The Punk Site 2022 Top 20: The Chats – Get Fucked

As 2022 is finally about to end it’s time to reveal The Punk Site‘s favourite release from the year that is almost over, at the number one spot this year are Ausralia’s The Chats’ with their rip-roaring, epic second full length, the unapologetically titled Get Fucked, that is available digitally and on physical formats via the band’s own imprint, Bargain Bin Records. Get Fucked is fully loaded with 13 new, high-velocity punk tracks that rip from start to finish, and lyrically cover panic attacks, junkies, prison breaks, the price of smokes, surf mafia, being drunk in every pub in Brisbane and many more based on personal experiences.

Once The Chats had worked up a rollicking batch of new tunes, they had actually planned to record again in Geelong, near Melbourne, with Billy Gardner, who produced High Risk Behaviour, but due to pandemic border closures, they nailed it instead in six days at Brisbane’s Hunting Ground facility with Cody McWaters, who’d worked on a single for Eamon’s other band, Headlice. The more you listen to it, the more you realise that there was only one plausible title for this second Chats album. Expressing both its broadsides against bigotry and its heedless hedonism.

Get Fucked is an incendiary, hyper-adrenalized blitz from punk heaven, showcasing an electrifying all-killer-no-filler 13 tracks which perfectly capture the band’s explosive energy. As Peter Hough noted when he caught them at Belfast’s Limelight in April; “Their palette is one of greasy food, smoke breaks, drinking and the clap, Onstage, they’re simultaneously seething and funny. It’s like watching a super-talented toddler having a brilliantly eloquent tantrum. Nothing adds up. None of this should work. But it does work, and brilliantly.”

“In conclusion: Get Fucked approaches the song writing diversity and adolescent fury that can be found on the Adolescents blue album. Josh Hardy’s guitar solos are 2nd to none. Eamon Sandwith is the true punk rock anti-star we are all rooting for. Get Fucked can stand tall with some of the greatest classic punk albums of all time. Exuberant, exploding, haughty, and so cool for being so itself. You’ll want to know all the lyrics to Get Fucked for the next time you’re losing your mind at one of The Chats shows. So go get Get Fucked today!” (Pete Gross August 2022)