Threats
God Is Not With Us Today
By Jillian Abbene
(SugarBuzz Wash DC/Richmond VA)
SugarBuzz Magazine
There's unbridled passion that goes with collected unpolished, raw, primal punk. This only comes with age, experience and attitude. It is thought provoking yet not redundant or rehashed to a pulp to sound like everyone else's ear candy. The Threats crawl out of the wood work of the underground and obliges in exposing their guts to prove to nonbelievers that punk is not indeed dead, and with sealed fate, lets everyone know this.
Components adding fuel to the fire, gruff controversial lyrics and sped-up rhythms about surviving in the streets against everyday government thuggery and bad circumstances, can wind up any listener to afford fists-to-boots stomp and jump thrashing into the pit of bodies. After all, frustration cannot be contained but for so long--
This band successfully repeat their sins with such influenced controversy of Bad Religion, sneers derived from The Sex Pistols and Buzzcocks, bass crawlies of The Misfits and the plugged-in racket of electric rock and roll of Iron Maiden, Discharge and The Exploited. Not with an even concoction, surprises creep up throughout the entire CD. In "Rotten," there is the scolding Scottish voice at the end of the song with, "Leave my fucking dog alone!" In "Bastards and Bitches", there is the live taping of serious snoring and then the cracking up of laughter at the end. And one more--"Time" with the song ending of resonating ticking of the clock.
"Greedy" and "B.F.F." are tracks that possess great elements that make them stay firm and planted: solid catchy tunes, a hint of urgency, cranked out cohesive guitar from Gogsy and Dave with mean drum lines from Rak, and memorable lacerated lyrics from Jim Threat like, "More than life than making cash/now you're thrown out with the trash/the way you look is out of place/we never want to see your face." However, it is "Armchair Anarchist" that burns in my head through and through--like a collision between two head-on tractor trailers with unyielding viscosity!
Parody and humor goes a long way and these guys bridge the gap between '77 punk and today's sound that is dead-simple and straight forward. I'll close with the best lyrics in "Rejects," 'Can't wipe us out in the blink of an eye.'
P.S. The Threats will be playing at The Rebellion Festival in Blackpool!