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Wednesday 11 September 2013

Healthy Junkies/In Evil Hour - STP Records

Healthy Junkies - The Lost Refuge

I like a band who look at a nice neat genre hole and resolutely refuse to be pushed into it.
That attitude shows a certain degree of courage, faith in what they are doing, and respect for the audience as they are aware that most of us don't need anything dumbed down for us.
Healthy Junkies are that sort of band.
A mish mash of influences, a clear understanding of who they are, and enough attitude to carry the material across with conviction.
Calling them a punk band would possibly lead others to mistakenly consider them as being of a certain limited sound, but that would miss the point as they are what I would call a 'real' punk band.
One who grasp the idea of free expression, of foregoing glancing at a rule book, of setting out to chart their own path.
They operate on the edge of something a bit more meaty, but keep the melody in sight.
Sort of a new wave post punk angle on it.
Interesting, entertaining and full of chutzpah.

In Evil Hour – The World Bleeds Out.
Everything about 'In Evil Hour' screamed stereotype when the CD slipped from the envelope.
Lowest common denominator punk that is frankly starting to bore the arse right off me, but then I placed the disc in the tray and all my preconceived notions were hammered into submission.
Political sussed - and intelligent enough to get the anti establishment message over without resorting to using words of one syllable - the band have restored a bit of my lost faith in hardcore.
Just in time to.
The US influences are stamped heavily across the tracks, but personally I would rather have Bad Religion, or even AFI, over the Exploited so you wont find a complaint from me in that department.

It is of course early days for the band, so who knows what lies in the future for In Evil Hour, but they've certainly kicked off in fine style with an album that can grab the attention from the first chord and begs to be played again and again.

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