You have to love The Owen Guns. I’ve reviewed all their albums and EP’s and there’s a very real chance they might be the best punk band around right now.
Big statement? Well maybe, but find me another band that writes a song about a Buddhist monk buying sex toys? There isn’t (granted I’ve not done research into this).
And the name for this piece of genius? Well “A Monk Goes To Sexyland” what else?
“Monks In Sexyland” is an eight tracker. A mini-album, EP, whatever. Who cares when on “Unity” there’s a literal Kazoo solo after a wonderful guitar one? These are the sort of boys, I’m telling you now, that don’t mess about with having guitars strung up around their chest Tom Morello style.
In fairness, these are not the sort of boys to mess about with much. There’s a glorious attack on celebrity culture called “Stop Making Deadshits Famous” which, at its heart goes “How the fuck is this news?” Preach on brothers.
And beautifully they attack intolerance with the sort of thing that you could imagine the Dwares doing “Trans Rights Are Human Rights” is a beautiful 61 seconds for all kinds of reasons.
As miserable they might be. I reckon I could cheerfully get on with TOG. “The Algorithm” is a classic-sounding punk rocker which sets its sights on Social Media, and “Naughty Instead” even gets acoustic guitars out before it disappears up some Ferocious Dog alleyway, suggesting that we shouldn’t be following rules.
The absolute beauty of this is that for all the serious stuff, there’s “F.C.P” (and yes, the “c” stands for what you think it does) with its glorious “your mum” joke.
And this is either genuinely clever or genuine laugh-out-loud funny. “For The Second Time….NO” is both and anyone who has a “mate” who only contacts you when they want something will find much here.
This is fast (13 minutes for eight songs) furious, angry, brutal, yet occasionally mellifluous and thoughtful.
As ever, The Owen Guns, are making brilliant punk rock, and as ever, it’s not for everyone- and if you don’t like them, they don’t care.
Plus, the fella that sends their stuff is the singer, he looks scary and calls himself Sean The Bastard. That’s good enough for me.
Rating 9/10
REVIEW: THE OWEN GUNS – MONKS IN SEXYLAND (2023)
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