Album Review: The Survivalists – Everything Is Awful

The Survivalists were originally an international project between two friends, they would e-mail and record ideas back and forth between China and Ontario until an album was completed, the International duo have now re-released of the band’s full-length, Everything Is Awful, on CD via Hidden Home Records. Everything Is Awful is an introspective and melodic journey through self-doubt and depression through the filter of male and female harmonies, various acoustic instruments and pop punk tempos. Additionally each CD also carries a unique feature as they hold the keys to playing The Survivalist‘s RPG.

There are broadly two kinds of folk punk, this is dependent on which word of that description the emphasis is on, in the case it’s firmly on the punk side of things. Everything Is Awful is delivered in The Survivalists own frantic low fi style, every track has a raw live feel to it, from the opening blast of Cheese Lust and Everything Is Awful‘s more hectic moments such as Home II and Spin The Wheel, through to the more melancholy feeling tracks such as Into The Brew and Bass Song and the stripped down new wave of Will Wheaton and Chained Together, despite the mix of styles and tempos the whole album manages to gel together perfectly over eleven primitive and raw cuts of folk punk.

This is folk punk exactly as it oughta be, the spirit is there, it’s just delivered unamplified, unplugged and in a gloriously raw state, but with everything perfectly balanced in the mix in a wall of sound kinda style that indicates that the production has been kept to minimum, something that really gives The Survivalists an organic sound. If you must have comparisons then imagine something that encompasses everything from The Violent Femmes to The Weakerthans, along with a distinct influence from the heyday of the Epifat bands with the whole package finished off with a gloriously raw DIY touch.

Everything Is Awful, and The Survivalist‘s RPG, can be downloaded via Bandcamp here

You can purchase Everything Is Awful on CD via Hidden Home Records here