Hot on the heels of the début single "Surf Bomb" comes the début album "Zomboid Surf Attack" and I've been shimmying around the sitting room in me grass skirt ever since its arrival. On an ironing board. Released on Sharawaji Records, it's available on limited edition CD in sexy digipak and digital download for all those impatient bastards that don't see the attraction of having 4.7 inches of pleasure in their hands. I know a CD is 4.7 inches because I measured one with my shlong. Form an orderly queue ladies. Anyway, now that I've seduced everyone, there are riffs aplenty to be had here and oodles of twang. Intermingled with the surf freak-out material are some very dark, atmospheric tunes, sometimes straying into spaghetti western territory. Now while the more uptempo tunes are indeed surf, it's not your typical happy surf. This stuff has a menacing edge to it. The three lads have combined their talents to produce an album that has quality stamped all over it in every respect. They really do put the power in to power surf. Their stage presence also matches the sounds emanating from their speakers to a tee. Click on the links below to check out these boys and buy the album and support one of the best power surf bands to come out of England since....power surf became a thing!
What have we here then? I'd never heard of Knuckles until this album seemed to appear out of nowhere on Crazy Love. Interest piqued (before I received the album) I had a gander around the world wide web...well...Facebook and discovered it's actually a bit of a super group comprising of members from three Finnish outfits. Namely, punk'n'roll combo Hasta la Vista Social Club, Cosmic Cockfish Jukebox and Jalkiabortti. Now I have to admit, out of those three, only Cosmic Cockfish Jukebox are in my CD collection. So I "kind of" had an idea of what the band may be all about and I wasn't too far off the mark. But with that said, it's a lot more explosive than I thought it would be. It's high octane stuff and no mistake. The slap bass rhythm of psychobilly blended with the punch in the throat delivery of punk'n'roll. The lads have an angry, violent sound. A soundtrack for street fights. Equal parts rockin' twang and punk crunch. The production is pristine and the songs have those melodies and choruses where you can easily visualise being pummelled in the pit. If you look past the initial aggression of the music, you'll find some clever and very well written lyrics to boot. You could call em passionate...but not in the romantic sense...more-so in the anger issues sense! Just the way I like it. The album is available on CD, black vinyl and limited edition silver vinyl (103 hand numbered copies). Links to buy all that sexiness below...
First of all, I want to thank The Autopsies for being so considerate as to write single-title songs which drastically cuts down on the amount of time it takes to type track listings. However, typing a paragraph of thanks has just ruined the whole thing. Thanks for nothing The Autopsies!
But anyway, out now on Killjoy Records, this Los Angeles trio have unleashed their first platter upon the inhabitants of the psychobilly underworld. As usual with Killjoy, there's a variety of colours. Good auld black and limited copies in clear, yellow and red vinyl. Kicking things off is Autopsy, a mid-paced (by psychobilly standards) stomper of a tune that blurs the lines between growling psychobilly and velvety horror punk. A winning combination. Tempo-changes aplenty too. Brandon has a fine voice which he changes when going between the aforementioned genres. I prefer his natural voice as opposed to the more raucous psychobilly one. But that's just me. Rumble is a reverb drenched instrumental with equal parts great guitar, slap bass and drums. Roswell is very in-your-face American psychobilly. What I mean by that is, to my well-honed ears I don't hear much of an influence from the early European psychobilly sound. It has that harder US edge akin to Los Gatos Locos. The slap bass sounds great on here which to me is an essential ingredient which very often gets drowned out in the mix. The lads seem to be influenced by punk just as much as by psychobilly/neo rockabilly as the sound does cross over melodically in to punk territory more than psychobilly in parts. But not too much. It never ceases to amaze me how tough looking fuckers like The Autopsies can be such talented musicians. If you saw em on the street you'd think they'd be more likely to mug you than serenade you with a song.
It's been a couple of years since Mental Bait kicked us in the bollocks (or fanny...hi girls) with their début album. I remember my attention was well and truly grabbed by the man-marbles with that record. Well, much to my sonic delight, the lads are back with a sexy new 4 track EP on Brainbug Records. It's a limited edition (300 copies) blue wax blisterer of a release. Our Oscar Hertin has been drafted in on art de farty duties and as you'd expect he's done an excellent job. God he makes me sick. Musically it's the perfect progression from the first album. Production-wise it has a fuller sound. But then that's to be expected as the boys are now a four-piece outfit with an additional guitar player. Keeping true to form there's some catchy-as-fuck song writing with sing-a-long choruses featuring that anthemic feel they captured so well on their previous output. Ballsy hard man psychobilly with oodles of attitude and chanting backing vocals. I fuckin' love it me. The only problem I have with this release is that it's too short. I'm gagging for the next full length...wait, that doesn't sound right...and I'm still on that sex offenders register...I am most looking forward to the next album as it will be numerically superior in the tunes department. yes, that's it.
