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Aspirations (black)
New pressing of seminal first LP the legendary Australian punk band. The band coming at the songs with focused menace and animal abandonment, spitting on a bare wire and feet stomping, cemented in the rhythm and busting out, getting the sound down with something that could only come from just doing it up instead of planning it out, the band kicking it out from the get go, kicking open a door with the opener. Where it goes from there is nonstop punk rock, and where this comes from is anybody's guess, sounding like they're fighting off those birds of madness with everything they've got, lifted on a boulder of rhythm and pushed down a hill, coming at you with a raised fist and sounding like nothing else from this era, maybe coming out of the charge of UK punk outfits sparking in the darkness of post-punk (The Clash, Sex Pistols, Joy Division), some cuts maybe showing some influence coming from American bands like The Wipers, Pere Ubu, Television or Ramones...with Steve just learning the guitar, his playing is punk in its true form and completely its own, angle iron and barbed wire, razor and mallet, focused on feeling rather than proficiency, with much of his strength focused on the throat, unchained with the freedom of punk, coming from the gut, biting at the bit, Ian Rilen's bassline as pronounced as anything on the proceedings, thick as a hawser on tugboat hauling, primitive guitar and drums chopping at the rope, the band pulling everything into the rhythm with clenched-teeth abandonment, pulling it in tight and ripping it loose.