Reissue of the Week: The Hunches
HUNCHES — “You’ll Never Get Away With My Heart / Like I Could Die”The HUNCHES, if you are unfamiliar, were a Portland punk rock band that’s been dead, dead, dead, for over five years now. They used to do that to their audiences you know, knock em dead. They had this front guy, Chris Gunn, who could make a show feel dangerous in a fulfilling way, like you risked acquiring a truly noble scar encountering a genuinely memorable musical experience. During their existence they were generally categorized as playing “garage punk,” which was how most people used to qualify punk rock that wasn’t a straight carbon copy of 1984 thrash: “garage,” whatever the hell that meant. People are a lot better situated now, it’s come full circle back to a mindset in opposition to hardcore-dogma-adherence, thanks to bands like the HUNCHES getting their retroactive cred. This 7″ is their 2001 demo, predating any of their LPs on In The Red. It’s a loud, punishing, art-blues inflected punk rock record with Gunn’s tortured vocals at the front of the mix, and it would sit in your 7″ pile of early ’00s-era singles the same way that a FLESHEATERS record parks comfortably with Dangerhouse titles. ’Cause they’re all flying at you from Planet Shit. They may talk different, but they are all talking shit. Buy this or rot in fetid ignorance. (Ryan Wells)
(Almost Ready)
