Review: The Spades - Learnin' The Hard Way

Wow... This album is fucking great.

Holy shit it fucking rips. Take one part Candy Snatchers throw in some Electric Frankenstein influenced vocals and then jack up the tough factor by tossing in some Cocknoose style lyrics and attitude and you've got a decent idea of how awesome this record is. Amazing rock'n'rolly punk rock out on Go-Kart records. It's got catchy as fuck fist in the air, punching assholes who spill your beer, sneering drunken haze songs and that's about it. That's a good thing in case you were wondering.

The first song starts out by talking about the dude's underage girlfriend and then goes on to say he's gonna kick your ass if you fuck with him. It really doesn't get much better. Some of the guitar riffs remind me of some of the better parts of Turbonegro's really good songs, but it's way too fucking tough to be considered Turbonegro-ish.

Fucking Europe dude, seriously... Europeans are putting North America to shame right now. There's so many good bands coming out of Europe right now and this is one of them.

Most of this record is shit that I really wish I was going through a really bad breakup while listening to. Something that made me really mad at my ex. It's really fucking good drinking alone and hating someone specifically music. I suppose I'll need to settle for getting drunk alone and hating the whole world instead.

Fucking buy this.

Mini-Reviews: Bolt Thrower, Municipal Waste, Chris Rock,

Bolt Thrower - At First Light - Metal Blade 2005

It's my favourite Bolt Thrower record, so that either says something about me, or something about how good it is. It's clean and well, but not over produced and all the songs are rad. When I'm standing around waiting for the bus I air guitar along with it. It's good headbanging death metal. If you know Bolt Thrower, it's what you'd expect from them. If you don't know their shit, I think it's a good place to start. Some killer driving riffs, some rad double kick parts, some totally unintelligible death metal vocals. Five stars. Sucks that it's on Metal Blade, cause they're one of the bad guys in the RIAA, and fuck giving those assholes money.

Municipal Waste - Hazardous Mutation - Earache 2005

Nothing punk about this record. Straight thrash metal, some later 80's style crossover breakdowns, but those are metal, not punk. When I first heard the record I wasn't into it, but I think that's just cause I was bummed on them after the Verbal Abuse show. Listening to it now I'm totally stoked on it. There's one really really weak metal wail at the end of the record, but aside from that it's totally rad. I'm not sure but I think listening to this record requires following the instructions in the song "Mind Eraser": "14 shots plus beers as a chaser, follow it up with the mind eraser." I can't be sure on those lyrics cause I'm headbanging too much. Metal is awesome.

Chris Rock - Born Suspect

It's Chris Rock, and it's funny.

Propagandhi - Potemkin City Limits

Continuing the trend of becoming more musically diverse, and shying away from the pop punk that they initially became famous for Propagandhi puts this out. It picks up where they left off with Todays Empires... Again offering a more diverse musical experience than most thought they were capable of after How To Clean Everything and Less Talk... More Rock, maybe it wasn't most it was just me, either way. There's lots of almost crossovery riffs in this tempered with awesome harmonies, both vocal and guitar wise. Awesome little guitar fills all over the place. Standard lyrical goodness and scathing well put political lyrics. I get chills consistantly when I listen to a few of the songs, even now after I've been listening to the record for a few months. Easily their best to date.