Whew! What a week it has been. In addition to a LOT of work commitments, I managed to take in two concerts in two days – Katie Pruitt on Monday and Ice Cube on Tuesday. Coming soon to A Creative Maelstrom…a review of both shows at once! For now, here’s the album that’s been serenading my journey in between work and events.
Disc 1730 is…The First Two EPs by the Chats
Artist: The Chats
Year of Release: 2016 and 2017
What’s up with the Cover? Drawings from the first two EPs by the Chats. On the left we have a woman giving us the finger, meaning two of three Chats album covers featuring someone telling viewers to F off. That’s punk for ya.
How I Came To Know It: As I noted when I reviewed 2022’s “Get Fucked” my friend Nick discovered the Chat through a song called “Smoko”. That song is off their second EP “Get This In Ya!!” which is one half of this combo record. Based on that I simply had to have this record and ordered it forthwith through my good friends at Bandcamp.
How It Stacks Up: Technically this is two EPs (self-titled and “Get This In Ya!!”) but since the Chats saw fit to repackage it as a single LP, I’ll count it. That leaves me with three Chats albums, all excellent. I’ll put this EP collection in at #3. In this case finishing last is no dishonour.
Rating: 4 stars
14 songs, 32 furious and fast minutes, and you’ll enjoy every single moment. That’s what you get from the Chats First Two EPs. These three blokes are one of the best modern punk bands around. On these two early records, you get to hear them explore punk from a lot of different angles, all of them awesome.
The influences here are many, and you’ll hear the ghosts of the Dead Kennedys, the Sex Pistols, Black Flag and even the Dead Milkmen on various tracks. Despite all these influences the Chats never sound derivative. They are fresh and full of restless energy, directed into finding new interpretations of two chords and an angry truth.
The Chats are Australian and wear their oi oi oi o their sleeves, with the record featuring so much authentic Down Under slang I needed the urban dictionary in places. We are treated to plenty of songs about being Down and Out in Queensland. On the opening record we have the troubling challenge of “Mum Stole My Darts” (smokes) and later in the same song, Dad stealing your weed.
The first EP/side ends on a positive note with “VB Anthem” a love song that serenades Victoria Bitter, a mass produced Australian beer. Its principal quality appears to be that it costs “40 bucks a slab”. Yeah, good times roll – fuelled by cheap beer! “VB Anthem” shows its love through the sheer amount of time dedicated to its frothy subject as well. At 3:43 it is practically an epic by Chats standards.
These may have been originally intended as two shorter albums, but they work very well as a “Side One/Side Two” with the eponymous debut raw and garage-like, and the follow up “Get This In Ya!!” more rounded and loaded with surfer punk vibes. They’re different but compliment each other well. On my first listen I wasn’t sure about the thicker, less industrial sounding second record, but it grew on me and pretty soon I was enjoying the transition between the records just as much as their individual charms.
The second record starts with the Chats classic hit, “Smoko”. There is simply nothing wrong with this perfect song, from its killer bass riff opening, to its Dead Kennedy’s style guitar whine, all the way to Eamon Sandwith’s angry drawl as he recounts various characters telling all comers to leave him alone, while he is on “Smoko”. This means coffee break, Australian style.
The Chats present as degenerates but they’re sneaky smart. In “Smoko” the twist comes in the second verse where our narrator can’t get through to learn the fate of his Centrelink (aka social assistance) check only to find the clerk assigned to help him is – you guessed it – on smoko. Goose, meet gander.
Later on “Bus Money” we find our narrator walking home, having spent all his money on cigarettes (darts), beer (brews) and lottery tickets (scratchies). Few bands capture the desperate anger of being broke like the Chats, and while there is some humour infused into these songs there is also a ragged and raw frustration that if you’ve ever been chronically broke, is instantly recognizable.
These EPs are so good it would almost be a shame to hear them individually. They’d both be over far too soon. Combined, they are greater than the sum of their parts and a wholly awesome journey into some oft the best punk music you’ll find.
Best tracks: Mum Stole My Darts, Don’t Stop the Blues, VB Anthem, Smoko, Bus Money
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