This album is like a cold corpse in the morgue of rock & roll with a toe tag reading "punk has truly been beaten to death" ("Hangover").
Gaunt has a very retro late-1970s British feel mixed in with early
Metallica Kill'em All histrionics ("I Don't Care," "Purple Heart"). Every song basically stays at the same speed. It's pure, unadulterated, sugar-coated pop-punk suited to those youth in their teen years who want to rebel, but don't know exactly why. The band is extremely tight, but the guitars of
Jerry Wick and
Jovan Karcic leave little to be desired as they pound out unison power chords. After a short time, you realize that it would be nice to hear one guitar acting as a counterpoint to the other. Although the songs are fast, and they don't let up, they leave the listener with a gaping yawn. The band seems to want you to believe that they are the musical equivalent of an alcohol-fueled funny car, but they end up sounding like an old AMC Gremlin that has lost its muffler ("Weekend").