Record of the Week: TELEFON Smysl MalÁ½ch ÄŒinů LP
I had heard good things about this band from none other than The Wizard himself, Robert Collins. That’s a recommendation I don’t take lightly, and nor should you. When bands profess to play “stripped down, no-bullshit punk rock” I tend to find that there is, in fact, an abundance of bullshit. The Czech Republic’s TELEFON make no such pronouncements, but if that phrase hadn’t become such a tired cliché, it would be an apt description of their sound. Simple, sparse, minimal punk rock played with energy and intensity and with no obvious attempt to sound like anything else. It’s almost a combination of older Dutch punk like early EX or RONDOS, mixed with newer influences like EDDIE CURRENT SUPPRESSION RING. More straightforward than those references might suggest though: no art school pretension to be found. Once again, any attempt to stump The Wizard proves fruitless: the man is always right, and I’m off now to dig into the MRR collection to track down TELEFON’s earlier releases. (PapagÁ¡jův Hlasatel Records)
