How would you respond to the end of the world? Would you dance around an abandoned house with your skateboard and cut-off shirt? Or would you follow Direct Hit! and stare into the abyss with a smile on your face?
After a few spins of 'Brainless God', the band's first release for Red Scare, it'll probably be the latter. The very mention of a concept album is enough to send most punks running for the hills, hounded by images of Genesis and flute solos, but in the hands of Direct Hit! this paean to the coming nuclear apocalypse is forthright, maddeningly addictive and spattered with fatalistic comedy.
The band's last full-length, 'Domesplitter', lived up to its title, careering through 10 tracks in under half-an-hour on the back of Nick Woods' eye-popping vocals. It was pretty great. 'Brainless God' is a more refined affair, boasting clean production from Mike Kennerty, guitarist of All American Rejects, and songs that trade frenzied delivery for full-blooded, effective melodies.
Opener On & On delivers the record's recurring motif, a riff on Auld LangSyne, and a trademark “Fuck You! Get Pumped!” before a colourful cast of characters settle in for their respective demises.
We check in with St Peter and friends for the first time on The World Is Ending (No One Cares), and, as the album's title suggests, the band's roving, sardonic eye lands on the idea of faith at a time of universal panic regularly.
On Buried Alive we join a serial killer on the hunt as the clock ticks down, while Home To You documents an escaped con's race to find his girl. These minor fables slot together to create a furiously entertaining whole that boasts heavy slabs of melody and a constant swirl of schlocky wit and introspection. Loose ends are tied up on A Message For The Angels Pt.II (Brainless God), a defiant parting shot that reprises On & On and on which Woods yells: “Us sinners don't take lightly to last call.”
'Brainless God' is one of the best punk records to emerge this year, and a massive step for Direct Hit!. It's gleefully inventive and will succeed in slapping a shit-eating grin across your chops until the clock hits zero.
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