that brings them together in the rocking, psych tinged 'Black SUV' and 'White Work Van'. Nice.

Shaky Shrines - Hypnotic Eyes Visualizer from Justin A Nixon on Vimeo.

Back to Canada now (Toronto to be exact) to dirty everything right up with Soupcans. These degenerates wail about in crude oil and caviar, spit firewater into baby's eyes, tear the habits of nuns and choke strippers with them - its real bottom of the barrel kind of misanthropism. And as Parasite Brain attests, it's also fucking amazing. This is too hardcore to be hardcore - it's the theme tune of a disintegrating serial sodomizer. And again, I'm totally fine with that. Ill even pick up the cheque. Great, evil stuff.

Here's a nice swatch of dream pop from Melbourne courtesy of Vulpix. His Swarms Ep is a sonorous sweep of reverb stasis, ebbing and flowing from one languid memory to another in an opaque fog. It's like a lot of other dreampop bedroom wanderers then? No - the sound is crystalline, there is personality climbing out from behind the subconscious curtain of warbled guitar, there is even a little bit of humour. A confident tip of the hat to his forebears - now let's see what Vulpix brings us next.

Let's finish back in Chicago tonight with the swirling squall of The Thons. This band kinda remind me of The Thermals, if they were actually The Intelligence. Which means they are so so rad. I only have Real Raw Rock, but their newer record Thirty Foot Snake is also out - and I can't imagine it straying far from the path of this killer record. This has been a stellar Hits From The Box, but I think I'm ending with the high here. Slightly unhinged, slightly relentless, totally addictive. Get it here. Listen to BOTH ALBUMS below!




Happy Saturday everyone!