Another Punk Rock Saturday!
Pressing play on Nasty Party immediately takes you to those venues where your feet will stick to the floor if you stand in one place for too long. These guys will hit you in your nostalgic faces with the lo-fi punkiness of The Buzzcocks, The Jam, and The Ramones– in fact, you may be so quickly transported back to the early ‘80s that you could miss the resounding themes of “personal liberty and the current state of political discourse” being dumped into your ears. Is it a party? Is it a revolution? Whatever it is, we are all going:
Punk music has always epitomized the DIY mindset. From bands who insist that you make your own merch, to recording an entire album live in the basement with a broken microphone, the idea of a flawless final product is oft seen as abhorrent. These days, however, with so much technology available to the DIY’ers, it has become much easier to add a coat of polish. And then COVID kept everyone at home and many artists buried their noses inside of their DAWs– one of the best things to come out of the pandemic and, likely, the reason we have so many songs to review. This is where Lee Byatt comes in, with his project Hike the Peak. While Lee is no stranger to the punk scene, the isolation forced him to hunker down and sharpen his Logic skills, ultimately resulting in the LP, Only the True Fly Free, stacked with guest vocalists from all over the world. He even made a short documentary that describes the entire process. At less than seven minutes, it’s a quick watch, but also be sure to check out Hike the Peak’s hard-hitting track, “Voiceless,” featuring One Hidden Frame’s Pekka Multaharju:
Finally, from Alberta, Canada, there is Trashed Ambulance who have just released the LP, Future Considerations, on Thousand Islands Records. These guys have been around since 2014, but after a few personnel changes, the world is left with Josh, Ozone, and Rikey. Future Considerations is a collection of twelve cuts with a rhythm section as tight as The Suicide Machines, guitar work akin to Alkaline Trio, and harmonies that are, at times, comparable to, gulp, The Beach Boys. This trio is not a carbon copy of anything I’ve heard before and, as always, it pains me to cheapen their art with comparisons, but if you want some high energy tunes to keep your neighbors awake, look no further:
Until next time, lock your doors, stay hydrated, and thank you for the submissions.
-TM