Well introductions withstanding in the immediance that there is a stack of tapes before me looking all sad eyed puppy like so I'll dive right in. First blindly hooked cassette snagged is the no doubt greatly stood STREET RAT with an album titled PENANCE. Oh boy… all girl band? Yes I am with that. Dudes are lame. They destroy bands everywhere. Also non sequitur but worth mentioning is that I do not believe in commas. They are for fascists. Okay then. Shall we...
First I will describe this tangible delectable sent about a year ago ☻ and set before me now. Also do not worry tapeheads we will/are catching up fast. Mark those words if you have a highlighter and you shall see soon in the hue of neon boldness! Anyway back to applied 'aesthetics'... a word used often enough that it should actually be retired from the pantheon but I digress. The pretentious pontiffs would surely revolt in the temples. Whatever that is supposed to mean. F-O-C-U-S ▬ Ok... 'Norelco' style clear Sony reused case here. Still nice enough to pass most eyes by without ghastly shock if not for the damn branding logo. Sony the schadenfreude demands it's recognition. I personally do not care and actually like when someone uses what is thought unusable by them from balklands. So... very nice then. Praise be given to the DIY hands that craft. Beats the hell out of spending that hot cash on the thin brittle modern equivalent. Also why pay someone else to have all the dub fun? Rhetorical... like your haircut. Don't dwell on it. Single sided print work on regular paper with a thin weight. Folded proper enough to be a fine J-card substitute. Cut a bit too small and creaseless after many months of hugging the tape to keep it from freezing to death on those cold lonely nights as it waited for it's moment in the sun shine. Xeroxed artwork with hand scrawled track listings. A nod to the 80's norm. A bit of the buck toothed vampires or: scotch tape was left on the copier and thus making an appearance. Part of the cover now and forever immortalized. No doubt to the jelly belly chagrin of the remaining roll at home in it's dark claustrophobic cave of a drawer. Either way it looks very rad and I love it. All this so far amounts to what is a very knowledgeable lot. They have done their homework and/or had elder siblings or other lo-fi cultists to ape the ways correctly. Those that have served the squirrelly defiant empty pocketed upstart for decades now. My love tail is twitching. Top this with a beautiful near out of place brand spanking new cassette tape with sleek shiny clear shell with black guts and you got yourself a winner here in a nice collectable worthwhile artifact. Nice one! Top it all off with a handwritten STREET RAT logo streaked across the shell that really looked like it was pad printed by a professional print shop until I got close enough to see the marker pen ink lines. Awe. A few faint traces of the culprits fingerprints left at the scene of this intended crime make it all the more special for me really. Joy... the pure kind. Altogether this is how the DIY is done folks. A strong 'Ⓐ' right out the gates and finally time to let the tape roll out it's audio warbles and get me dancing no doubt...
Droner punk with the Anarcho lean here. Serious unhappy stuff. Their ethos I imagine at crawl in mind rise asking for my spare coinage. I give them slugs and they pretend not to notice as they play their murky lo-fi rumble of peace dove dub over my love nubs which I call my ears. Don’t get weird people. I am immediately left wistful for my own mostly bygone youth (F U TIME!) filled days of patchwork black & white s-pants and proud as a baby burp stitched billboard of my fav bands which covered the vest-ables so as the denim itself lived in darkness. Yep I was one of you and still am if you let me come hang out. ☻ Wow that even gave me a shiver! Scary stuff. Back to my vest! If the bands I carried over my skin would have sent me a quarter each for my daily advertising efforts... well I would probably of bought more patches honestly. Do they owe us a living? A horse is a horse of course. Yep I am immediately enamoured by these modern squat kids being from the same ranking ranks in past angst and scope. Think some ilk with spawned traits of Bikini Kill if raised by a mother named the Poison Girls with siblings named Eve and Joy as well as their cousins down the street the Lost Cherrees. With their sireing contributed by some Man Is The Bastard type deadbeat father whom they don’t see much but are always reminded that they are acting just like when they get too chaotic. Thanks mum and good taste in the gene shopping! I mean that for my sake at least. ♥ I think that is a fair analogy if not a happy home for musical growth. By golly there imprint is even dubbed Crass Lips Records how neato is that. I love nods to the deserving ones of the before times. Not enough of that these days with so much pretentious self puffery and imagined greatness being touted about like they invented the damn noise wheel themselves. Damn stupid dummies. When the awesomely titled song Roaches On The Ceiling begins to play the little scamps themselves are drawn out from memori grave as the nostalgia stutters up. The plot’s soil being my own very first of dingy apartments in sketchy downtown city blocks dissected by living coughing alleyways ubiquitous with the creepers. As song continues some lo-fi noise through aleatoric experiment still using out of tune guitars and thinly skinned drums but drowned under the pedal boards I feel a bit dirty. Kinky stuff here. No I’m joking I just get the heebie jeebies thinking of the roach motel I used to run. (Good band too and from Florida as well) Quite a hissy venture and a stern reluctance on display here to conform to anything approaching pop music. Whoever listens to that lame leg of a genre. I just may rise to racket myself after signing this review off or get high and climb the ladder to sit on the roof and yell at joggers. Yes this is a drowning depressive wallowing of youth frustrations here. Swallowed up and digested in noise and damn it if it doesn’t make me happy. I am even smiling. My face hurt immediately but I am still happy and enjoyed it all very much. I actually think STREET RAT may be DOA and kaput now sadly but I am not sure. Please let me know if you know in the comments or call me and leave a message if you send me a cell phone. Seems no new stuff has been uploaded for near a year while they waited on my ass to write this way too long of a review. I have problems that would curl your toenails children… ☻ But if they are no more what a pity. They had that spark. Get back at it Rats if you read this... if you have the love make time and hit record again. I will be ready for it. Sounds like I’m done huh? I like to end a few times before I end. We are going to have fun together you will see as you read...
STUPID ANDY FACT: Did you know rats dribble continuous piss as they walk? It's true. I see it more as a convenience or freedom than anything negative though. Ones that call it gross are just jelly dicks. I love rats. They make for great pets but they are heartbreakers be warned. As in the end they are not here very long and gone with your love in tiny little whiskered mouths a twitch before you even get to say all this I just said. (insert sad face)
So PENANCE by STREET RAT from the Florida (which they can't help being from!) is highly and long windedly recommended from my decrepit disillusioned little heart ten fold and 20 ways into an origami swan raised up from an ugly duckling once sat afloat in a Florida swamp pond marsh pool lagoon puddle everglade lake dreaming of soaring the skyways. Claps your hands stomp your feet praise the Street Rat and buy them some hugs and bug spray unless you’re haphephobic or a Jainist or something. Amen. You are free to go.
https://streetratlives.bandcamp.com/album/penance
https://crasslipsrecords.bandcamp.com/
-- Andy Tithesis
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