Labels: 625 Thrash Records
Review by: Alex Deller
Two great bands bundled together here for a split on 625. Gonna kick off with Young Offenders who offer up some more wiry melodic punk that cribs liberally from the Wipers and the Nerves and comes up trumps for it. If there’s a hiccup it’s that none of the tracks match opener ‘Hard Life”‘ for pure oomph and gusto but, hey, we’ll let ’em off this time.
Over on the flip it’s our old pals Giant Haystacks, who are still capable of top tunes from beyond the grave it seems, offering up another five Gang-Of-4-cum-Minutemen numbers that jangle together scratchy guitars, nimble basslines and an everyman’s dry, observational lyrics. As we’ve come to expect by now, there’s not a duffer in the whole darn bunch, each track sitting neatly alongside their considerable back catalogue, even if they’re not quite up there with the likes of ‘Young Shavers’ or ‘A Rebirth Of This City’ in the post-punk supremacy stakes.