The Year Punk Broke.

Noseholes - Danger Dance
Harbinger Sound. Harbinger183.
12"

Muscle Barbi
Harbinger Sound. Harbinger180.
12” [LP?]

Structure
Harbinger Sound. Harbinger181.
12” EP



What you have to remember is that at heart Underwood is a punk. Anything that sounds like it came out of the seminal years of ‘76 to ‘84 is enough to get his salvia glands dripping like leaky taps which is why all of the above sounds as if it was recorded in a shabby recording studio in Rochdale sometime around 1980. Noseholes and Muscle Barbi probably got lost on the M62 making their way there while on a weekend trip from Berlin to Liverpool to check out Ringo’s old local. Structure are from Brighton which is three million miles from Rochdale so it might have taken them a little longer to get there but you get the idea.

Along with bands such as Toylettes, Massicot, Pisse, Heavy Metal and Karies, Harbinger Sound are giving bands with a punk aesthetic/ethic a decent home and with it some much deserved attention.

All music after 1984 was shit anyway wasn’t it? Except for just recently when certain bands, bands who have been digging around in the past for inspiration, have decided that thats what they want to do. Its a little like going to a Dada appreciation night and then going home to cut up all your Stephen King books to make new poetry.

As someone who lived through those aforementioned years I feel I have perspective on my side. Being force fed indie guitar pop during the late eighties and when that died a death, druggy dance music from Manchester and when that died a death whatever because I stopped listening to the radio and caring, I find a lot of what Harbinger Sound releases of this nature makes me feel that music made by people with guitars and drums can really make a difference once again. At the stub end of 2018. Whodathunk that one? Because we can look forward now. Not just back. Because bands like Structure and Muscle Barbi and Noseholes and all those mentioned above are important and not just to those of a certain age with a nostalgia for such things.

Being of the John Peel generation I played the first of this lot at 33rpm because if you are of a certain age faced with a 12 inch platter with several tracks on it you assume its an album but no, they all play at 45rpm. Muscle Barbi has 12 tracks on it, Noseholes seven tracks only Structure with six two minute-ish tracks could be glimpsed as a proper twelve incher. Its the punk answer to subverting what is [was?] Rock’s stomping ground. 

Having said that Noseholes sound pretty good at 33rpm, you should try it. At 45rpm they have a funky punk bass, swirly electronics and a female vocalist who sings/talks with a modified voice effect, all this going towards making them sound like a European James Chance and the Contortions only with a trumpet instead of a sax and an angular sensibility. Or the Flying Lizards with catchier tunes and a better bass player. ‘Ex Driver’ is a manic two minutes worth where dogs are ‘barking shit machines’, ‘Bed Smoker’ has an Egyptian tinged keyboard riff, the title track is a get your arse up off the floor stomper, ‘Aspirin Nation’ is a crazy instrumental where parpy trumpet and synth do battle.

Sounding like Sham 69 is never a bad idea either. Muscle Barbi do this in buckets full of spades with perhaps a harder edge, with perhaps a grafting on of certain Sun City Girl cartoonish samples, with perhaps enough punk energy to power a small town. Not that you can make out much of whats being sung bar the track titles and I doubt they wear brown leather jackets and Union Jack sleeveless T’s. Twelve absolute banging tracks with just the handful daring to stick their head above the two minute mark. I came out the other side wondering what it would be like to be down the front at a punk gig, all sweat and moldy beer. A three piece Austrian outfit with twin attack vocals who are almost impossible to track down online due to them choosing a name that has inks to female body building.

With the same three way set up come Structure, here with a more rolling drum, twangling trebly guitar, cranking bass approach, vocals split between bass and guitar, male and female giving them an early Cure meets Gang of Four sound only with much shorter track runs.

Killer track is Disco;

‘I wanna go to the disco/I wanna get out of my head’

A song that begins with a nervous bass and clattery drums before razor sharp guitar slashes kick in and with it the room lights up. An existential angst mini classic that condenses Satre into a two minutes worth of agit, a song that captures wasted life and a rare kind of energy all wrapped up and spent like a quickly sucked fag. Karen Constance artwork too.

You never know, 2019 might just be the year punk finally broke.