Title - 'Carnage Bargain'
Artist - The Paranoyds
For those not in the know, Los Angeles punk quartet The Paranoyds channel equal amounts of revelry and revulsion when it comes to their debut album, the quite stunning Carnage Bargain (out now via Suicide Squeeze Records).
Inclusive of a rather raucous blend of garage rock grit, new wave swagger, horror film soundtrack campiness, and a myriad of other influences, The Paranoyds' beginnings can be traced back to a friendship forged between Staz Lindes and Laila Hashemi in their teens.
With the additions of Lexi Funston and David Ruiz, the band found the personnel for their sonic balance of jubilant energy and foreboding undercurrents.
1. 'Face First'
2. 'Carnage Bargain'
3. 'Girlfriend Degree'
4. 'Egg Salad'
5. 'Bear'
6. 'Hungry Man'
7. 'Courtney'
8. 'Laundry'
9. 'Heather Doubtfire'
10. 'Ratboy'
Opening with the prolonged guitar whine that brings us 'Face First' that then bleeds seamlessly into both the bass-laden undercurrent of the title track 'Carnage Bargain' (itself chock full of scathing lyrical observations, delivered on the back of some stand out drum and guitar work) and the lead single 'Girlfriend Degree' (which the band calls an ode to “being a badass woman who’s taking time to make sure she’s doing things for herself".
Next up is the drum-led frenetic punk rawness of 'Egg Salad' which is followed by the catchy hook lines found with the indie rocker 'Bear' (my own personal favorite here).
'Hungry Sam' may well borrow from Elvis Costello's melodic chorus line for 'Pump It Up,' but they soon make it all their own and that's backed by the funky Ian Dury and the Blockheads vibe to 'Courtney' ("Courtney's got cash and she don't care ...").
As we head into the final third of what has now quickly become one of my Top 10 albums of 2019, the frenzied, yet lovingly controlled, one minute guitar bash 'Laundry' is backed by the harmoniously genre-lurching 'Heather Doubtfire, with the late '60s swirls-lost-in-time vibe of 'Ratboy' rounding things out.
Official CD / Color Vinyl Purchase Link
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