Review: The Sewer Rats – “Magic Summer”

Monster Zero Records / Disconnect Disconnect Records / Uncle M Records – April 30, 2020

Sewer Rats offer up a slab of poppy punk songs about things they love, things they don’t want to do, and things they want to quit.

Cologne, Germany’s The Sewer Rats have been getting some buzz lately on the heels of their newest release, Magic Summer.  After putting out records going back to 2008, it seems like Summer might be the one to put them over.  They describe themselves as some sort of cross between the rockabilly of Brian Setzer, 90’s-era Social D, and early Rancid, and I can maybe hear a bit of that in a handful of the lead guitar parts.  But more so, this seems to have some Millencolin (not the ska stuff, but the punk stuff – think “Bullion”) and a bit of Teenage Bottlerocket.

Magic Summer has a handful of pop songs that stand out.  “My Sweet Chun-Li” is one of my favorites of the bunch.  A catchy-as-all-get-out ode to everyone’s favorite Street Fighter character, the song has a great vocal melody singing silly sweet lines like “we’re a team no one can beat / taking names, kicking ass in every street / so many fights we’ve won together / a dream team always and forever”.  Another song, “I Don’t Wanna Leave My Room No More” opens with a muted guitar and vocals, before everyone else jumps in with a stuttering chorus and a strained yell of the title; it’s a really cool chunk of music.  “I Don’t Wanna Go To The Dentist No More” has one of the catchiest vocal melodies and phrasing patterns on the record and throws in bunches of “whoa-oh’s” for good measure.  It’s really good.  “Total Creep” is another favorite.  Kind of reminds me of something from the Boys From Wyoming.  

It’s kind of odd.  Listening through this record a bunch the past few days, my assessment has been changing.  At first, I was sort of unimpressed.  I didn’t think it was bad, but I wasn’t sure about the praise I’ve seen.  Even as I began writing this review, I thought this is pretty cool stuff, but only a couple of songs are sticking.  But then as I started writing, I noticed I was having a difficult time deciding which songs to cut.  There were a lot of good ones that I wanted to highlight, but didn’t really have room to fit them in.  That’s a good problem to have.  I think my difficulty was one of my own baggage.  Band names, record covers, song titles, and more had me thinking I was going to listen to a Ramones kind of band.  But then it was not really that.  Once I adjusted, I found a lot to like.  

Pros

• Some great hooky songwriting and structures
• Nice vocals, both lead and backing, throughout

Cons

• Some of the lyrics can be sort of schmaltzy (I’m sure that’s the intention, but some people will have to be able to get over it to make this work)
• Some of the sort of rockabilly guitar leads don’t land with me;  full disclosure: I’m not a big fan of rockabilly, so there’s that.