Reviewed on May 14, 2008 by marnix

Yes, ye olde days of punke had a musical resurrection awhile back which took us back to the future of late 80's punk/hardcore. And me? I couldn’t be happier! I won’t go into my passion for 80’s punk and core nor the whole revival thing I’ve been seeing in Holland, but I’ll tell yall I’ve seen some pretty awesome bands come and go. Anywho… now its Brat Pack’s turn to prove their worth.

I don’t know how well-known Brat Pack is for all the Europunkers so first things first. The band consists of members of Citizens Patrol, My Reply, Beans, Antillectual, The Bips, Lubricants and Code Blue. Apart from maybe the first two those bands sound kinda different. If you'd ask me (and I'm the guy writing so I guess in a way you just have to roll with this) Brat Pack is all about five young dudes who’ve spent a great deal of their time worshipping at the altar of hardcorepunk, and who wanted to pay their homage to this amazing musical era. And lemme say this: Lyrical, musical and even in the artwork department they do one hell of a job! I’d like to go even further and state that Hate The Neighbours proves that this band is worthy of shelf space directly alongside your Minor Threat, NOFX and RKL-records. Now how’s that for a compliment? Oh, and I just wanted to add a double thumbs up to Menno Bakker, Ronald Huiskes and my buddy Nico van Montfort for their effort put into this album as for artwork, production and mastering.

So, yeah, you’ve heard all this before, it’s true. In fact, you might’ve literally heard some of it before, since some tracks were either on the demo or on the mighty Glory Days EP (out on Angry Youth) But chances are, you’ve not heard this done much better since the first wave of hardcorepunks two decades back.

So I’ll admit that I’m impressed with the effort, as you can tell, but I still need to add that a full length is very difficult task for bands in this specific genre. I guess I’m not that fond of the somewhat slower songs or perhaps it just takes alittle more time on these old ears? Either way, I just wanna say that overall this turned out to be a great fuckin’ record.

Lets all relish in the joy of pure hard hittin’ punkrock. All hail the Brat Pack! Both this Dutch band as all the movies Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy ever made!!

1. Sick Burn
2. Spending Money
3. Radio
4. No Questions Asked
5. Hate The Neighbours
6. Self-Pity & Ignorance
7. Elections
8. observations
9. Xenophobe
10. Soft Money
11. Better Off Dead
12. Shadows
13. See If We Care

Album Reviews

Hate The Neighbours May 6, 2008