TJ Cabot’s trilogy of 2022 EPs are as good as any punk-influenced-garage-rock-and-roll you will ever hear. Possibly better.
Matt Carter
I set out to write a few words about TJ Cabot’s latest EP before realizing it is the third in a trilogy of EPs released in 2022. And as we all know, you can’t just open a book somewhere past the middle and hope to make sense of the story. Sure, you will come away with a story but will it be the intended one? Probably not. But I tried. Honestly, I did. But Pissin Ammo was just so good, I needed more.
Pissin Ammo was released in October. And there are a lot of things I like about it. It’s fast. It’s dirty. And each of the five tracks on this EP sound as though Cabot is just holding on for dear life, wrestling with an energy that even he isn’t sure he can control. But he does.
Cabot is as close to a garage rock hero as we New Brunswickers might ever have the pleasure to hear, or call our own. I would go so far as to say he is a one-person rock and roll machine, even though he is backed by a quartet of musicians (thee Artificial Rejects) on SD Action, the first EP in this series released back in February. The following two EPs, King Groove and the aforementioned Pissin Ammo, are all Cabot. Guitar, bass, drums, and voice. His music plays on the well-oiled forms of early punk and garage music. Chorus-verse-chorus-verse-out, leaving no room for much of anything else besides a few well placed, tasty four-bar solos. With the exception of Spin Out, a song originally released by the Wonderful Grand Band, a comedy-folk group from St. John’s that at one time or another included such notable Newfoundlanders as Ron Hynes and Mary Walsh, along with several other members of the comedy troupe CODCO (Yes, I had to look that up), the remaining thirteen songs are all Cabot and are as good as any garage-inspired-punk-rock-and-roll you will ever hear. Possibly better.
