Sacré Pink! After a first album which had the unintended consequence of inspiring my Punk Rock Magnetic Poetry column of a few months back (the gist of things being that said album was so superficial and humdrum that it just seemed like the band was picking “punk” sounding words out of un chapeau and then writing songs about them, inspiring me to do the same) (sorta), the Hatepinks counterattack brilliantly by suddenly developing amazing proficiency, pulling a particularly stunning array of bass chops out of their collective anal apertures, and walloping the unsuspecting consumer with a hard, fast blast of ‘79/’80 Buzzcocks A Different Kind of Tension-isms—all the while, keeping true to their subatomic vision of punk rock as a small collection of properly charged words and syllables (e.g., the lyrics to the title track are nothing but fifty-seven seconds worth of the phrases “1-2-3-4,” “Plastic Bag Ambitions,” and “Go!”). It’s kinda like someone took the Briefs, turned up the Minimalism Dial (or would one actually turn down the Minimalism Dial? Well, you know what i mean), compressed the song lengths, threw in a flurry of second-wave UK punk-isms (to shut me up?), then topped it all off with the kind of inhuman, three-steps-ahead-of-the-listener production that made those early 999 records sound (at least at the time) like they were the work of brilliant space aliens whose modernistic genius could not be comprehended by mere earthlings. I dunno what-all souls got sold to what-all rulers of the Underworld to get this record sounding this way, but this album is, without question, sixteen minutes and twenty-eight seconds well the fuck spent. Actually, my player says that this CD is sixteen minutes and thirty-four seconds long. Lying Euro bastards! BEST SONG: “I Am a Divorce” BEST SONG TITLE: “Kissing Cops with My Ass” FANTASTIC AMAZING TRIVIA FACT: The last track on the record allows the listener to perfect their pronunciation of “Moo-zair-foo-kair!”, just as that track on the Fonzie Favorites album allowed us to perfect the phrases “Sit On It!” “Cool It!” and “Aaaaaaay!” back in The Day!
–norb (CD: TKO, LP: Lollipop)