The Living Deadbeats S/T 2012
(self-released)
I was emailed this promo out of nowhere by one of the band members who described their music as garage punk with a female singer. The Canadian band was always going to get my attention due to their name being taken from George Romereo’s movies and the sketchy mockup "Living Dead" parody artwork.
The description is accurate and the band’s music reminds me more than a little of X from Los Angeles although Lindsay Kasting is much more capable of singing in key than Exene Cervenka. The male/female singer dynamics in The Living Deadbeats tunes is used in songs such as “Walmart Apocalpyse” and “Theme Song”. The woohoo’s in “Theme Song” are reminiscent of Naked Raygun at their mid-eighties peak and is one of the highlights of the album. “Beauty of the Rose” is a cover of The Gits’ song. The weakest track, “Hard Goodbye” is a two and a half-minute slow hard rock number that could be used by Joan Jett without anyone blinking an eyelid.
“Evil Hearted Blues” employs female backing vocals to great effect. The usual punk rock themes of apathy, anti-consumerism and individualism are covered in the album in “Walmart Apocalypse”.
Unless you’re the UK Subhumans, brevity is the key for punk rock and none of the twelve songs on this disc even reach the three-minute mark.
By taking from the past and using seventies, eighties and even nineties punk, The Living Deadbeats have made a great album that doesn’t sound like many(if any) of their contempararies. As with many bands, it could be argued that a high percentage of tracks have a smilar sound but often that is a band’s stamp of identity and there’s no doubt you likely own records by a number of bands that are guilty for that very reason.
The band want to give away on of their new tracks so click to download.
4.5/5
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