Band – Her Parents
Album – Physical Release
Label – G G Pith
Release date – Now
Sounds like – and I quote “just a great bunch of guys playing punk music.”

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Disbelief about whether Her Parents are a proper band should be thrown out the window. They’ve at least played one gig with Johnny Foreigner and at the time of writing are/have/will be supporting DZ Deathrays in someone’s living room probably, equipped with their proper haircuts, tunes, etc. (Also they’re playing Southsea Fest in a couple of weeks and some shows with Heavy Waves very soon).

‘Physical Release’ was really the only title for this download-only album, considering the scathing and quite frankly bonkers humour associated with the rock and or roll line-up that make up Her Parents (Stairs To Korea, Internet Forever, Dananananaykroyd).

The superbly titled ‘Win The Lottery, Kick The Fuck Out Of Your House’ opens things in a ramshackle-fashion.  Coughing, sharp intakes of breath litter the opening drumbeats, before it morphs into a malevolent and crude discordant slice of punk rock. Lyrically, it’s daft as hell, but also contains a knife-edge of creepiness, particularly in the delivery of the line: “with your purple face in my personal space, I’ll be so cheesed off I could gas the both of us!” – Particularly the delivery of the last five words which sound wickedly joyful.

I mean, this is pretty nuts. ‘There’s A Body’ is a vicious splatter-punk barrage of noise that switches from angular hardcore onslaught to all handclappy, “BAH BAH BAH BAHHHH!” choruses that make no sense at all. The throaty roar of “THERE’S A BODY IN A BRIEFCASE!” is a particularly brilliant moment. It’s like a comedy version of Zeke. Partner in crime, ‘There’s A Man’ is a minute of gleeful mischief embracing an All/Descendents style punk strut.

In-joke song, ‘What’s Your Dad Called?’ is gang-vocal blender-style chaos. Good times right there. Incidentally, my dad’s called Ian. Lead ‘single’ (aka the only song to have a video) ‘Don’t Know’, is just over 80 seconds of trying to work out what goes in rum and coke, or what all the buttons do in a plane. Probably. In the video they smash the fuck out of a washing machine and it looks good fun.

‘One Five Six Zeroes Four Twenty’ is an adrenalin shot of bass-driven good times. More garbled gang vocals, distortion, a sense of cluttered nonsense and gleeful destruction, whilst ‘Justin Vernon’ (hi Bon Iver!) is pretty much one of the best songs I’ve heard this year. “HE’S HAUNTING ME, HAUNTING MEEEEEE” follows the wild accusations about Vernon’s achievements (prince of dubstep, built a cabin in the woods, auto-tuned an owl?) over a frantic hook-laden scrawl of fuzzed-out punk.

‘Police Man’ is a dark and menacing drone of heavy rock that feels somewhat alien to the tour-de-force frantic of the previous tracks, but nonetheless, works as a howling distorted rattle.

What it all boils down to is that ‘Physical Release’ is the sound of Her Parents having fun. Not just the music, it’s the little things – they way all the tracks seem to be one body of work, joined together by studio sounds, laughter, the shouts of “one take!” burps, coughs and general tomfoolery. ‘Physical Release’ is a blast –11 tracks in around 17 minutes that will no doubt make you want to boot the fuck out of your abode. Get it here and then get the beers in.

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Links

Her Parents
Her Parents Facebook
Her Parents Band and the camps
Her Parents Twitter

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By Ross Macdonald

Lizard Hips

Junior Vice President of Keep It Fast. In other news: I work in social media, talk about dinosaurs, run a book club and have amazing facial hair. I am also a male man who is still not dead.

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