Blammo

Reviews

Blammo / Riboflavin split LP

Excellent split record from two Atlanta bands with shared members and similar slacker indie meets Swiss punk influences. The track listing volleys back and forth between bands, but the laid-back art-punk vibes remain the same, with BLAMMO more on the LILIPUT and CHIN CHIN influence side, while RIBOFLAVIN evokes a slightly atonal, shambolic PAVEMENT via K Records feel. It’s a great lo-fi indie punk record that flows perfectly and manages to capture an uplifting and timeless nostalgic mood without feeling contrived or corny. Not an easy feat, and both bands do it really well.

Blammo Onomatopoeia LP

A few years after unleashing their demo (or rather, Demmo) on the world, Atlanta art-punks BLAMMO are back with a pretty fab vinyl debut. A handful of tracks from Demmo reappear in new and improved forms on Onomatopoeia, and as a whole the trio sounds a little more controlled and concise this time around, but thankfully without completely tidying up the core elements of ramshackle oddness that are clearly hardwired into their collective DNA. The wildly tumbling rhythms and bassist Sarah’s jittered shrieks and sarcastically-edged yelps in “Get Along” and “Nickel” actualize the possible outcomes of PINK SECTION having come up through the New York no wave scene (or Atlanta’s punk underground in 2021; time is a circle), and “Im Nebel,” with its vocals entirely auf Deutsch, stark and trebly guitar, and a martial all-snare beat pushing everything along like factory machinery, is BLAMMO’s obvious love letter to the NDW/German-language post-punk tradition of bands like CARAMBOLAGE and LILIPUT. But even when they go comparatively linear, like with the barely minute-long “early K Records without the Peter Pan complex” primitive pop bash-and-twang of “Best Advice,” BLAMMO is still throwing plenty of signals to the weirdos. All of that, and limited to only 100 copies—things that future cult DIY obscurities are made of.