Beaters / Prize Pets - Split

Here's another split LP from Palmist. I'm enjoying their split series. It seems pretty unpredictable, genre-wise, but the bands are always pretty well matched with one another and the standard stays high. On the Prize Pets side we've got some totally catchy slacker indie/garage rock type stuff from these Nottingham/London-based scamps. Kind of like if Let's Wrestle were less annoying, maybe? The lead guitar work has some lovely kind of Urusei Yatsura shades to it and the songs are totally bouncy and fun. Kind of a mix of '80s pop punk and '90s indie rock...'Sun Sick' would fit right into any indie disco DJ set. Genuinely endearing stuff. Flip it and we've got a Californian post-punk band called Beaters. These guys are pretty interesting. They've got insistent 4/4 beats and monotonous one-note grooves with weird vocals over the top. Kind of like if Black Eyes had happened in the mid-'80s...you know, that same confrontational experimentalism but with synthesisers as well as guitars contributing to the mush of noise. Kind of like if Sunshine were much more garagey, too, if you remember them? Or maybe a less theatrical Phantom Limbs? They're quite melodically focused and simple songs, but with some brilliantly out-there tones, like the past and the future tumbling off a cliff together locked in a death grip. Once again, Palmist get it right.