Labels: Automobiledrive Music – Karma Mira Records – Unsane Asylum
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Some seven years ago Alex Deller mentioned on these very pages that if you were to find a good source of punchy punk rock along the lines of Leatherface or Husker Du, then you were much better off focusing on Finland than Gainesville. I am not entirely sure if Finland has been a steady source of quality music in this genre since he inscribed those words on the internets, but Lifegivingwaters do (or did, they are no longer active) their bit to ensure it remains accurate.
This here CD blasts through ten tracks that are uniformly between 2:08 and 3:36 in length. LGW are focused on delivering sharp blasts, emphasised with vocals that veer between torn throat yells and steady singing that is not all that far removed from Mag’s parts in Yaphet Kotto. Whilst there are moments that do bring to mind Leatherface, you also get plenty of emotive touches in line with 1000 Travels of Jawaharlal, which is pretty cool if you ask me. Which you surely did, because you’re reading my bloody review. This feels like the kind of thing I was jamming a decade ago, but with a freshness and vitality that makes it a pulsating listen. Each track is bashed through with a terrific urgency and commitment, I would lose my shit to this kind of thing live I reckon. Whatever it lacks in originality it makes up for in sheer bullishness. I admire punk bands that want to play melodic music in a hard and fast fashion, it’s born out of my obsession with emo I believe, I just love to hear a racket played by people who know how to groove and write a decent punk rock song at the same time.
Good shit, probably not a huge audience out there for this style, but if you do dig bands that sound like this then you should be all over this record as it’s a bit special.