Striped Records / Badman Records, April 18, 2020
DeeCracks offer up a quick blast of pop hooks and rock and roll.
DeeCracks have been kicking around for a long time. An Austrian sort of Ramonescore band, these guys have been kicking out simple and fun punk for years, releasing several LP’s and many more EP’s and 7-inches along the way.
…Can’t Get It Right, the latest 4-song EP, has pretty much all we might expect from new DeeCracks. The opener, “Just Wanna Play”, is simply blistering punk rock. The guitar hooks are great and the melody on the repetitive chorus line of “just wanna play” claws into your brain and won’t let go. And after burning everything down, they start to play something more akin to Road To Ruin or End of the Century-era Ramones on “Don’t Take It Out On Me”. The “ooh-ooh’s” in the background add some pop to it, and the organs add another layer to a cool song. “Caroline” slows things down even further, shining a light on the vocal melodies as they go through a sort of melancholy and longing sort of chorus. But they only venture through once and are out in thirty-five seconds. And then they bookend the record with a cover of the great HEAD’s “Killed By Death”. HEAD’s version is full of angst and dumb fun and DeeCracks do right by it. They add a touch of speed and pull off a fading coda that sounds really cool, like something lifted from the 1950’s. The only thing I’m missing on DeeCracks version is the raw fuzz and dirty production that HEAD wallowed in on their Spend The Night 7-inch version. Still, good stuff.
DeeCracks are the real deal. The music is high quality buzzing Ramones-y punk rock and the coarse and scratchy vocals keep up the melody while helping the band stand out from lots of other Ramonescore and pop punk bands. All four of these songs are cool. Oh, and the record cover! I mean, c’mon, that’s pure gold. Check it out.
You might like this if:
- You like melodic punk rock with a bit of angst coming through in the endearingly coarse vocals
- You like punk rock that focuses on cool songs rather than experimentation
You might not if:
- You want some music to be more weird or adventurous
ryan is a reviewer and news editor for TGEFM. He’s very secretive, he might be an alien.
