The punk ethos was designed to implode, and implode it did (or should have, anyway). Punk was a fiery rejection of the status quo. Once it became status quo, it was time to go. But like a dinner guest you don’t know is dead, punk refused to leave.
The problem came with confusing the idea that talent and technique weren’t requisite with a practice of not needing ideas. The point of punk was to express yourself—and yourself doesn’t sound like anyone else. But as soon as legions of bands started sounding the same, like crates full of Clashes and Ramones, the point became to be pointless. And punk was never supposed to be pointless, even when it was about pointlessness.
We have, however, those legions of nincompoops to thank for keeping the flame fanned so there’s still a place in the fire for those occasional, wonderful, explosions of true artistic angst, sparks that fly from those who value vitriol over verisimilitude, true thinking people’s punk.
Character Stop is USA Nails’ fifth album in six years, the product of four days in the studio in late 2019 and it’s their most varied and satisfying to date. The songs are a bit like fellow Brits Wire, at least in the early days, but more amped-up Wire than anything, The vocal delivery at times calls to mind GW Sok, former singer for the Ex, those Dutch champions who defied the odds by carrying on for 40 years without their edge dulling. There’s an experimental streak a bit like Boston’s Neptune but with machine-like riffs that can resemble Hüsker Dü’s heavy distortion psychedelia. But the point isn’t to be like anything so all of that’s beside the point, and it ain’t throwback.
Character Stop sounds like today. It sounds like what today needs. It’s brilliant like a dagger on fire, urgent and confused and impatient and pissed off. The band did a couple of raw “Isolation Party” pandemic blasts (lasting about a quarter hour each) and a couple of cover version medley digital mixtapes but this is their first “proper” (whatever that means) release since last year’s Life Cinema, and recorded just a few months after that one. Everything’s up on Bandcamp so you have no one to blame but yourself for missing it.
Author
Kurt Gottschalk is a writer, journalist and broadcaster based in New York City.
