Album Review: Hummer – How Did I Get Here?

Warrington punks Hummer have followed up their 2018 debut full length with How Did I Get Here? From the opening rush of A Quiet One, this album is an instant winner. It is a headlong, whiskey-fuelled assault on your senses, a catalogue of emphatic melodic punk anthems that growl and snap, like an angry hungover friend who, emboldened by feeling like shite anyway, has been waiting for the right moment to serve up a catalogue of home truths you need to hear. And yes, alcohol is a theme. CUI details the perils and recklessness of cycling while drunk (“really ought to get off and walk, but I’m too far gone …”) is followed by Whiskey Eyes – you get the picture – but to see this album simply as a beverage-enabled outburst, however, is utterly missing the point. These are brilliant songs, almost perfectly executed. There is a superlative level of songcraft and musicianship on display that makes listening to this 11-song, 27-minute album an absolute pleasure.

It’s not all inebriated joy, however. There’s social commentary aplenty too, if you want to actually listen and not just hear this album. Online Civil War takes keyboard warriors and guts them. With its minor chord scheme and scathing lyrics, it’s an uncomfortable and guilty listen with a strong message. For a reviewer of my vintage, the initial thrill of hearing The Clash‘s intro to Tommy Gun deployed in Nostalgia is soon turned to an equally uncomfortable but oddly uplifting lecture on not living in the past (“I can’t grow a mohawk ‘cos I’m going fucking bald”), all set to a super-contemporary pop-punk soundtrack.

A superb album altogether and over too soon. This is an excellent example of a band with a strong sense of purpose and over-endowed with the means to realise it as music. Absolutely no filler, How Did I Get Here? could easily be mistaken for a singles collection. Rousing and affirming even while it kicks you in the balls. Very highly recommended.

How Did I Get Here? is out now on Horn & Hoof Records.