The New Tusk - Mine To Breathe 7"

These weekends come around fast nowadays, which is good obviously. With the promise of good weather and some extra beer/record money coming my way, it looks even better. I thought I'd kick it off with the third and final review, in my unofficial Footloose Records trilogy. The New Tusk are from down South and play, in their own words, "low fidelity short attention span punk". Try making that sub-genre term up media hacks!

Anyway, The New Tusk started sometime around late 2013 and have already released a tape called Tropical, via Close To Home Records. They're getting out and about a bit too, playing with Noyo Mathis amongst others. This is a great opportunity to hear what they do, when they're not having a go at Four Year Strong for stealing one of their song titles!

Tracklist:-

1. Much Better
2. The Kids Will Graze Their Knees
3. Spine Straight
4. I Feel It On My Chest
5. Buffer
6. Holland

The punk coming from The New Tusk reminds me of the punk that my hometown kicks out. Really good gruff punk, with a sense of humour and good times written all over it. That’s the impression i get from Much Better anyway. The New Tusk don’t use any faux American accents and play with loads of energy, which manages to come across on record.

Describing their sound a low-fi is doing them a disservice, as the production and mastering job makes them sound so much more real. The urgency of The Kids Will Graze Their Knees illustrates that perfectly. The funny thing about Mine To Breathe is that the further you get into it, the rawer The New Tusk sound. Spine Straight features shout vox that echoes out of the speakers, as well as some great clean guitar in it’s all too brief playing time.

There’s plenty of old UK punk attitude in I Feel It On My Chest and the instrumentation underneath may sound chaotic at times, but it’s perfect. If this is what summer punk circa 2014 sounds like, then I’m pleased as punch. Buffer is raucous while Holland features some true lo-fi verses, while still managing to fit in plenty of melody and energy. Mine To Breathe is really infectious and demands multiple listens. Six songs is a good number for a 7” and I definitely want to hear more from these guys.

You can stream the 7" here - 



Physical 7"s can be bought from Footloose Records here - http://www.footlooserecords.bigcartel.com

The New Tusk Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/thenewtusk
Footloose Records Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Footlooserecords