Can I go ahead and call record of the year? I know it’s classless to say something like that (how many times has that dumb joke been made in these pages?) but I don’t think I’ve ever been so charmed right off my feet by a new record like this since I was a teenager, and listening to this strange, irreverent record brought me back to the school days of discovering the likes of the Pagans, Kraut, and the Controllers via weird comps and the University of Alabama’s punk radio show, The Faster and Louder. Public Trust are a Boston-based (studio?) band featuring members of some hardcore bands that probably aren’t hip to like anymore, but these guys play pitch-perfect first wave American punk. The guitars sound like chainsaws cutting through wood that’s maybe a little too dense for the motor while the drums are stripped down, rock influenced and not “1-2” punches. The vocals are vomited up somewhere from the bottom of the singer’s throat. Lyrics discuss cigarette smoke, being a leper, and rolling your eyes at neo-nazis. This is all about “this is how my fucked-up mind works” and not “what can I do to appease the punks?” For us anti-social freaks who grew up listening to Killed By Death and watching horror movies on VHS, this will always be what punk is. –Ian Wise (Boston Strangler, funwithsmackrecords.bigcartel.com)