By Jim Rowland
Australian beer guzzling garage punk n’rollers Drunk Mums are back after a four-year hiatus, with their fourth studio album ‘Beer Baby’ – and it’s an album that promises to take you well over the limit…
With ten songs clocking in at an economical 21 minutes it’s hard to decide whether this is an album or an EP, but either way they are 21 pretty glorious minutes.
In fact it only took me the first 21 seconds of the outstanding opener ‘New Australia’ to decide I loved this record.
‘Beer Baby’ delivers ten cuts of raw, dead catchy, basic but great old school punk rock tunes, all short but perfectly formed, and clearly influenced by the greats of punk’s original wave. ‘New Australia’ owes a pretty obvious debt to the sound of early Clash, as do ‘Apocalypse’ and ‘Magazines’, the spikey, high tempo pop/punk of ‘Slippin’ Up’ and ‘Not My Dad’ have a hint of classic Buzzcocks and The Dickies respectively, and ‘Saturday’ has Ramones written all over it.
Elsewhere, ‘Mutant’ and ‘From The Hip’ are raw and raucous slices of punk n’roll that Aussie legends The Saints would have been proud of, whilst ‘Livin’ At Night’ has a more 60’s garage rock twang to it.
Great tunes, great energy and a whole heep of fun, ‘Beer Baby’ is essential listening for anyone that likes a bit of quality old school punk rock, so raise a glass or two to the Drunk Mums, and catch them if you can on their short ÜK tour at the end of this month:
- ‘Beer Baby‘ is released on Thursday (7 March).
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