Serial Bowl Records / Chaos Control – May 14, 2020
B.S.S. hates your guts, but their album rocks.
Born Shit Stirrers are from the city of Fukuoka in Japan. Listening to their newest release Lester makes me wonder if they have any good psychiatrists over there because singer/guitarist Jon Bates sure can use one considering the anger on this piece of vinyl. This record is the audio equivalent of a big car wreck where you experience a short wave of pain and a lifetime of wondering what the fuck just happened. On Lester Born Shit Stirrers crams 22 songs in little more than 22 minutes. You can already guess this will be break neck speed and loud noise. On that front they deliver in spades.
It’s actually so fast you can barely make out the lyrics being sung. Before you know it the song in question is over. But thanks to legendary veteran engineer Kevin Army (Operation Ivy, The Mr. T Experience, Jawbreaker and….Green Day??) the music sounds coherent and is actually listenable. Fast, violent and screaming hardcore punk galore. So many bands that do the stuff B.S.S. does sound like a broken lawnmower in a tool shed but not these cunts.
This is no record for the weak of heart. Bates and his friends don’t really care about anything and take the piss out of almost everything. Old punks, vegan punks, workmates, friends, enemies, but also themselves. Sometimes this approach makes for childish throwaways like “Smash your Smartphone” but it also gives us gems like “Paper Cut the Printer Cunt (to Death)” and “The Tide is High (And So Am I).” The nihilism on display is not everyone’s proverbial cup of tea. It is no wonder they chose to intersperse the record with quotes from the movie American Beauty and name the album after its lead character. If this is Bates’ midlife crisis it sure is an angry one. A turn off for some? Maybe. But I am guessing the band likes it that way. There’s no nuance to the Born Shit Stirrers, no grey area. They hate your guts. But their album rocks.
