A Familiar Yet Refreshing Sojourn Down Sonic Avenues

I have had Television Youth, the ace record from Canadian punks Sonic Avenues, in my inbox for months (it came out in January). I was meant to post about it for The Styrofoam Drone (amongst a plethora of things - sorry Zac, I'll be back on top of things in the upcoming week!), yet it fell through the cracks (expect to see the Happy New Year/Nite Fields split 7" soon though). This is a great album though, and it has jumped on my hunched back and beat me around the ears insistently this week, so I thought I better purge by vomiting it all over you, beautifully warped listener. It harkens back to days when punk was really just anarchic rock - The Clash, The Jam, The Ramones. Yet it shines a light on many of the shitty things that slacker kids can find themselves latching on to - namely, apathy. Above all though, it is the romantic notion of hope rising out of the angst that is most endearing. This is no throwback, it is merely a bunch of dudes writing a brace of killer songs that refuse to not kick arse. Actually, maybe that is a throwback...


Television Youth is available through Dirtnap Records.

Sonic Avenues - Givin' Up On You
Sonic Avenues - Television Youth

Friday Cover Up - Humanoids Get Super Sedated

I'm not sure what you guys will think of this. Hell, I'm not even sure I like it. But the premise of the Friday Cover Up has always been to highlight versions of songs that are infinitely different, or that the band makes their own. This version of the Ramones' classic is certainly the former. However, Superhumanoids are a band well-versed in crafting weird soundscapes that defies categorisation, so really any track they attack will be skewed into some other beast altogether. This track is offers dreamy inertia - the sedation is well and truly in effect. The best thing (and this is entirely my own opinion) is that they do make it their own - because it's a totally new song. People will cry defamation and high treason, holler bloody murder - but if you are gonna take on the greats, don't try to match it. My hat is tipped, Superhumanoids

Hate mail is encouraged, children...

Superhumanoids - I Wanna Be Sedated (Ramones cover)

Have a good weekend!

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

Deafened By Undead Apes

Its still two months until the Mere Noise Meltdown comes to our shores, but I thought Id spend each week looking at a band that will be playing it, giving them the individual work over that they deserve.

Brisbane has been a veritable hotbed for diseased, rabid punk in all its guises, and one of the greatest exponents of this in past few years has been Undead Apes. Their take on balls to the wall punk follows in the vein of NY idols The Ramones, and their debut album of last year Grave Consequences was pretty stellar, yet they have gone and pissed all over it with their newie, Killed By Deaf. It was recorded in the back rooms of Tym Guitars and mixed by Eddy Current Suppression Ring's Mikey Young. AS stated by the PR, "If Grave Consequences was a long black then Killed By Deaf is a double shot espresso and a kick in the nuts - 14 songs, 19 minutes you do the math." The coffee references aside - the band really do step up to the plate for some real genital roughhousing - expect many lineages to be abruptly ended when the needle drops.

People of earth can pre-order the vinyl version of this great new record in a limited edition pack right now from here, where you can get a range of awesome presents like an exclusive T-shirt, a hand screened and numbered "glow in the dark" poster and exclusive bonus tracks! PLUS you get an immediate download of the record!! That IS goddamn tasty! So have at it plebs!

Undead Apes - Brain Drain