¡Que Asco! – ‘Sharkipelago’

This far into the 21st Century, the aesthetics of punk-rock have devolved to the point where the music’s essential unforced, unvarnished assault can be easily faked. Some Silicon Valley posh-chops is probably right now cooking up a plug-in that can make rich kids playing instruments their daddy bought ’em sound like street urchins who just broke into Albini’s Electrical Audio studio, the sound and the fury betrayed so it has all the meaning of a pair of faux-vintage ripped 501s with an eye-watering price tag. But still, even in this debased landscape, there’s still space for a band to make their noise as pure, simple and momentous as they can, and make one hell of an impact. ¡Que Asco! is just such a band, and Reaper, their debut album, is just such a record: the sound of artists describing, explaining and deconstructing the world around them, in plain, powerful language and a sound that’s immediate, untempered and raw.