This is way fucking overdue. For those unfortunates living outside the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Fuck Yeahs have been throwing guitars at each other and getting banned from bars since 1997 or so and all the while playing some of the most infectious “good time” punk rock around. They used to bill themselves as “three chord punk from the land of sky-blue waters” – an apt description as well as a nod to Hamm’s, their favorite beer at the time. Their charm for me has always been like that of a gang of attention deficit kids – the kind back in grade school who would eat play-doh and smear big goopy boogers on the wall to spell out their name – all wired up on SweetTarts and Mountain Dew. They even have a song called “Ritalin,” which is a tip-off right there. Snotty and bratty, but catchy and tight-as-fuck too. Imagine a more revved-up version of the Groovie Ghoulies with chunkier guitars and a drum wizard from Dimension Z. Hopefully this is only the first of many releases to come from this band of happy-go-lucky spazzes.
–aphid (Learning Curve)