Album: Destroy-Oh-Boy!
Artist: The New Bomb Turks
Released: 1993
Rating: 5/5
Link: http://www.mediafire.com/d
The New Bomb Turks are four guys with English degrees from Ohio State University. They also happen to have released one of the best punk albums of the 90's. Not what you'd expect from English majors, but whatever.
Destroy-Oh-Boy! was recorded for a couple hundred dollars overtwo days and the low budget is evident in the stripped-down, back to basics production. The album is a very lo-fi, noisy affair that is as influenced by cheaply recorded garage-rock hits from the 50's and 60's as it is by punk. Due to the recording quality, the drums sound like nothing more than cardboard boxes, the guitar is a layer of fuzz, the bass is a distant rumble, and the vocalist is left shouting under all this. What I'm trying to say is that it sounds like a punk album should, a nasty, angry din that a producer hasn't cleaned or polished at all.
Musically, it's influenced by early garage rock from the 50's and 60's, punk from the 70's, and hardcore from the 80's. To explain that a little better, it's recorded garage-rock style (the low budget and short recording time), it's fairly basic three-chord punk mostly (that's the 70's part), but it's mostly minor chords and it's really fast (the hardcore influence). What sets TNBT apart is the actual sound of their music. The guitar contributes an unstoppable wall of fuzz which actually contains great hooks, the bass rumbles and shakes away beneath, when it's audible, anyway, the cardboard drums go wildly ahead, bashing away, and lead singer/smartass Eric Davidson shouts/talks away, slipping in wordplay and self-depreciating asides.
All of these elements come together to form a raging monster of brilliant garage-punk done right. Alsso on the album is the band's cover of the old Wire song "Mr. Suit", which is played at half the speed of the original.
One of the greatest punk albums of the 90's.
Highlights: "Born Toulouse-Lautrec", "Runnin On Go", "Mr. Suit"
By P. Segal
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