Brent Hood – Call Me What You Want

Who is Brent Hood?  I hear you all say, well the majority of you anyway.   I personally became aware of Brent through a random contact from him about his last single release ‘Small Town Syndrome’, which was a precursor to this latest self released album ‘Call Me What You Want’, an album that marks Brent’s 20 years since he picked up a guitar and started paying and writing music for real.  Coming from Carlisle in Cumbria UK, Brent has got his own sense of punk outlook, a town that has had its fair share of hard times and sits just on the fringes of an area that has seen the rich buy into the country lifestyle that has left young people stretched to get affordable housing, yet Brent’s music doesn’t dwell on this alone, its more of a “whats affecting my life” style of writing, that covers everything from fighting the stereotypes that get thrown at punks or people who just wanna be themselves, as what appears to be the case in the lead track ‘Armchair Epiphany’ a straight up and down pop/punk banger by the way.  Then there’s songs like ‘Dead Weight’ which calls out false friends, a song that has a CJ Ramone feel to it, fast yet controlled Rock n Roll.

Playing all the instruments, mixed and produced solely by Brent, also released via his own label, this can truly be called DIY Punk of our time.  What your not gonna get from this album is bullshit songs that sing of life not lived, ‘Incapable (until I found you)’ a love song plain and simple, it never try’s to be anything else.  ‘Wasting Time’ throws out a musical angst whilst spitting out lyrics that seem to say nothing else, than some people are worth doing nothing with.

Next up is ‘Somewhere Again’ a song that was apparently written and released originally back around 2003, but apt that it is now on a 20th anniversary of starting out album, this song also sums up the whole feel of this album, songs that give out plenty of melodic punk, tonnes of attitude, yet never do anything more than speak of the realities of life, no political rambling, no bleating about a world that’s so far away anyway, just great heart felt songs, which takes me to the hard to listen to song ‘Secondhand Smoke’ a gritty reality check!

If I were to compare Brent’s music and this album, it would 100% be a Peesh from one of my favourite North East England bands LoGOz, and world wide it would be CJ Ramone.

Pop/punk with a pure beating heart of small town life, life as it is, not how we want it to be.  Knocking on you door and you ears soon.

If you want 10 tracks that are gonna have you bouncing, then head on over to Brent’s Website and bag yourself a pre-order.  Out via Hold Recordings on 15th July.

He will also be playing with his band at The Nines in Barrow-in-Furness on 12th August.