Drunken Sailor Records (UK)

Insane Urge – Two Tapes [IMPORT Gold Vinyl] – New LP

$ 26.00

side one the six kick-ass songs from their first tape, raw rip-roaring punk rock n roll, the band sounding like Chuck Berrys' fucked up and dirty faced cousin, shirtless shiftless and sleeping on the plywood in the rafters of the garage, whipping them out fast as trinity slapping your face before you know what happened...the flipside housing the 9 cuts from their second tape, notching up the already fast pace, kicking the beast up to breakneck speed, diving headfirst into the lightning-fast HC, sounding like a maniac clawing at the dry dirt like a junkyard dog trying to find their way to the bunker uncle mort made for the end of times or trying to dig up their copies of albums by the earliest HC bands. Don't blink. - winch

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Originally released on two tapes on Stucco, now available on vinyl. Ferocious, manic Punk via Austin, Texas.
Overpublicised rock hack/full-time gobshite Charles Shaar Murray said of The Clash that they were ‘the sort of garage band who should be speedily returned to the garage, preferably with the motor running’. Now that’s all well and good, but what if I told you there was a band that sounded like they’d taken this to heart and replaced the petrol fumes with all the gnarliest uppers and the cheapest booze? Meet Texas’ Insane Urge, a band for whom no fidelity is too low, no riff is too snotty, and there’s no hook that wouldn’t sound better being crushed into the dirt by a combination of velocity and curled-lip, devilish delirium.

This is their ‘Two Tapes LP’, compiling their (you guessed it) two tapes for Down South Tapes - and what a compilation it is! Rattling through 15 songs in 18 minutes, it condenses the primal chords of The Sonics, the dumb thrills of the Oblivians and the smash’n’grab speed of hardcore punk to create something that sticks to your synapses like paste. Almost feels like someone should call Bomp!, Sympathy For The Record Industry and Crypt to check this hasn’t leaked out of their archives - that classic raw vibe is unmistakeably here and it’s an instant winner.

From the opening instrumental that shares its name with the band to the minute-long thrill ride of ‘Job’, ‘Two Tapes LP’ is rock’n’roll at its stoopid best (and trust me, you’ve gotta be smart to play this stoopid). It’s a record that’ll cement its place on your speakers, its brevity only serving to make you demand another immediate fix - which you’ll do again and again and again. If the band moniker reflects anything, it’s the fact that you don’t make music like this because you wanna. You do it cos you can’t see any other choice. Listen and love. -- Will Fitzpatrick

released 2024

Mastered by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios.