TNSrecords, June 6, 2020
Bobby Funk does throwback hardcore the way it’s meant to be.
Prior to this release, I had never heard Bobby Funk. I’m apparently out of the loop. They’ve been releasing stuff going back to 2014 and have been building up to Longing For The Bonging, their newest 9-song release.
On the new one, they do hardcore in a way that lands well for me. Their version of hardcore fits in nicely alongside current bands like Night Birds and classic bands like Dead Kennedys. I hear rumblings of Adolescents at points and Gogol Bordello at others. Somehow, I even hear something close to The Alley Cats in there. Anyway, this is my kind of hardcore. No posturing, no silly macho stuff. Just raw and feral songs.
My favorites of the bunch are really good. The opener, “Dunch”, starts off ominously enough before doing some sort of-surfy hardcore while the singer yells and spits and rants. The guitar line reminds me weirdly of “Nothing Means Nothing Anymore” by old L.A. punks The Alley Cats. It’s cool. “Best Friends With Kanye” is a terrifically dumb and fast blast while “Onion Eyes” is more of a burn with a sneaky guitar line that spiders around the verse. And my favorite go-to might also be the dumbest. “I’m A Cat” has more surfy punk guitars that remind me a bunch of Night Birds and Dead Kennedys. And again, epiphanies are yelled, such as the fantastic “I’m a cat, meow”. It’s so dumb, it kind of perfect.
For all the good, there are a couple of points that I struggle through on Longing For The Bonging. “Put Your Hands On The Car” is thirty-one seconds of screaming, some fast blitzes, and some slow sludgy stuff, and none of it seems to matter. Just doesn’t hit right. “Povvo Goblin” and its ska-like Gogol Bordello-light-vibe also comes up short, but it goes on for over three minutes. It’s the one song I find myself mostly skipping when listening to the record. And lastly, the closer, “Gammon Club”, is mostly great as the singer uses more of a sneer rather than a yell, with hooks on a stop-and-go bridge and a chorus for the ages. But this one throws me off when it shifts to a sort of light and breezy thing at around the 1:30 mark. At first, I thought it was just a bit of intermission, but it kept going and going to the end of the song, challenging my limited attention span. Small quibbles.
Bobby Funk is the real deal. They don’t posture and act tough. They rant, they sound feral, and they have fun. And those are the kinds of things I want from a hardcore band. Most of this stuff is a blast. Check them out.
You might like this if:
- You like old-school 80’s-style hardcore and rant punk
- You’re okay with fun neanderthal lyrics and don’t need to hear any ethics dissertations with your hardcore
You might not if:
- You don’t like hardcore (or 80’s-style hardcore)
- You want your hardcore to give a message, take a stance, rant with meaning, call for revolution, etc
ryan is a reviewer and news editor for TGEFM. He’s very secretive, he might be an alien.
