Gross Polluter - Just Here For The Violence (review by Kevin Patrick McGovern)

  A big thanks today to Kevin Patrick McGovern for his great write up on the new album by Gross Polluter (https://www.facebook.com/Grosspolluter/). Kevin as you hopefully know is vocalist with legendary US punk band The Prostitutes and you can find their latest single here :   https://theprostitutes1.bandcamp.com/album/not-around-b-w-cheap-highs-re-recorded-and-remastered

  This is his write up on Gross Polluter and their new album The People Get... What The People Get

I had become very disillusioned with the American punk scene back in the tumultuous year of 1998. Bands were starting to contaminate their sounds with generic hard rock riffs and pretentious metal productions. The music had gone from raw to disingenuous. It was bound to happen. The chaotic and crazed garage-punk sounds of the early to mid 90s couldn’t maintain their purity unless the band broke up after a few releases. A strange metaphor for life in a way. The punk revival had become too self conscious and eager to please. Blind worship of the usually nauseating flavor of the month became the norm and merch sales were more important than song quality. A new band called Smogtown from the suburban hell of Orange County released Smog on 45, an intense and unfiltered 7” of destructo beach punk that annihilated everything in its path. A hard reset for a genre that had lost its way. Their soundscapes were gloomy and radiant with menacing guitar and cool as hell catchy vocals. A much needed shot in the arm for punk purists. The band would go on to release a number of devastating full lengths and scorching singles. All killer and no filler. Here we are again in 2020, living in a time of great paranoia and heavy reliance upon virtual reality. Things seem off kilter and unwound in the modern world. You would think raging punk rock bands would be blasting out of the woodwork all the time but instead there seems to be a small handful committed to the cause which brings us to the brand new full length by Gross Polluter. Made up of former Smogtown members, this monster of a record will kick your ass all over the place. The timing couldn’t be more perfect.

The People Get…What the People Get is a scathing indictment of a socially engineered civilization addicted to instant gratification and superficial superiority. If the Adolescents Blue Album had been recorded in 2020 it might sound something like this but with more artistic risk taking. Classic punk sounds are reconstructed with psychotic interludes and symphonic guitar damage. These guys have never sounded better. There is an unhinged tunefulness and urgency that runs throughout all 10 tracks. Precise in its recklessness, you won’t find a single boring song on here. Gross Polluter’s latest release is epic in its brevity and supercharged angst. This is the best record of 2020 if you ask me. You need this. Available now on GarageRock Records.

https://garagerock-records.com/

  This song is called Just Here For The Violence...