
SkinCrawl – Gangrene
Try rolling around the carpet while screaming in your parents’ living room and see how they like it? Well, not an awful lot, most likely. It’s only healthy to get out those feelings of frustration, therapists will say, yet society does not look very kindly on people who actually try to practice this.
Now, try doing the same thing while playing in a punk band. People won’t love it any more than the initial scenario I laid out. However, they’ll need to respect it. After all, it’s art, and no matter how poorly you play your instrument or how difficult it is to make out what you’re singing, not everyone is capable of creating art.
SkinCrawl is a classic-sounding punk band. We love it! By classic-sounding, I mean to say that they are daring you not to call this music. There’s definitely sound coming out of the speakers, and there’s a vague four to the floor beat, but that’s where any comparison with the Beatles ends. We think there’s too much pretty pop music around anyways and really enjoy how butt-ugly Gangrene happens to be.
Warwick Kennedy And The Strangers – No Tears for Dead Street
Australia, too had its Wild West, a lot less reported upon and with less of an entertainment industry selling its story into public consciousness and pushing into the land of myth. And while, admittedly, I know little about the historical aspects of it, if the sounds of some of the country/continent’s exports are any indication, it’s harsh and terrifying.
It’s hard not to draw parallels with the cow-punk movement that developed back in the U.S. There’s similar nervous energy at play, but where country tends to be joyful, romantic, or boastful, the music of bands like These Immortal Souls, The Birthday Party, or Crime & the City Solution (all who coincidentally included the great Howard S. Rowland) all contain violence simmering just under the surface.
The well-read and dangerous sounding Warwick Kennedy And The Strangers are a group molded from a similar material. They sound like prep-school boys who have created a grand and are plotting a terrible, first crime. Their debut single, No Tears for Dead Street, is a dense but captivating work. A great first step forward.