Punch – Self-Titled

You know what punk rock lacks? Female fronted bands. Sure, there are a few, but punk rock remains dominated by guys. In the sub-genre of hardcore, bands featuring women are even sparser and bands fronted by girls? Even harder to come by. I’ve heard that some people are just turned off of music featuring female vocalists because they can’t get into the way their voices sound. If you are among this esteemed crowd of misogynists, I would encourage you to re-evaluate your whole life right now. Punch will melt your fucking face off. This is a fact.

You see, on this 20 minute album we have sixteen tracks of some of the most furious powerviolence/thrash/hardcore to ever come out of the San Francisco area, which is saying a lot about the city that birthed the likes of Look Back and Laugh and California Love. Like a lot of powerviolence bands, Punch features some pretty stripped down riffing from the guitar and bass. They can start and stop at the drop of a dime but they exist mainly just to lay down some solid rhythms, which they do very well.

Two things really shine on this record: the drums and the vocals. When one needs to play music this fast, the drummer needs to be “on” as they say in the music business. Blast beats abound and rhythms go from slow to fast back to slow constantly, but this man never misses a beat. Now for my favourite part: the vocals. Punch has a female vocalist, I may have already mentioned this, and her voice is fucking caustic. She can belt out vocals capable of making anyone currently singing in a hardcore band ashamed that they can’t match her intensity. Lyrical topics range from riding bikes to depending on one’s self to veganism, all in a coherent, well written fashion. Lyrical delivery isn’t quite as coherent as the written word.

This may not pertain to the record I bought, but I think I should mention that Punch puts on a very intense live show. If they come anywhere near you, I wouldn’t recommend missing it. Even the pictures they have on the back of their record insert are a testament to that. Unless I am mistaken, it’s a photo taken from a rather cramped show wherein the vocalist of the band has managed to crowd-surf on top of a boogie board.

If you’ve managed to read this far I would like to further urge you to buy this record, mine was printed on nice pink vinyl. I imagine that the others probably would be as well. It’s definitely in my top three releases of the year and is probably one of the best thrash/powerviolence/hardcore records released in the last few years. This is one of those “up-and-coming” bands that nobody should miss out on. Also, I heard from one of the guys from Unrestrained that a few of the members of Loma Prieta have taken over a few spots in Punch that were recently vacated. I also recommend checking that band out. Get ready for Punch to dominate hardcore in years to come.