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« on: March 02, 2019, 06:46:00 AM »
Andy Human & THE REPTOIDS- Psychic Sidekick LP
"Oakland squirm punks Andy Human & The Reptoids are back with another long player and it’s charging through the hallways ripping down your Duran Duran posters and spray-painting DEVO all over the walls. Human (nee Jordan) has been mining the nerd curdle of the ‘80s for some time now, though Psychic Sidekick might be his most complete vision yet. While they’re a bit more constrained than similar t-zone dropouts like Ausmuteants, Timmy Vulgar, or Hierophants – the band doesn’t scrape the glue-soaked freak centers as often as others – they still know how to inject a good dose of plastic shrapnel into their brand of punk. When they’re at their best they’re echoing high quality discomfort warriors like Twinkeyz and Simply Saucer for next gen of back row miscreants and the new LP rounds up quite a lot of their best.
Guitars thrash, a haze of ionospheric synth static rains down, and Jordan’s nasal vocal puncture is exactly what’s called for to keep the insomniac punks running ‘til dawn. This time ‘round they run their tongues over ten tales railing against mind melt of mundanity like it’s a mission statement. The band liquifies the banal cabal surrounding them in their heat vision hooks – jittering and hopping through tracks with freakish glee. If you’ve been stuck and stranded, at loss for a dose of quasar chaos to get you through the day, then I’d heartily recommend at least one daily dose of Reptoids in yer life." - Raven Sings The Blues
"Punk is a unique art-form, in that you pretty much only get worse at it as you go along. Can you think of any punk groups who released their finest work ten years into their career? And yet, Andy Human contradicts this theorem with the last few years of his music, proving that in some rare cases, people can get better at punk. I’m referring to Andy Human’s recent work with The Reptoids: the 2017 single on Total Punk and, in particular, this new full-length. He struts out his punk with a real laissez faire attitude on this one, as though he’s the type of guy who steps on a steaming pile of dog waste on the sidewalk and merely shrugs, not even bothering to find a curb to scrape it on. He shares that attitude with classic groups like Vox Pop and Jet Bronx & The Forbidden, and he shares their sonic template too, one of casual slacker-punk from an era before slackers were a codified thing. With decades’ worth of music history at his disposal, Human borrows liberally from anything that works, like punchy post-punk (“You Like Your Job”), saloon-style piano, the sweltering DIY skank of early Scritti Politti, Iggy Pop’s haircuts from 1979 through 1986, maybe even some of the more offbeat hardcore-related sounds emanating from Southern California circa 1984. Human makes it all work naturally, in what very well might be his finest musical achievement to date. Which, if my calculations are correct, means his next album will be even better."- YellowGreenRed
HEAVY METAL- Too Oz 4 .I.T. 7"
"The ingenious Heavy Metal are without a doubt one of the punkest bands in Europe at the moment, so it’s only fair they were given some airtime on one of the finest purveyors of the craft, Total Punk. Unlike many Total Punk artists, who seem to be in competition with each other to release the shortest 7″ singles possible, Heavy Metal contribute four tunes here, a meaty EP’s worth of their acerbic punk tantrums. At any given moment, it seems as though half of the instruments being performed are fully synthetic in nature, which lends Heavy Metal their own unique luster – the bass could be a four-stringed Fender blasting out of a crusty amp, or merely the lowest keys on a child’s Casio run through effects – who knows for sure? It’s a great sound, and Heavy Metal make excellent use of it here, writing songs that are 75% repetitive hook, 25% attitude. I’ve found myself singing along to “Overtime”, and I don’t even know the words! The vocal delivery reminds me more than a little of Ed Schrader this time around, which is particularly effective on “Gasmask Factory II”, a putrid strut that verges on the mean-spirited electro-sass of Virgin Mega Whore. Or maybe some sort of crime-ridden collaboration between Le Shok and FNU Ronnies? No matter how you slice it, Too OZ 4 I.T. is one of the more essential Total Punks in recent memory."- YellowGreenRed