Half Brick Half Brick cassette
“This is the Shrewsbury sound,” says a handwritten insert inside my copy of the handmade J-card of HALF BRICK’s second cassette. It’s fair to say this English market town has not spawned many other bands worthy of this claim in its thousand-year or so history, therefore let it be known that whirlwind herbert punk blare will ring through the streets as you shop for vapes and phone accessories. It’s pleasingly unclear what HALF BRICK is gunning for here, but it comes off to me as cats with a mysterious guy hardcore grounding trying their hand at Bored Teenagers-type late ’70s church hall punk crossed with ’90s turbo garage à la Crypt Records. The singer sounds like a tougher Billy Childish, the guitarist cranks out hairy solos for fun, and the lyrics “Give yourself a hefty pat on the back” (‘’Good Intentions”) are, I have a feeling, not as wholesome as they read on paper.