Küken Küken LP reissue
Twin Brothers Christian and Phillip Paul (the latter of whom also goes by “Beat-it” for reasons that elude me) have been fixtures of the German punk scene since the late ’90s, playing in power-pop-tinged garage punk acts like the HIGHSCHOOL ROCKERS and the KIDNAPPERS. They formed KÜKEN in the early 2010s and have issued a steady stream of EPs and LPs via the usual Euro garage channels, like Alien Snatch and Bachelor. What we have here is Alien Snatch reissuing their second LP, 2017’s self-titled album initially on Drunken Sailor, and adding a couple of bonus tracks. With this coming out hot on the heels of last year’s self-titled (so-called III) LP, it’s hard not to compare the two releases. And I think this is the stronger record. Both are full of the type of snotty but power pop-y downstroke punk that probably had its heyday back in the mid-to-late ’00s, when acts like the CARBONAS, BEAT BEAT BEAT, or the MARKED MEN were in full swing. But the fourteen tracks on this LP, which fly by in a brisk twenty-one minutes, don’t sound as thin as the stuff on III, and they strike a cooler, more consistent tone. Imagine some amalgam of the aforementioned acts crossed with a little of the bleak nihilism of, say, PREDATOR. It’s way more up my alley than schlockier strut rock moments on the new LP. Both records are worth your time, for sure. But if you missed this one for some reason, now’s your time to dig in—it’s great!