Formed in 2011, Australian garage punk n’ rollers Drunk Mums, consisting of Jake Doyle, Adam Ritchie, Dean Whitby and Jonny Badlove, have released three long players and three extended plays across their lifespan, and release their fourth album `Beer Baby` this month after a four year hiatus.
The album opens with `New Australia` and its genesis lies in songwriter Jake Doyle’s experience working for Toll in a vast warehouse near Melbourne Airport. “It was seriously one of the worst jobs I’ve ever had—proper robot work with no praise.” Jake wrote the lyrics for the song during his shifts, providing an outlet for his discontent and capturing the collective sentiment of a workforce trapped in monotonous, underappreciated roles. A straight up no nonsense discourse shared against a catchy riff driven punk tinged offering. We have another fast paced, heads down pounding boppy rock out with `Slippin’ Up`
`Mutant` is no metamorphose just a straight up thumping grinding foot tapper with lyrics that are almost screamed at us. It`s time for us to gamble as the band share `Bet On Black` a more thoughtful and reflective composition with some scorching guitar chord riffs.
`Apocalypse` had for me a hint of the Pistol`s `Silly Thing` about it but that wasn`t the end of the world for me as it`s a delightful earworm of a number. We have a much more retro garage rock vibe in `Livin’ At Night` which songwriter Jake Doyle describes as “about living to get blotto on the weekends and not caring about your savings because you’ll never afford a house anyway.”
`Magazines` has a powerful egotism or confidence and a sort of take it or leave it rhythmic musical tone along with lyricism about it. There`s a wonderful 1,2,3,4 simplicity about `Saturday` but it`s so effective with a weird whirling noise punctured throughout at times and a cracking mini guitar solo.
`Not My Dad` is full on and pounds away at about 110 miles per hour, a real heads down, no nonsense, boogie of a number. The album closes out with `From The Hip` which walks a similar path to the last submission but has a much more growly belligerence musically and lyrically about it.
`Beer Baby` may well be short in duration but packed full of bangers. There`s no deep philosophical musings here but straight forward no nonsense life observations shared against a thumping, head banging, foot tapping auditory assault that you can just let yourself go to. The release veers from touches of bands like The Toy Dolls and The Dickies to more straight up punk stalwarts like The Ramones, The Buzzcocks or early The Damned.
Running at just over twenty minutes in length, stick it on repeat and by the time an hour is up, you`ll be converted and singing along.
Rating 8.5/10
