Spunk Volcano and The Eruptions EP

Over the last couple of years many punk fans have been brushing up against Dirt Box Disco and coming away with a smile on their faces.

It’s a natural reaction, and you would be hard pushed to read a less than glowing review of the bands albums, or their shows.

The main issue the band probably have – and it’s a good one - is keeping up with demand for fresh material, but to assuage our withdrawal symptoms here we have Spunk Volcano, and his aptly monikered Eruptions, dropping a five track EP on us that will very easily carry the fans over to the next studio outing from Dirt Box Disco.

Best of all though is that it’s not just more of the same as some would expect, but a glorious racket of pop infused rock that’s standing tall on its own two feet.

Imagine for a second that Spunk has stuffed The Dickies, The Ramones, Buzzcocks, Twisted Sister, and even grebo heroes Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction, into a blender and then chugged back the contents as the rest of the band shout “down it, down it, down it” at him.

Once the last drop slips past his tonsils he spins around in his underpants and with a roar he changes from spunk volcano lower case punk rocker to the upper case SPUNK VOLCANO KING OF CARTOON PUNK supercharged with the heroes of the past.

In some alternate universe kids are probably watching that television show right now, and it’s a world I want to grow up in.

Every Saturday morning would be filled with a day-glo cartoon where Spunk fights evil with his trusty sidekicks armed with nothing more than a leer and a punky song to throw at them.

It would be brilliant wouldn't it, and in these five tracks we have the perfect soundtrack to it.

Close my eyes and I'm nearly there. 

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Dirt Box Disco - People Made of Paper

There's some words that people seem intent in carving in stone.

Punk is dead are but three of them.

Of course punk isn't dead though.

What happened was that the original premise was co opted by the leather and studs crew in the early eighties and the wider perception of what punk is was misinterpreted.

Well that's my take on it.

No longer was it a celebration of tearing up the rule book with anarchic glee, but instead it was about writing new rules.

The punk police had arrived to join the party and it was the start of a downward slide.

I guess the easiest way to show the divide between what it was, and what it became, is to go out of an evening and visit a gig.

Those like The Damned, The Stooges and The Stranglers to name a few can still fill the larger venues.

Now where are the others who redefined what the general public thought of as punk rock though?

Playing pubs to eighty people if they are still together is the answer.

Thankfully the original premises pulse never weakened to the point that punk left the building.

Instead some clung onto it, and as with Dirt Box Disco, refused to let that final nail be hammered into the coffin.

With their debut album they shook things up a fair bit and delivered a fun filled manifesto of intent, but I doubt anyone was ready to commit to thinking that their next release would be one that blew the roof off.

Personally I thought that we would have seen an incremental improvement, an improvement that would continue over a few albums until finally we got to immerse ourselves in a release that that would be a fat free work of raw passion that levelled the competition.

Who would have thought that they would have delivered it so early with 'People Made of Paper'.

In punky parlance this is the dogs bollocks innit?

With their tongues firmly in their cheeks they're wearing a huge shit eating grin and with each track daring us to not to love them.

I heard them once described as a punk rock Steel Panther and I can see where that comes from from, but I would still disagree.

Steel Panther are an excellent parody of a scene, whereas Dirt Box Disco are no parody.

Instead they are a full on punk band who have a sense of humour.

Fuck smashing the system when there's a party over there that can be crashed.

This album is actually a joyous celebration of doing what the fuck you want, and that's as punk as you can get.

People Made of Paper is the album that delivers the middle fingered salute at all the po faced punters out there who think they are different because they are still clinging onto their membership of a club that is as mainstream and unbending as all the shite that they allegedly hate.

I bloody love it and if you give it half a chance then I suspect so will you.

They are out on tour with The Misfits in the UK soon.

Best get there early and see the best band of the night is all I'll say about that.

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Skullians - Don't take it to heart

Better known in the US, the UK and in mainland Europe than their own country of Canada Skullians must wonder what they have to do to catch a break in their own backyard, but their second release 'don't take it to heart' could very well be the thing to kick down some doors and draw some home base recognition because it's a pretty damn rockin' release.

The Canadian punks need to sit up and take notice of what they have.

In among some samples from television shows and movies they are providing a sharp blast of punk that refuses to be tied down into a specific sub genre.

The duel male/female vocals manages to allow them to go from street punk a la Rancid to Ramones-esque wuntwofreefo snot and roll and all points in between with relative ease.

Nothing sounds too raw, but equally there's nothing so polished that it loses the aggression either.

While some bands could be criticized for leaning unimaginatively in one direction or another here's a band that are tearing through a minefield of years of often cliched and cartoonish punk crap and managing to reach the others side unscathed.

The shit aint sticking as they aren't going to stand still long enough for that to happen.

This is the sort of album that you get when the musicians involved sit down with all their influences and then enforce their own vision onto the best that they have all brought to the table.

If you want to thrash about at the barrier then they have a song for that and if you want to pump your fist in the air and sing along then they have another for that to.

If you are a fan of punk music then consider the band to carry the attitude of the marines' no one gets left behind.'

It's another release from the excellent STP label.

While you are checking out Skullians have a look at what else is on offer. 

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Wasted Life - It means nuthin' when you're dead.

On first listen Wasted Life gave the impression of being a bit stereotypically run of the mill.
A band who would sit comfortably under the street punk umbrella sheltering from modern influences come hell or high water.
That was on first listen though.
On the second listen a bit more revealed itself.
The sharp guitar work became a little more apparent, the backing vocals came to the fore and the pace of the songs start to take the lead.
By the third listen I was hooked.
Wasted Life do cover all the ground that the punk police insist on, but they also manage to tick a few more boxes that would impress the casual listener by managing to stretch the template a bit.
There's plenty of straight talking social commentary, plenty of very impressive guitar work and a solid mix that isn't too over produced that it impacts on the power and ferocity.
It's everything that I have come to expect from the STP label.
Honest melodic punk rock played with passion and wearing its heart on on their collective sleeves for all to see.
Wasted Life obviously operate in a bullshit free zone.
'It means nuthin' when you're dead' may just have reignited my love of street punk.
Less UK82 and more UK2012. Bring it on.