Labels: Dirtnap
Review by: Andy Malcolm
The past 18 months ago I rather stumbled across the fact that I really enjoy punk rock again, so long as it’s got a tune. Blame the Marked Men for that. The Marked Men dug me out of a rut of whatever I was listening to at the end of 2006, I forget now. And they sparked an interest in catchy, rocking, back to basics music that is still very much alive for me at the moment.
The Busy Signals squeezed out a couple of quality singles prior to this LP, which meant it was one of my most awaited releases of the year, and when it finally dropped it did not disappoint. Twelve tracks of what is ultimately pretty basic, poppy punk music – but so completely perfected that it just blows me away, how music so simple can inspire in such a way that it feels for a sweet 20 or 30 minutes that all other music is pretentious, puffed up, and completely misses the point.
It’s pretty impossible for a goober such as myself to draw on any useful reference points, as I am not a collector of obscure and rare punk rock or power pop or “proto punk”” (whatever) records so I can’t exclaim “”MAN ALIVE IT SOUNDS JUST LIKE THAT HOT 45 THAT THE TWISTING VIPERS RELEASED BACK IN ’76 ON FUCKED TRICYCLE RECORDS!””. I can though exclaim that it is a very hot LP of infectious quickfire punk with blistering female vocals sounds somewhat like a cross bewteen Blondie and the Marked Men is charmingly underproduced