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Knackers Yard - Avenue Recordz
Spunk Volcano And The Eruptions are back with their 11-track coda and apparent final offering: Knackers Yard. Quite embarrassingly, I have never heard this band. I couldn’t find their location on social media. Maybe Wigan?, where the album was recorded at Music Projects for Avenue Recordz. From the looks of these guys they are probably in hiding from some government agency. The first moment I started blasting track 1: ‘I am a Capsule’, I started saying whoa. I said whoa four more times. Like, the kind of whoa when you’re at your first show and you’re hanging in the back and you see the pit and feel the energy and you’re like WHOA. I mean it starts with Maff Fazzo releasing that perfect punk drum roll into the loud, huge, not too distorted guitars. Bassist Joey Strange is climbing all over the place like a gym squirrel on monkey bars. Spunk is spitting snotty fire with an immediate fury. Why the fuck was I handed this for review?! Is this like a sick joke on my life. To introduce me to a band like this that is going to now be defunct. Fuck all.
I’m already emotionally damaged and exhausted and I haven’t even gotten to track two yet. Track 2, the title track, ‘Knackers Yard’, takes an immediate turn into a mosh heavy mid tempo punk thrasher with a sing along chorus and a metal edged guitar solo. This track is groove heavy and makes me wanna throw elbows in the pit. Gun fire drum rolls, check. Stop and go rhythm attack, check. Man these guys know how to write a song. Catchy AF. If you don’t like this stuff you may already be dead. The 70’s called and they want track 3 back. ‘It’s all Kicking Off’ is straight outta the Iggy Pop/Dead Boys era. And if released then, it would now be a classic with 2.5 million views on insert your favorite social media outlet here. Track 4, ‘Job Opportunity’ speeds it up a bit to the California pace with a melody to match. The lyrics do confirm the members of the band are indeed on the run from various law enforcement agencies. These guys might be the plug I need when I visit the UK.
Leaving nothing sacred is track 5, ‘Madhouse’, playing homage to Anthrax’s Madhouse. Producer John Kettle has dialed in some crunchy AF guitar tones in nice stereo for guitarists Scott Bones and Spunk. Spunk has a great voice and he pushes his metal limits on this one. I can just picture Sleazy P. Martini telling Spunk he could make him a star singing for Gwar now. I especially like the reverb laden guitar leads at the last chorus of this one. Speaking of Sleazy P. Martini, serendipitously for this review, track 6 sounds like it could be a Gwar song: ‘Menky Man’. I mean, the chorus, the breakdown, could be a Gwar song. But aside that comparison by luck, this song is a pit-inducing rager. Can I get another whoa! That’s 6 whoas if your counting. Track 7, ‘Mordrake’, leans to a spacey post-punk side; featuring odd time signatures and an exploding chorus. Some very fuzzy guitar parts layer an almost Sonic Youth feel. Very ambitious. By the fading end it’s almost Pink Floydish.
Track 8, ‘Pit Bull Facelift’, sounds like the title. Total UK82, Exploited, balls out, we’re coming for your high-class scum-ass with a baseball bat. It’s such a quick nut-punch you have to get a second helping. Track 9 ‘My Tears Get Washed Away’ goes in yet another sideways direction on the punk rock highway. Calling up a pop-punk sound that may find its’ roots in say T.S.O.L. Try to picture the ski cap adorning and safety pin studded Spunk crooning this track. Next up we have GG Allen covering Kate Bush. Track 10, ‘Morphine’ is another drug inspired G.B.H. circle pit inducer. The guitars drone on in like a what I imagine a morphine high might be like. Track 11, the haunting, ‘Dead And The Mirror’, again calls up T.S.O.L. in sound. With it’s reverb-in-the-distance clean guitar sounds culled from the deserts of California or Nevada. This track is a dark and somber way to end the musical catalogue of an exciting and bombastic band.
The bonus track on the CD-only version ‘Shit Stirrers and Scaremongers’ is another metal-edged banger with some great guitar lead work by Scott Bones or Spunk. It is not to be ignored. Have something to punch nearby and don’t miss out! Spunk Volcano And The Eruptions go out with 5 fucking stars bitches.
Knackers Yard is now available via streaming platforms and on CD here