I was immediately turned off by the rough-hewn recording and big jumps in sound quality, but then I trudged through this thing a few times and then found myself putting it on well after I could’ve written a review and been done with it. So there’s some promise here; they’re taking some heavy cues from Smalltown, Juvenile Product and Streets of San Francisco-era Swinging Utters, as well as a heavy nod to the Pogues. Mushmouthed, confident ‘77-styled punk that just misses the mark of being really, really good, mostly because of the aforementioned sound quality and the lack of coherency in the way the tracks are presented. One swaggering, near-acoustic track after another, then a few pogo-punk numbers in a row—why not streamline the record by splitting them up so they don’t blend into each other? Regardless, there’s still something relentlessly anthemic about Slit-Nose Hymns, but with a brighter, more consistent recording and a more straight-arrow approach to what songs got included on the record, it could’ve been stellar.
–keith (No Front Teeth)