I’ll admit it. I’d never so much as heard of this band before this record dropped. Their discography goes back a couple of years at most. But here’s a few headlines. It’s out on Closed Casket, so you figure it’s going to be heavy as balls. Not necessarily. The band are called Skinhead, but that feels incongruous with the album title? Yup. But when you hear it? It totally makes sense. The record is 9 songs and 22 mins so it’s probably a beatdown hardcore record, right? Absolutely not.

Ok. The record is a punk record. It’s not really hardcore in the traditional sense because the lead guitar lines are too sunny and melodic in their style and disposition; and there is little in the way of metallic inflection, truth be told. The vocals are super intense but a higher register than you would typically hear in hardcore, as well as being largely quite easily intelligible. So again, you have this chimaera element that means it’s impossible to not pay attention to what is being said. The basslines are fuzzy, not overly agile, but anchor things perfectly. The drumming is 100% punk as opposed to hardcore. All of this combines to create a feeling of internal psychological turmoil against the backdrop of baked suburban Californian streets that are inexorably losing their lustre. There are audio clips dropped in occasionally that contribute to the ambience of ennui as well. And it hits the absolute bullseye insofar as what is presented by the album’s artwork. As a package, it’s not only unique but it’s almost perfect in its realisation of a very specific feeling. And as a dude in his early 40’s who has been consistently disappointed by the most ‘aspirational’ consumer ideals I had pitched to me in my young life, this dichotomy of SoCal punk backdrop with hc honesty; indignant rage sat atop it makes for a deeply intoxicating combination.

The thing which stands out most with this record, is that I don’t recall hearing anything like it in recent years. Maybe at all. Yes, all of the constituent parts have been done to death, but in this particular combination and set of proportions it has the capacity to shock, initially, at least. And that’s really fucking cool. Beyond that initial shock, it doesn’t just fade into an incongruous mush, either. It becomes more and more anthemic and melodic with each listen as your ear adjusts. I do think there is genuinely an alchemical wizardry going on here that I neither expected nor knew I needed, but here we are. Taylor Young (Twitching Tongues, God’s Hate, millions of other bands) produced the record, and he’s probably in the band itself, but its hard to ascertain that degree of detail for certain. Which is cool. Obviously.

I’d say that the best piece of advice I can give about this record is to listen to it. It has brevity and potency in equal measures, amazing hooky replayability and unless you’re a diehard of these guys then it also has a huge novelty value that is at first surprising, and then incrementally satisfying. Also the lyrical content is at turns viscerally and sardonically grim (“Kill Yourself” is one of the songs of the year, without question) and aggressively introspective. It’s a ride. Skate punk, by way of The Fall, with Suicidal Tendencies and 90’s Fat Wreck knocking at the door. Wait for a sunny Friday, stick this on and you’ll fall in love. I sure have.