Exwhite is a German punk band out of Halle (Saale) that is basically just one guy named Jonas, plus whoever else has a free weekend on their calendar when he is in the mood to record. Jonas has recorded a bunch of short albums under the name Exwhite, all of which are lofi and half-drowned in cheap beer. He's cultivated a lightly comedic personality for his music which matches his spastic playing style and tantrum-like vocals pretty effectively in that it makes songs about peeing on your friends and beating kids with bats come across as both not-insane and non-threatening. His latest EP Estray is intriguing in that is more mature than his past work without sacrificing any of the project's essential excentricities. The album opens with "Conspiracy Theory," which sounds like a lost but integral Soviettes single, performed with maximum urgency and a winding sense of dread. Melancholia seems to be the definitive nature and design of these songs, giving the project a freshly dried coat of lugubrious, and bringing it within deadly proximity to gravely dower post-punk in the vein of early Ice Age- especially on the grime blitz and spiral of "A Die." This saturating sadness even permeates buzzy hook hoppers like "True Love" and the dizzy filth fountain "On The Street." Although, not for the worse. The era of garage punk that Exwhite still finds purchase within had plenty of sad songs, many of which defined its peak of cultural relevance. You don't need to look much further than Jay Reatard's Watch Me Fall to find proof of this fact. It's unexpected given the downright silliness of his past work with Exwhite to see Jonas take the project in this direction, but it's a welcome development to see him giving his McLusky-esque raconteurism a little more emotional bandwidth to work with and dramatic weight to throw around. Estray does pry its way out of Exwhite's settled sonic territory, but if a project is going to grow, it has to find the space to do it in. It's a move that's definitely warranted in my opinion, especially after hearing the results.
