Another World (The Best of The Archives) - Paul Collins & The Beat (Alive Natural Sound)

Paul Collins must be a hoarder. Probably a bit of OCD in there too, if you’ll excuse the long-distance and unqualified psychoanalysis. It goes with the pop songwriter turf. And this collection of previously unreleased recordings attests to it.

These songs are from Collins' sock drawer and they go all the way back to 1980. Don't let the demo quality of some of them deter you. There's more than the occasional fleck of gold among the 18 tunes. In fact, it's a rich vein. For example, "Hey DJ" outstrips the previously released version - by a long way.

Twisted - Plastic Section (Outtaspace)

Two salient points need to be made:

If you're going to tap a source, go back to the original.

And there ain’t nothing plastic about this Melbourne trio's sound.

Think Flat Duo Jets, the early White Stripes, Link Wray & The Raymen and BBQ to name a few. While you're at it, you can throw in that catch-all descriptor "Crampsian". In a big way...

Lovegrinder The Album – Lovegrinder (self released)

There’s a popular theory - perpetuated by a few fans of Junkie Rock from Australia’s southern state's capital city – that the so-called salad days of Sydney underground rock and roll were a farrago based on an overdose of second-rate Radio Birdman copyists. 

Call it a typically defensive Sydney response but while the "Detroit" handle became a tag of convenience, most of the Harbour City’s bands of the 1980s/early ‘90s had tenuous musical links to the Birdmen. There was a handful of short-lived clones, but for the vast majority it was the energy and undeniable fuck-you-we’ll-do-what-we-want attitude of the Radios that were the hand-me-downs, and not their unique, impossible to replicate mutated musical mix.

Which brings us to Lovegrinder, yet another in the long line of Sydney bands that never progressed higher than the lower support rungs of the very crowded local live scene ladder. Not that there’s any great shame in that. For many, headlining the Tivoli or Selina’s wasn’t the goal because they had no interest in being on the rosters of the omnipotent Dirty Pool, Nuclear or Harbour booking agencies. Playing music was more about knocking around with their mates, consuming beers (or something illicit) and having a good time.

Rough And Tumble - The Dirty Streets (Alive Naturalsound)

They might not realise it but Califonian label Alive Naturalsound have cornered the market in hirsute bands playing psych-laced, Southern fried boogie rock with a dash of soul. The Dirty Streets might be the label's archetypal flag-fliers.

They lack the massive guitar jam excesses of Radio Moscow, the rustic dryness of the early Black Keys or the home-grown stoner full-tilt boogie strut of Left Lane Cruiser (all of them label mates, past or present) but The Dirty Streets share the same zipcode.

Ready Steady Go - The Dirty Denims (Ghost Highway Recordings)

Hello Barflies! Well folks, The Farmhouse windows have been getting a battering from some great fucking rock 'n' roll from The Netherlands. The Dirty Denims have released their third album (with a couple of EPs before that) and what a dead-set heavy hitter it is.

"Ready Steady Go" is, from the opening self titled track to the very last song, a killer. Miriam Sieben (vocals and piano), Jeroen Teunis (guitars), Suzanne Driessen (drums and sexiness) and Marc Eijkhout (bass) have definitely let all their influences come into the studio with them. Think early AC/DC meets The Runaways with a dash of Ramones and Nashville Pussy.

Beast - Pussycat And The Dirty Johnsons (Hound Gawd) 

There’s more fuzz on this than a box of rotting fruit in a share house kitchen. Two guitars, drums, no bass, simple punk rock songs and Puss Johnson’s tuneful, yet in-your-face, vocal is a monstrously good combination.

“Beast” is 12 songs by a UK band with a venomous sound on a German label. Who says Brexit is a thing? 

The back story is that guitarist Dirty Jake formed the band in 2002 but it took eight years to find Puss Johnson’s vocal and a more or less settled line-up. Two years later, their bass player was given the flick and The Dirty Johnsons continued as a trio. So they pre-date Amyl and The Sniffers - who are an obvious comparator - by a fair stretch.