Ashers - Kill Your Master

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RIYL

Vultures United
Bullet Treatment
The Unseen

Release Date

07/13/2010

Label

Thorp

Tracklist

1. Kill Your Master
2. Destitution
3. End Of The Rope
4. Vanished
5. Watch It Burn
6. Time Lapse
7. Blood And Grain
8. Killing Time
9. Now So Clear
10. Eyes Of Demise
11. Cold Dark Place
12. Faith Denied
13. Class Of ‘94

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There are literally no bands like this anymore. Getting a straight punk record that doesn’t suck nowadays is akin to seeing a brontosaurus stroll down your street. It just doesn’t happen. The ’80s are long gone and all of the bands of the ’90s revival have either broken up, turned to Springsteen worship, or just sound tired (I’m looking at you, Rancid ). Even the brief 2000s uptick, with bands like The Distillers, The Nerve Agents, and Leftover Crack, has seen its wave break on the shore of musical evolution. Face it, this type of punk is all but dead. For real this time.

And yet how invigorating is it to have a band featuring Mark Civitarese of Boston legends The Unseen come screaming out of the gates as if none of this were the case, dressed like they came straight out of the pages of Maximum Rock ’N Roll, even closing the record with a barbershop quartet tribute to St. Ives, nirvana in a bottle for crusties everywhere. The punk-as-fuck aesthetic is squarely intact, the tunes short and ferocious, shout-along choruses aplomb, the existence of all but a few chords neglected. Kill Your Master doesn’t so much hearken back to the days when Jello Biafra ran for the mayor of San Francisco, but it does make me think of the days when Epitaph’s roster was a bit less diverse and Brody Dalle was still Brody Armstrong.

So Ashers pretty obviously make me nostalgic, though nostalgia is certainly not all the band has going for it. The opening title track is an explosive bombshell, a circle pit waiting to happen, finding Civitarese sounding as ferocious as ever with impassioned gang vocals soaring over velocious instrumentation. Like all punk albums worth their salt the bass moves things along, while the guitars and drums pound away in double-time; Civitarese shrieks with an abandon that only fuels the headlong charge. “Watch It Burn” features one of those great fist-in-the-air choruses courtesy of, naturally, the gang vocals, and a fitting chord progression, and even amongst this platter of aggression, “Eyes of Demise” and “Faith Denied” really stand out.

Kill Your Master is some prime, turn of the century-styled punk rock that is invigorating in its steadfast refusal to acquiesce to any of the current trends in music. This record won’t fill the gaping void in the genre, and it’s not enough to make me a believer again, but for twenty five short minutes none of this matters.

--Jake Oliver

Last updated: 07/09/2010 05:41AM

Comments

tim
07/09/2010
12:54PM
Age: 28
Location
Green Brook, NJ

bought this like a week ago, it rules.