This week we look at the latest releases from Hard Charger, The Tasty Wangs and Sulfur!
Matt Carter
Hard Charger – Vol. 4 – Take The Guff and Suffer
I don’t even know how to begin to describe the fury and relentless energy Hard Charger exude on their latest album, Vol. 4 – Take The Guff and Suffer. With only a few exceptions, the entire album exists in a 200+ BPM atmosphere raging full-on to deliver a listening experience that is as exciting as it is exhausting. Thankfully, the speed at which these songs are delivered isn’t used as a crutch or a tool to mask a lack of creativity. After more than a decade spent hammering our eardrums and taking their music around the world, Hard Charger appear to be in their finest form delivering their strongest performances on record, adding new breaks and blazing wah-driven leads to an already impressive catalog to uncompromising might.
Tasty Wangs – Better Living Through Proper Nutrition
Few recordings have ever summed up culinary life in New Brunswick as well as the latest release by Saint John punks, The Tasty Wangs. While the band have always approached their craft with a healthy dose of humour never taking things too seriously, Better Living Through Proper Nutrition may just be their crowning achievement.
Kicking things off with an ode to the fast food franchise Dixie Lee, (and her breasts, and her thighs, and her legs), the Wangs proceed to take listeners on a tour of New Brunswick fast food joints with shoutouts to Comeau’s and Ozzy’s and Bob’s Corner Takeout on the west side of Saint John. Is that near Gravy Bay?
It’s nice to know you can make good music AND not take yourself too seriously.
Sulfur! – Sulfur!
Sulfur! are a Saint John-based quartet who deliver four strong, complex, prog-inspired tracks on this, their self-titled debut. With no shortage of musical skill and an obvious love for experimenting with sound and structure, Simon Lowe (Bass), Dylan Furrow (Drums), Carter McDevitt (Rhythm Guitar), and Devon McGraw (Lead Guitar) deliver an admiral debut that introduces Sulfur! as a dynamic ensemble less interested in prog’s complexities than how elements from the genre can bolster more familiar territory. I’m already interested to see what they do next.
Send us your Music!
If you are a New Brunswick artist or group, have new music on the way and would like to be considered for a future edition of Midweek Music Mix, send us the details at gridcitymagazine(at)gmail.com
