I don’t know if Al Gore has already made a movie about this, but has anyone else noticed that snot has been disappearing from punk rock at a rate nearly as alarming as that of the earth’s disappearing polar ice caps? And I don’t just mean since Jay Reatard kicked the bucket. Hardcore bands in particular seem to be eschewing good globby blobs of snot in favor of knotted up, vein popping muscle. And that’s just not healthy; you wind up with a lopsided punk rock creature that’s all bombast and very little sting. Even Negative Approach—one of the greatest muscle-bound hardcore bands ever—had the good sense to serve up their raging slabs of seething beast meat smothered in a thick gravy of snot. For those in need of a refresher course in Punk Snot 101: The Attitude, I recommend watching Professor John Lydon discomfit aghast TV talk show host Tom Snyder on the Tomorrow Show—Punk and New Wave DVD. Here you’ll see the verbal-cerebral side of snot, with absolutely no aggro-musculatory dimension whatsoever, and it is a beautiful thing indeed. The Slobs, I suspect, are in no need of any such refresher courses; they play early ‘80s hardcore with a healthy infusion of late ‘70s punk snot. The vocals here remind me of Total Chaos’ Rob Chaos in the early years—though less mannered—and the music could be likened to a slightly under-produced Regulations. And it’s catchy, to boot. I don’t know anything about this band other than these four songs, but I like what I hear. And I look forward to hearing more. Thank you Slobs, for keeping the “punk yin/yang” of muscle and snot alive and sticky.
–Aphid Peewit (Cowabunga)