At long last, the young loud and stroppy skate punks Cerebral Ballzy offer up their debut album proper. Many of the tracks have been previously available on limited CD and even cassette-only releases, and they've been blasting the songs out live for a while now. So its only fair to expect the band to have got the songs honed and nailed down for the album. And they have, resulting in a short, sharp blast of high-octane old-school hardcore US punk rock. Thankfully, they've not cleaned things up too much, and you certainly couldn't complain that they've sold out or that the album's overproduced. Instead, the recordings do perfect justice to their DIY ethos, and fully capture the immediacy of the band's full-throttle and generally chaotic live shows: speed and energy take precedent over technical accomplishment.
So, yes, the playing's a tad sloppy, the sound far from polished. Just the way it should be: the kids couldn't give a fuck. This is authentic, old-school, anti-establishment, punk the way it's meant to be. They just want to hang out, drink beer till they're sick, toke weed, skate, and have fun, and they don't want anyone killing the buzz. Not grown-ups, not the police, not the man. The titles, therefore – 'Don't Tell Me What to Do'; 'Sk8 All Day'; 'Drug Myself Dumb'; 'Cutting Class'; 'Puke Song' – are all to be taken at face value. They say what they mean and mean what they say, in a direct, back-to-basics, no pissing about way.
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It's great, and here's why: for too long, punk's become the domain of the middle-aged, kids of the 70s reliving or refusing to let go of their youth. The genre's been diluted, commercialised, packaged up and marketed. Let me tell you something: spiking your hair and lobbing on some eye-liner and drainpipes with turn-ups isn't punk. Green Day, Blink 182, that isn't punk. Come to think of it, The Sex Pistols? Not punk. Just so much clever marketing, prepackaged rebellion as cash-making commodity.
There really is no pretence with Cerebral Ballzy: what you see is what you get, warts, acne, spew and all, harking back to a different age and bands like Black Flag, Minor Threat and Dead Kennedys. It's not about being tasteful, but then it's not specifically about being shocking either. It's just about simply being, doing your own thing and not giving a crap. Cerebral Ballzy reclaim punk as a means of alleviating the boredom, the true spirit of rebellion. And it's a complete adrenaline rush.
Cerebral Ballzy Online
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