Drive You Mad - The Sunday Reeds (self released)

Well, The Farmhouse has been rocking, again. "Drive You Mad" is the new EP from the fabulous The Sunday Reeds from Adelaide. This six-track EP is a cracker.

Led by Romana Ashton (vocals and bass) this trio is rounded out by Drew Jones (guitar) and Sarah "Shakey" Portaro (drums.)  Let me say this: they are crazy-good live. I've seen them supporting some of Australia's finest bands - Exploding White Mice, Radio Birdman and Hitmen DTK just to name a few - and they hold their own with catchy songs, pounding bass and some great guitar. "Drive You Mad" captures their live sound so well.

Five Things - Smalltown Tigers (Area Pirata Records)

There’s nothing new in rock and roll. The same goes for punk rock. So get over it. Reinvention has always been a constant and the trick to being good at the caper is adding as your own unique ingredient.

“Five Things” is eight songs from three Italian girls calling themselves Smalltown Tigers. They come from Romagna in the country's north-east, cut their teeth playing Ramones songs at squats and beach parties and went into a studio in 2019, under the production hand of Stiv Cantarelli.

They're only been around a couple of years but you wouldn't know it. With a single in the racks before this, "Five Things" swaggers with confidence and loads of energy. It would be politically incorrect to say the girls have good looks on their side as well, so we won't. Image counts for much in rock and roll.

Home, James And Don’t Spare the Horse Power - Anytime James (self released)

The dictionary defines “raunch” as “energetic earthiness; vulgarity”, and the second album from Anytime James has it in bucketloads. 

Anytime Who? Read on.

Anytime James is an outfit of musicians from the Far North Coast of New South Wales, assembled and led by former Asteroid B612 guitarist Michael Gibbons. At the risk of (more) accusations of hype, let's toss caution to the metaphorical breeze and say Anytime James might be the best band you've never heard of. Here's why.

Pyongyang Kaengsaeng! - The Dry Retch (Stalingrad) 

The UK owes the world an enduring apology for afflicting it with insipid shit like Robbie Williams, but there are signs of redemption if you look hard.  You’ll find it seeping out of the cracks in footpaths in big cities outside London, where high-energy outsider bands like The Hip Priests (Nottingham) and Black Bombers (Birmingham) hold the line. From one such dark fissure in Liverpool comes The Dry Retch.

You’ll know the back-story if you saw our recent review of their Stooges-obsessed “A Kick in the Gulags” EP.  “Pyongyang Kaengsaeng!” (allegedly Korean for “really shitty car” - would Little Rocket Man lie?) is their latest album - and it was launched on the undercard of a 2020 Brian James Q and A in Nottingham, no less. If tender balladry is your thing, look away, now.

Howlin’ Threads - Howlin’ Threads (Meinshaft Records) 

The ability of rock and roll bands to shed limbs that regenerate themselves is a thing of eternal wonder. From the The Undermines, out of Canberra - and many years prior, The Fools, from Newcastle - spring Howlin’ Threads, a no-nonsense guitar band from the Wollongong and Canberra regions, packing a self-titled debut EP.

These “Howlin’ Threads” are yet to play a show - they were supposed to debut in June in Wollongong before The ‘Rona had other ideas - but clearly have their shit together in the studio. Their music ticks boxes familiar to any I-94 Bar patron. It’s flashing back to high-energy Sydney, circa the late ‘80s with nods to all the usual suspects, but a notch above the imitators that abounded back then.

A Kick in the Gulags - The Dry Retch (Stalingrad Records)

A six-song EP with five of the tracks being Stooges songs never committed to tape in a studio? What are we gonna say if they're done well? 

The Dry Retch come from Liverpool in the UK and they ain’t The Beatles. They are two guitars, a kicking engine room and a truckload of dirt. They are committed Stooge-ophiles (a previous line-up released an EP with the title “Plays The Stooges”.)

Principal member John Retch (vocal and guitar) grew up in Australia where he was exposed to high-energy sounds. He played in a stack of local UK bands and this 2019 EP revived The Dry Retch with a tweaked line-up. Stooges apart, the band's other listed influences are Chrome Cranks, The MC5, Mudhoney, Radio Birdman, Destroy All Monsters, Thee Hypnotics, Cosmic Psychos, the New York Dolls and the Brian James Gang. As Sir Les Paterson would say: "Are you following me, son?"