Chestnut Road - S/T LP - Clear Vinyl (/300)

Chestnut Road - S/T LP - Clear Vinyl (/300), a photo by Tim PopKid on Flickr.

Brassneck / Speedowax / Boss Tuneage (2013)

In the mid 90's one of my favorite record labels was a label based out of Japan called Snuffy Smile records. If you've been on this website before, you probably know they are still one of my favorite labels, nearly 20 years later. But back in the 90's in addition to putting out great records, they had a little slogan that made it on to some T-shirts and stickers that they made. That slogan was "you have your punk, I have mine." Something about that saying really spoke to me and stuck with me over the years as even within the context of punk rock, the bands that really spoke to me weren't always the ones that other kids in America were particularly excited about.

In the mid 90's the bands that meant everything to me were bands like Hooton 3 Car, Chopper, Skimmer, China Drum, Mega City Four, Broccoli, Reverse, Gan, donFisher and the granddaddies of them all, Snuff and Leatherface. There was such an amazing scene in the UK and I remember waiting for packages from Crackle Records to arrive at my local record store so the feeding frenzy could begin. Those bands are some of the most important ones to me, but that kind of music seemed to go out of style. Aside from a band called Blocko that came out a few years later; I never heard much out of the UK that really carried the torch of this kind of music.

This is where Chestnut Road comes in. They're from France, so it's possible I've just been looking in the wrong country all these years. Right from the start I have high hopes as they've named themselves after my 2nd favorite Broccoli song. Then the record starts and I'm immediately transported back to my old record store digging through the Crackle box. What we have is a fantastic melodic punk band with gravely Broccoli influenced vocals and Leatherface/Hooton 3 Car inspired guitar play. This is a band that would have immediately been putting out records on Rugger Bugger, Crackle or Rumblestrip records.

You have your punk, I have mine completely sums up this record for me. It is perfect, it is flawless, it is everything I want out of punk rock. It's an update on the sounds that formed my taste in music 20 years ago and it's everything that I want to see in punk rock today. Please Chestnut Road, stay together forever, put out records all the time and show everyone how exciting punk rock can be.

Chestnut Road - S/T:
brassneckrecords.bandcamp.com/album/chestnut-road-chestnu...