MOUTHBREATHER / ENVIRONMENTAL YOUTH CRUNCH:
Split : 7”
Mouthbreather’s shouty combination of rawk and emo-core is indigenous to sweaty Richmond house shows. It reminds me of a show I was at in 2001, when two of the guys who are now in Mouthbreather were underage and sent me on a beer run for them and their roommates. The haul totaled nine 40s, which I arranged on my skateboard and wheeled across a convenience store floor to the register, while lotto-playing crackheads cheered. Environmental Youth Crunch sounds like a roman candle fight on a Florida beach where you see one of your friends get hit in the nuts by a firecracker. Especially if that firecracker was a short blast of pop punk that sounded like a mix of Crimpshrine and The Bananas. Baseheads and pyrotechnics aside, this is a truly kicking record that gets bonus points because a.) the bands sound like they’d be in different subsets of “the scene” and b.) the guitars on the first Mouthbreather song remind me of late ‘70s Judas Priest. –CT Terry (rorschachrecords.net)