Punk is an epithet that gets tossed around with such abandon these days that it applies to a far wider range of music than it ever did when the Sex Pistols were around. Back then, all you needed was hair in spikes, safety pins through the nose, a cockney sneer, a healthy sense of nihilism and three chords to massacre on a cheap electric guitar, and you were bona fide punk.
Today matters are somewhat more complicated what with skate punk, techno punk, acoustic punk, straight-edge punk, punk-rock and ska — but a few of the subspecies of the genus knocking around. Yet punk was always more about attitude than style, and in this regard Cape Town band LP Show fit neatly into the paradigm.
Hard and fast, yet with a certain endearing ingenuousness, the trio falls more into the melodic-punk category — occupied by the likes of The Offspring, Blink 182 and Wheatus — than the classic-punk stable, which harbours drunken anarchist rebels such as the Sex Pistols, The Exploited, The Damned and others.
Yet, like their musical forebears The Ramones, LP Show successfully combine elements from both these schools in their impressive debut Joe Soap the 1st (Nevermute).
As noisy as it is catchy, each song is a jolting burst of sentiment-free energy with rapid-fire vocals and a refreshing less-is-more approach to songwriting and recording.
Time spent listening to the lyrics is rewarded and LP Show’s intent on having a blast rather than being precious about their songs makes for a spirited dash of brash punk energy.