One thing that the punk revivalists tend to forget is that the first wave of punk bands, from
the Flamin' Groovies to
the MC5 to
the New York Dolls to
the Ramones, were hugely influenced by '50s and pre-psych '60s rock. Treating 1977 as Year Zero produces music that lacks the beating rock & roll heart of a song like
Blondie's "In the Flesh" or
the Clash's "Brand New Cadillac."
The Soda Pop Kids don't fall into this trap:
Write Home owes as much to the early
Beatles or even
Buddy Holly as it does CBGB's. The songs are dead simple, sounding like two-minute pure pop blasts even when the song lengths creep up to over twice that long. Singer Jonny P. Jewels has a classic snot-punk yarl more than a little reminiscent of both
David Johansen and
Stiv Bators, and dueling guitarists Zachariah Tombstone and Diet D! (big ups for the stage names, by the way) have the whole mid-'70s trash-punk thing down cold, but it's the way that songs like "Electric Blood" and "Memory Lane" (featuring a bassline reminiscent of, of all things, Little Peggy March's "I Will Follow Him") reach back to the glory days of unpretentious rock & roll that makes
Write Home such a giddy delight. ~ Stewart Mason