Punk Out Of Time--Plastic Girls by the Minds

If you enjoy the music of a band you always want more. When I was a kid I used to wish that I might find more Beatles or Who albums filled with more great songs. But they didn't exist anywhere. Punk purists claim that the movement imploded within 2 years or so, before 1980 even. For those of us who want more classic punk rock and new wave, we have an enabler. Seattle's Dirtnap Records.

They have put out a number of wonderful poppy punk albums, from bands like The Briefs, The Busy Signals, the sadly missed Exploding Hearts, The Ergs, and The Epoxies. Not a lot of originality here. Just high energy exciting punk rock/new wave by a new generation of musicians recording under aliases. Even the album artwork and the fashion sense of the bands are inspired by the golden era of Punk Rock. And these bands have put out tremendous sounding derivative albums. And one of the best is Plastic Girls by The Minds.

Do you like The Buzzcocks? The Damned? The Undertones? The Ramones? Pointed Sticks? Joe Strummer? If your answer is yes, you can't go wrong with this Cd. It's a very fun album, heart pounding pop punk featuring stellar keyboard work by "Cera Bella Palsy" throughout. The singer "The Thinker" sounds a lot like Joe Strummer to me. The album is a brief  twelve songs, with only Night Drive surpassing 3 minutes.

This album came out in 2003, but you would hardly know it.

Some of the great songs here are Undertonesy Don't Touch, and the Damned homage Smash Smash Smash.
The eponymous title song Plastic Girls is also excellent. The sound quality on the album is excellent--it sounds like they are performing it live in the studio. I can only imagine how great these guys must be live if they have this level of vitality here. They even do an inspired cover of The Adverts' My Place. If you like high energy punk rock you need to hear this. It doesn't have the depth of a Clash, Wire, or Gang of Four album, but give this album a chance and you will soon find yourself shouting and stomping along to the choruses of these retro punk confections.

Exploding Hearts--Guitar Romantic---Tragic Pop-Punk from Portland

I don't know how I heard about these guys, but I picked up this album and loved it. After I listened to the CD a lot, I had to find out more about these guys. When I went to their website, I saw a wreath on the web page. Turned out that not too long before I checked this, the band was returning to Portland, Oregon from a gig in Seattle and 3 of the 4 band members were killed. I couldn't believe it. They just put out their first record, a punky pop gem.

Adam Cox, the lead singers sounds just like Mick Jones. And he sounds like he's being backed by the Undertones. But that was it. All over for them. What a sad sad circumstance. It seems to happen all too much in the music world. A band with a lot of unfulfilled potential.

This was a Dirtnap records release, and it seems to fit into the style of  music they release, infectious, high energy punk. Even the artwork of the CD emulates the style of the early punk days. Opening up, Modern Kicks is a great song with chiming guitar. Thorns in Roses is the 3rd track and is probably my favorite song on the album. Sleeping Aides and Razor Blades is another winner. The album is full of winners. Rumors In Town, I'm a Pretender, Still Crazy, Boulevard Trash, Throwaway Style are all worthy. Some are revved up 50's tunes like Jailbird, and others are reminiscent of the New York Dolls, like Boulevard Trash.

To sum up, probably one of the better pop-punk albums of the last decade. Is it one of the great seminal punk rock albums? No, it's quite derivative. But if you like that style its well worth picking up--they are a terrific band that should not be forgotten about.