HARPOON GUNS:
: 12"EP
I pulled the grievous boner of failing to review a Harpoon Guns 7" that came sometime last year so perhaps I can make up for it by gushing a little extra over this (though I will say up front that it’s got one of the lamest covers I’ve ever seen—I would not ever buy this record based on the way it looks. I don’t think anyone would, not even a dork, a dink, or a pudwack). Outside, and inside, that, however, things are peach-dandy. Despite the fact that these kids weren’t even born then, they manage to swim really close to mountains of almost-generic hardcore that was all the rage circa 1984—all that fantastic teenage piss and vinegar that overflowed from Mystic compilations and no doubt lived and died in 2200 towns and cities across this sickening planet. Appropriately, the EP was recorded by Craigums whose own backward-looking band What Happens Next? actually goes maybe too far (and suffers from too-good production) to really rouse me after a couple listens. Harpoon Guns are still actual teenagers (I think) and so manage to make actual teenager hardcore that’s both dumb and exciting (“she’ll spread her legs for you/she’ll spread her legs for me/she’s got 20 cases of VD”). –Cuss Baxter (Square Wave)