FRIENDLY NEIGHBORS:
Better Live Than Demo: CD-R
I was thinking I’d be running across some more slop-crust punk stuff, judging by the fact that the cover has a skeleton, a Middle Class record, and a bottle of Thunderbird jumping out of Mr. Rogers’ head—actually, maybe the Middle Class record should’ve given me a hint—but they’re tilling some much older ground here. What I’m hearing is a kind of late ‘70s Agent Orange thing with a dash of, um, the Minutemen? thrown in. As in, it goes from really decent, fast, and tuneful punk with clean vocals to these weird, jazzy, massively slowed-down parts. Four songs on here (the last one being, you guessed it, a Middle Class cover), and it’s over in less than six minutes, so those few seconds when they turned into a frickin’ jazz band didn’t really bother me that much. I just wished they’d have kept up the speed a bit longer—when they do, it’s some pretty decent shit. –Keith Rosson (Friendly Neighbors)