The thing that made punk revolutionary is that it brought an egalitarianism hitherto unseen in contemporary music. You didn’t need to be able to play, even.
Even now, punk at its purest is about aesthetic and attitude over sound or style.
Norwegian power punk rock duo Hot Nuns, featuring members of Blood Command are therefore punk as much by virtue of their stripped-down, no-messing approach as the music itself (nothing but drums, bass, and vocals), and the four tracks on offer here are raw, direct and driving – and with everything up full blast so as to sound like a full band.
Their approach to recording is laudable: “We have a rule that if we can’t play it live we can’t put in on record either. So there is no cheating here. Not trying to be pretentious, but we try to make music the same way Lars Von Trier made Dogville. No fancy extra layers needed to get the story across. The lyrics are mostly about sad losers longing for love except the title track «Rude, Dumb & Anxious» who is about people who will say whatever about stuff they don’t know just to fit in and look good.” Which means that the studio work replicates the live experience, and keeps it as close to real as is possible.
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Musically, they’re a bit poppy in the choruses, with a strong melodic edge, an abundance of woo-ooah backing vocals and hooks all over, but there’s nothing un-punk about being accessible.
There’s an almost Ramones-like dumb simplicity to the songs, meaning that their cover of The Boys’ ‘First Time’ sits comfortably alongside the originals.
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