Posted on: March 29, 2010 Posted by: anfnewsacct Comments: 0

The Hatepinks – Plastic Bag Ambitions / 2005 TKO / 13 Tracks / http://www.hatepinks.free.fr / http://www.tkorecords.com / Reviewed 29 June 2005

The Hatepinks play a fleshed out version of 77 punk, mixing equal parts Ramones with Germs to make a very intense and bouncy style of punk for the new millennium. Tracks like “Microwave Drugs” literally pull the guitars straight from “Atomic Garden”, but really push forward the tempo to create something that is breakneck, but smart enough to include a slight amount of rockabilly to its sound. Each track is as intense as its previous siblings, which makes sense considering the entirety of the disc barely cracks the sixteen-minute mark.

There is nary a space to breathe, and this really is the key reason why this album is so impressive. In “Plastic Bag Ambitions”, The Hatepinks recreate the necessity of early punk to put its message out in the shortest possible way with the lush recording that has been modern punk’s gift to society. The machine-gun drumming of “Broken and Kaputt” has an echo to it that makes everything, whether it be the guitar of Huggie Von Pinkbird or the vocals of Olivier Gasoil, seem larger than life. Not apt to stick in one place, the follow-up track “Hate Le Pink?” goes even beyond the echo of the previous track to further heights of decadence. The Hatepinks are not purely a guitar and vocal-driven band; while there are intense guitar riffs during “Kissing Cops With My Ass”, one has to give the proper respect to the bass lines of Colonel Nass Le Pink, who properly doubles the impact of the guitar, chugging along for the entirety of the track. Perhaps the Colonel’s best contribution comes during the aforementioned “Broken And Kaputt”, where The Hatepinks honestly sound as if they were able to insert the best moments of Refused’s music into the most sober and coherent Darby Crash vocals.

Pretty much the only issue one can draw against this album is the fact that the CD will spin back over before the twentieth minute hits; so essentially, after two beers the disc has finished up. While I’m not asking The Hatepinks to put fifty or so tracks on their next LP, perhaps if they increase their number to about twenty the disc would not seem to go back in such a quick way. Otherwise, this is an album that should be put aside all the vinyl in your collection, as it espouses some of the same value that made the first wave of American punk so memorable and important in terms of creating almost thirty years of new music.

Top Tracks: Plastic Bag Ambitions, Microwave Drugs

Rating: 7.3/10

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