Woodboot's Doing The Crime Time

Seriously, can Woodboot get any more diseased? Since the Brisbane band started out some years ago as a passing concern, the core duo of Dan and Julien cranking out scuzzed out garage punk, they have grown like an Akira homunculus, sucking in Sam McKenzie (Sulphur Lights/Occults) on second axe bludgeoner duties and Donnie Miller (No Anchor/Roku Music/Forevr) eschewing guitars and smashing the kit like the reprobate Troglodyte that he is. Crime Time is the fetid result. Each song is all about brevity with a mainline blast of fuck-you punk, tearing viscera through their serrated sawing and heckling howls. Songs like ‘Trash Dump’ is the kind of punk we hear a lot of around Brisbane parts, from the 70s punch of The Leftovers to the cartoonish chaos of Undead Apes and everything in between, but then you get to the killer slack-jawed, legs-splayed power punk of ‘Prison Planet’, all jagged edges and dripping Neanderthal fangs, that the transmogrified remnants of the likes of Hank Wood, Circle Jerks and the Spits are ripping through the entrails of the four-piece, a chest-burster showing the diseased intent within. ‘Gut You’ is fucking feral, all blood-vessel searing feedback and three-chord torture, throats being shredded almost out of psychopathic glee. ‘I’m Gonna Push You In Front Of The Bus’ is, despite of its name, a more “pop-oriented” punk blast, a Ramones template lynched and dragged along the bitumen behind a busted-up V8, some semblance of attractive melody showing beneath the blood and gashes. I can even hear ‘Return Of The Rat’ in Crime Time’s insistence that there should be rhythm underneath the sledgehammer-and-kerosene debris, if somewhat used and abused.

I’m proud to know Woodboot – I'll do time for them for sure.

Backwards Looking Forwards 2011 - Pow Wows, The Spits, Acid Kicks, High Wolf

Here's a few more sweet rekkids from last year that you really should dip into...


Pow Wows is a Toronto band who put out the great Nightmare Soda on Get Hip. The band actually recorded this way back in 2010, but its release some months later has done nothing to dilute its seedy goodness. In fact, I put this alongside Natural Child's 1971 as a companion piece of slacker garage, and as that album was in my best of 2011 list you can bet your bottom dollar Nightmare Soda would have made the cut if discovered earlier. Plus, 'Do The Splash' is my belated fave track of 2011. Not really, but it is a killer track, for drinking booze in the pool in these summer months, which has happened on occasion. Try it - its good for you.

Pow Wows - EIO (During The Flood)
Pow Wows - Do The Splash


I told you about a High Wolf release that Bathetic put out early last year. Well, the demented guru put out a longplayer at the tail end of 2011 called Atlas Nation. It is the typical waterlogged mantra drone fare that High Wolf dishes out, but after getting loose to Pow Wows and doing the splash, it's a great come down. Atlas Nation is available through Holy Mountain.

High Wolf - Raagini


But there is only so much spacing out one can take, and that's where The Spits' V comes in. A harder, vitriolic Ramones, Seattle's fave purveyors of garage gutter punk delivered an album that was straight outta New York circa 1981. It's unashamedly in LOVE with the leather smell of Johnny and his bros - something a few Brisbane bands can definitely sympathise with - and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.

The Spits - All I Want
The Spits - Fed Up

Mark's Sultanic Mish Mash, Whatever And Whenever He Wants It

Mark Sultan does like to rub people up the wrong way. That said, Ive spoken to the guy a few times and found him to be an ace dude. Fair dues. The fact is, he has been thrashing the garage flag here, there and everywhere for a very long time, and is consistently producing top-shelf stuff. He is releasing two albums, titled Whatever I Want and Whenever I Want respectively. Both will come out on vinyl on In The Red Records. However, you can get a conglomeration of both albums in one package called Whatever/Whenever. Its got 7 tracks from each album, so it's basically a sampler. Really, it is good. But you need to get the albums and hear the 12 other tracks left behind! There are some Bobby Darin/Buddy Holly ghost harbouring on there, alongside many other rad touchstones, and if that sounds exciting (which it fucking should), invest. It covers every gamut of rock music, has collabs from members of Black Lips and The Spits, and promises to be seven shades of brown awesomeness.

Mark Sultan - Let Me Freeze
Mark Sultan - Axis Abraxas
Mark Sultan - Sing In Grey