Ivy’s self-titled 12”, released this week on Katorga Works, builds on the promise of their demo from 2013. The band, comprised of members of NYC and upstate New York acts such as Brown Sugar, Deformity, and Weird TV, plays a hard to pinpoint style of garage hardcore punk that is distinctively weird. Ivy stands out among their NYC peers in terms of sound, and is probably closest to sounding like Nola’s Mystic Inane, in their off-kilter lo-fi hardcore sound that is at once challenging and immediately accessible. The extent of their similarity stops there, though. Some of the guitar punk of Utah Jazz – who also features a member of Brown Sugar – can be heard mangled into the Ivy sound, but it becomes mixed into a more crushing beat and smeared with strange sounds and loses all recognizability. A better comparison for Ivy might be to a combination of the sounds of Slices and United Mutation, but again these are more accurate comparisons in their atypicality than sheer sound. While the demo featured an interesting sound, the production wasn’t great and the songs didn’t really live up to their potential. The EP features new tracks and improved versions of a number of the demo tracks, including a better version of the highlight of that release: Antsy. The effect is impressive, and more than overcomes any shortcomings of the demo to create something that is exceedingly fun and unique – something that becomes harder and harder with the sheer number of acts coming out of NYC and New York state these days. A full download of the EP is available below.

full download, courtesy of icoulddietomorrow/Katorga Works:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/uvd11ju48v2wth1/Ivy+-+Self+Titled+%28katorgaworks.bigcartel.com%29.zip