The Penetrators

Kings of Basement Rock

Slovenly Recordings, 2013

There’s something so incredibly honest and forthright about garage rock and it’s practioners, it’ll practically catch you off guard. You can’t trust reality shows to be real, to say nothing of the government and what it swears is true, but garage bands, like Syracuse, New York’s The Penetrators, say what’s on their minds at least most of the time.

The fact that they never even bother to try and dress it up any better than they do, says a lot. This is the sort of recording that sounds best, cranked at full volume in the first car you paid cash for, the one with two speakers that worked all of the time, and the others cut in and out at will, and man you have never been happier than the day you drove that thing out of town on your first half hazard road trip and a band like The Pentrators, the self proclaimed “#1 Band In Town,” was the soundtrack to your high adventure.

Greasy, sloppy and and as unsteady as Charlie Sheen on a three day bender, this band wrote great songs that manage to still go the distance today. With their cover of The Animals’ “It’s My Life,” they show off some solid chops and work the song out.

“Teenage Lifestyle” will make you want to hang around a liquor store asking someone if they’ll buy you some beer. But “Rock and Roll Face,” is hard to beat for it’s poetic insight into being 17 and everything sucking hard.

“Working in a grocery store/Always needing something more/But you can’t get on my case/When I wear my rock ‘n’ roll face”,

You were happier when your life was uncomplicated and all you wanted seemed nigh on unobtainable; you just didn’t know it. And this was what you were listening to, or it should have been. This is a re-issue to save you from any impending mid-life crisis.