Sunday, March 4, 2012

Music: Uncle Skunkle and the Scarecrow Family Band "Happily Ever After" single

Another throw-back punk record, but the band's based in Paducah, KY, so they're "marginalized" by default. Plus this record is pretty alright.

The recording is clean with minimal compression, so it relies on the natural distortion of the instruments and amplifiers to give it a lot of punch. High marks for that, since we mostly don't hear a lot of that in our Big Muff-addicted, Master Limiter-reliant punk mileau.

Side-A (45 RPM) contains one, very "pop-punk" a-la-Exploding Hearts track. The female vocals on alternating verses subtract a bit, due to the fragility of her (no idea who any of these people are,) voice, but it's a nice "sweetheart mixtape" type of thing in general.

Things start to cookin' on the B-side (33 RPM) though. "Machete" is pretty Psychotic blues-punk. Nothing new but convincingly performed. Would have liked to see these guys at Betty's. And "Dead in the Pipeline" is really sick. Hard Core Surf riffs, very raw sand-in-your-trunks/cat-scratch music. Real bouncing minor bass lines. Screamed vocals.

Pretty cool disc I got for cheap. Pug Face Records

3 comments:

  1. dude, i worked with 2/3 of this band in murf...sometimes they wear zoot suits

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  2. I'm glad you liked them! I've watched them grow a lot as a band and they have gotten a lot better. So great to see them getting some recognition! They're great live.

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