Melodic West Coast garage and punk rock from the great coast of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania? Something is not quite right in that sentence and I’ll give you a hint, it’s not the music part. Veritas Vinyl has found another punk band and is offering up their debut ep Prink for free download. How can you go wrong with that?
As the story goes, Half Bomber is a band a long time in the making, with all the band members growing up near each other but not actually getting a band together for twenty years. In the end, the result is a somewhat different sound than one might expect. Guitars are not distorted and the songs have a variety of influences, even a riff reminiscent of some old Black Sabbath in the song “Novak”. The goal of the band is to release a number of ep style projects that lend themselves to the short, frenetic bursts of creativity.
Prink opens up with “Trapped Inside” which has an older melodic, punk rock feel and sound. Production is suitably rough as one would expect from an up and coming punk/garage band. “Novak” is probably my favorite of the tracks, especially with the slow Sabbath-like riff in the beginning that speeds up for the verse sections. The vocals are more spoken and less strained than in “Trapped Inside” and the song just has a good, simple driving rhythm. “I’m Here Now” slows things down to more of a garage/grungy type song that starts out slow and stays close to the grunge feel throughout the song. The last track on the ep is a live version of the Beatles “Helter Skelter”, which is expectedly very rough and surprisingly has not had too many liberties taken with it in terms of arrangement. Seems a bit of an odd choice at first but really does fit within the scope of Half Bomber’s sound. Overall, I think the ep is a little uneven in terms of the songs, or at least the songs I like, but a good first release and worth a listen.
Rating: 6.5/10
Written by John Jackson
Tracklist:
1. Trapped Inside
2. Novak
3. I’m Here Now
4. Helter Skelter (recorded live at the Loser’s Club in Derry, Maine)
Band Members:
Travis Turner – Drums, vocals
Leon Wasielewski – Bass, vocals
Alan Wasielewski – Guitar, vocals
Record Label: Veritas Vinyl, March 2015
Weblinks: Twitter
Lyric video for ‘Trapped Inside’