I know I’m not alone in thinking Neighborhood Brats is a wonderful band and I’m sure I won’t be the only one extolling its virtues in this zine, so please bear with me as the superlatives are let loose. Confines of Life is the band’s third album and despite two really good albums preceding this, nothing had prepared me for just how stunning this would be. In Jennie Angelillo the band has a vocalist who is far from being one-dimensional, and in live videos I’ve seen, comes across as mightily intense. Throughout the album, the quartet has everything nailed down tight, practiced to perfection yet sounding as loose and frenzied as I tend to associate with the band. Opening with “Who Took the Rain” eases the band and listeners into the album with a short and catchy tune before ramping up the pace on “Signs and Semantics,” where Angelillo’s delivery bites rather than soothes. That rage is fully unleashed on “Harvey Weinstein (Is a Symptom),” an absolute belter of a song lambasting misogyny and easily my favorite track on the record. What I love about Confines of Life is how varied it sounds, the sequencing of the twelve tracks providing a beautiful musical journey with not a single moment of filler to be heard. I know Neighborhood Brats have attained a level of popularity in punk circles, but this is a band that has the ability to become very big in my opinion. –Rich Cocksedge (Dirt Cult, dirtcultrecords.com / Taken By Surprise, takenbysurprise.net)