Album Review: PlasticHeads – Nowhere To Run

The newly formed Canadian punk outfit PlasticHeads released their debut album, Nowhere To Run, earlier this year, the vinyl pressing of the album is now imminent so it seems like the right time to catch up with a band that have an impressive pedigree. The four members of PlasticHeads have all previously served time in such well regarded local acts such as Career Suicide, School Jerks, Kremlin, Flesh Rag and Brutal Knights. Nowhere Too Run is now available for streaming and download and will be released on vinyl via Ugly Pop Records in the near future.

The End Is Near is a frantic thrasher of an opener that borders on the kind of intensity the UK82 scene band’s generated, and it’s this blend of transatlantic punk rock that dominates all ten tracks. There is no respite between one track and the rest of the album, it just hits you running and keeps hitting you until the album runs out of steam less than twenty minutes later, it shouldn’t be any surprise that this is a short album with only two tracks passing the two minute mark, with one of them only just crossing over that marker.

The first impression of Nowhere To Run is from the album’s artwork that has a distinctly 70’s DIY feel to it, the soundtrack backs this up with ten tracks of old school North American punk rock that follows in the footsteps of  the likes of The Weirdos, The Germs, DOA and the Adolescents and of the more intense side of the early UK scene. If you like your punk served up fast, angry and raw with one foot in the scene’s past then Nowhere To Run is well worth your time. PlasticHeads will be playing a release show with Malhavoc and Micro Edge to celebrate the arrival of the vinyl at Toronto’s Velvet Underground on June 22nd

Nowhere To Run can be streamed and purchased via digital platforms and BandCamp