Artist: Spew
Album: Torn To shreds
Type: Album
Label: Self Release

So your band is called Spew, what sort of music could you be? Well it’s hardly likely to be ballet is it? Throw some songs on a CD that sound like they were recorded in someone’s basement, get the only person you know who owns some felt tip pens and can sort of make a recognisable drawing of someone throwing up for the cover, send out some promos with sticky covers that look like the dog ate dinner of em, the disc itself is scratched but (luckily?) playable and as a final tour de force throw some badges into the envelope too. Punk rock D.I.Y. job done, suppose you want a review now?

Well this 23 minute disc from a band from Nova Scotia Canada and sounds completely like you would expect it to with all the above taken into consideration. The opening number is called ‘Instrumental’ and guess what? Well apart from the obvious it’s not very good three chord punk by numbers. Throw in (or even up) some vocals on next number ‘Reasons Known’ and keep your fingers crossed. Actually with the scummy veneer of lyrics it’s not too bad and one can start to forgive the plodding by numbers of the first track as this turns into more raucous punk. The thrash mindset is behind this but as soon as CoRpsE and Slimey Sime join in and start yelling and the pace picks up we are in GBH, Discharge and Chaos UK territory. We may well have invented this style over here but it sure as fuck aint difficult to emulate. Songs are apparently not PC and are about things that piss the band off like cops and religion. I will say this for it, it does have spirit and squat mentality even if it is knocked out with bargain basement finesse. The production is crap and the $10 charge suggested on their MySpace is a laugh, they should be handing this out for free and even begging crusty mates to swap it for a can of dog food or a tin of cider.

One thing they are particularly good at is sounding like The Exploited on a couple of songs and they are not even Scottish but check out ‘Friday Night’ and as for ‘Sexual Asphyxiation’ I thought I was listening to a cover of ‘Fuck The USA’ with the guitar rhythm at first. I guess even if you had never heard the aforementioned punk bands you would still be familiar with some of the speed thrash elements injected in the group’s sound and it should appeal to those jumping on the thrash resurgence wagon, however it may well be a bit on the abrasive and yob laden side of things. Although this offers no surprises Spew have earned their proper punk credentials with this and I certainly would not like to be the guy who goes round with the mop at the end of their shows.

http://www.myspace.com/spewspew