Gonzo: Do It Better Again 12” (Anti-Fade) Second album from this Australian band, though it’s the first time I’ve heard them. With a pronounced Neu-type Krautrock groove, Gonzo reminds me of Light Up Gold-era Parquet Courts, Uranium Club, and Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s less pop-oriented songs. I love this sound—it’s propulsive, energetic, meditative, and melodic all at the same time—but you have to be a great band to pull it off. First off you need an outstanding drummer, but everyone in the band needs to be a metronomically tight but very restrained player. Gonzo, despite their name, have all of these. They also have a great vocalist and one of the best-sounding recordings I’ve heard, all of which contribute to Do It Better Again being a perfect record for a warm spring day like the one we’re having here in North Carolina right now.

Corner Boys: Waiting for 2020 12” (Drunken Sailor) After two 7”s here’s the debut album from this Vancouver punk band. Waiting for 2020 has UK 1978 written all over it. Like the Lurkers, the Users, or the Cortinas, Corner Boys attack their music with rambunctious energy and an obvious love for simple and catchy pop songs. While the vocalist is monotone and the rhymes can be leaden, the lack of professional polish only increases the record’s charm. And when they hit upon a striking melody (like the lead guitar riff in the Undertones-esque “Norman”) you root for them like they’re an underdog team. That’s not to say that Corner Boys are sloppy and amateurish, rather that there’s a human touch to their music I very much appreciate. If you loved ’77 throwback from the early 00s (particularly the Briefs) but eventually found that sound too polished, this is well worth a listen.

Negative Space: Cruelty 12” (Drunken Sailor) Second 12” from this excellent UK hardcore / post-punk band. Their brand of heavy, anarcho-fueled post-punk (or is it the other way around?) might not be what we expect from Drunken Sailor (a label like Iron Lung or La Vida Es Un Mus would seem more appropriate), but hopefully copies of this record find their way into appreciative hands. If you like Bad Breeding, Institute, and/ or Ex-Cult your hands may qualify as such, because Cruelty sounds kind of like those three bands thrown into a blender. Like Institute and Ex-Cult they’re fond of riding a groove for a long time without getting monotonous, and as with Bad Breeding they layer distorted, echo-drenched whooshing noises over their jams. It’s sort of like if Flux of Pink Indians jumped on stage at a Gang of Four gig and everyone locked into a dense and psychedelic super-jam. My only complaint about Cruelty is that it’s so short, but it’s always a good policy to leave the audience wanting more.

Ausmuteants: Present the World in Handcuffs 12” (Anti-Fade) For a while there you couldn’t walk into your local record store without tripping over a new Ausmuteants release, but the band has been quiet for the past couple of years. The World in Handcuffs breaks the silence, and I think it’ll please existing fans while also giving them something a little different. Ausmuteants is very much the same band playing the same jittery, confrontational synth-punk that gained them worldwide popularity, but this album feels a little more mature. The tempos are less manic, the songs more varied, and the big, melodic synth lines that used to be Ausmuteants’ calling card sit further back in the mix. Most interestingly, this is a concept record from a cop's perspective. The ten tracks on the album present a three-dimensional portrait, but it’s clear that the author is not a fan. Another noteworthy fact about this record is that the same music appears on both sides, albeit in a different running order and one side has skits and the other doesn’t. When I read this, I thought said skits would be long and/or annoying, but they aren’t. I prefer the side without the skits, but only because the running order seems to have a more natural ebb and flow to it. Even if you feel like you already have enough Ausmuteants records in your collection, I’d encourage you to check this out if you’re a fan, as it shows the band progressing without losing what you liked about them.

Brandy: Clown Pain 7” (Total Punk) While this is Brandy’s second 7”, this is the first time I’ve heard them and I know virtually nothing about them. Their meat and potatoes garage-punk is a good fit for Total Punk’s roster, though. While these two songs aren’t brimming with surprises, they’re built around cool riffs and vocal melodies, the playing is loose and full of swagger, and the recording has noise rock levels of density. This is the kind of record that seems to go in one ear and out the other, but then when you’re humming one of the tracks three days later you realize it’s awesome and it secures a place in your regular rotation.

Knowso: Like a Buzz 7” (Total Punk) In case you don’t know, there are three bands—Knowso, Perverts Again, and Cruelster—that share members and have a similar sound, which is one of the weird, most distinctive, and most fascinating sounds in contemporary punk. They use stiff rhythms comparable to early Devo and they share that band’s dark sense of humor, but they sound nothing like the Coneheads or other contemporary bands who rep their Devo influence. You just have to hear them to understand, and either you’ll dismiss this whole crew as total idiots or you’ll hail them as the geniuses they are and greet each new release with Christmas morning levels of excitement. I’m in the latter camp. This music is so unique, but aside from saying it’s great I can never seem to find the words to describe how cool it is. So give this a listen. If you like it, there’s more where this came from. And hopefully this crew will continue to bend our minds for a long time.