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Sweaty, noisy, punk rock music has returned in the form of Calling All Monsters. These four lads from San Fransisco have stripped away a lot of the pomposity from guitar music and present it in a pure, molten form. This is how rock and roll should be played, with real (I’m searching for the right word here) “oomph”. The Traps That Work Best is by no means the most perfectly formed record that you will ever hear but it really blows away the cobwebs that have been formed by what seems like eons of listening to James Blunt. The opening line to album opener “We Are: Special Forces” say it all, “What we sez is what we sez/ What we needs is what we needs” no pretense, no messing about, just loud guitars with simple but catchy riffs and great tunes. Think 1970s British punk with splashes of the Wedding Present thrown in for good measure. It is difficult to pick a favorite from this bunch of tunes as they are pretty much all great but in addition to the above tune “Western Style Town” is a superb head bopping monster of a song that demands to be moshed to. Really, though there is not a dud on here. This is music to get all tired and sweaty to… an absolute breath of fresh air.

Rating:

Marc A. Price was born in Peterborough, a tiny little backwater in the east of England and is a graduate of American Studies (BA, University of Sussex & University of Texas in Austin) and Contemporary History (MA, University of Sussex). He resisted the urge to get a third degree and moved to the Netherlands where he works for a well known STM publisher. He takes photos a good bit these days and struggles with his Internet addiction on a daily basis. He has been writing for PopMatters on and off since 2006. Marc A. Price would like to point out that he is not "Skippy" from Family Ties.


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Calling All Monsters -- We Are: Special Forces
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