THE LIVING END 'State Of Emergency'   DECK CHEESE RECORDS

SUPERB!

This is one of those furiously infectious modern punk albums that immediately grabs you by the nuts, slams you against a brick wall before blasting you to bits with an industrial firehose; an all too rare effect nowadays that needs celebrating when it’s executed as well as this.  Listening to ‘State of Emergency’, the fourth studio album by Australian stray cats The Living End is like injecting a year’s supply of adrenaline in one shot.  A fission fusion of kinetic energy and incendiary punk-ability that’s wound so tight, by the time you reach superb album closer ‘Into the Red’, your head will be spinning.  They are day-glo musos wired on pie eyed bravado and wazzed to the tits on vodka; seemingly about to race into Chuck Berry classics at a high school prom judging by the album cover.  Instead they dive into fourteen tracks of pure punk muscle and swagger that’s unlike anything 2007 has wrapped its ears around so far.  With choruses as big as Meat Loaf’s underpants, you throw any of these tracks against a wall marked ‘Great Songs’ and they’ll stick.  Opener ‘’Til The End’ is a musical serial killer, slaying with unerring ferocity, while single ’Wake Up’ is straight of Green Day’s basket case.   The rest are a mad dash through a dense jungle littered with sonic mantraps; all guaranteed to get the blood pumpin’.  The Living End are celebrated heroes in their homeland and Tuned predicts similar accolades on these shores before too long.  An early contender for album of the year - remember where you heard it first.