New Zealand punk band The Mint Chicks.
This week is 10 years since The Mint Chicks released their debut record and to celebrate the anniversary (which fits in with Record Store Day this Saturday), they've re-released the 13 tracks on vinyl for the first time.
And it still sounds f***ing great.
If a new act released this
now, it would be one of the most exciting records to come out this year. Sure, the band went on to bigger, stronger, more accomplished things, but F**k The Golden Youth captures a sense of total freedom that will forever be electrifying.
This record might've been The Mint Chicks at their most rampantly abrasive and obnoxiously posturing in some senses, but it's still full of brilliant melodies and lyrical ideas, and is so primally physical and muscular in its rhythm, that in among the fitful, frenzied, punk noise, it has some beautiful moments.
The very end of the album, the guitar line that fades out You're Bored Because You're Boring is a sublimely warm outro; Take It I Don't Want It has a great groove; and Kody Nielson's singing on tracks like Opium of the People and the title song is surprisingly soulful underneath the frantic riffery.
