Read Full Article

Can Can - Widowmaker

Can Can - Boreska Mines

Picture a group of angsty 15-year-olds who have all just purchased 60-dollar guitars from Wal-Mart, a plastic drum set to match, and karaoke microphones. Now imagine throwing all of them into a basement, starting a mosh pit, flinging all of the instruments around, and telling them to scream random things. That experience might be close to what will happen when you listen to All Hell by Can Can.

All Hell is the debut record for this trio of punk rockers, and if nothing else, it has a tremendous amount of energy. With drummer Josh Lamar’s explosive beats, the album has a lot of punch. Mary Frances Collins’s guitars are simple and raw, and her breathy backing vocals sound like something you might hear from a shoegaze band. However, I could hardly get past the annoying shrieking from lead vocalist Patrick A. “Widowmaker” is a great example of this. The song begins with Collins’s flowing, dreamy melodies, and then Patrick A. comes in, screeching, “DON’T MAKE ME A WIDOW!” It was really hard to get through the whole album in one sitting, and the only track I could halfway tolerate was “Locked In,” where Patrick A. sings in a whisper through most of the songs over simple but catchy guitars and drums. This track just has a rawness that is hard to ignore.

While I appreciate what the trio was going for in their minimalist, stripped-down approach, it ends up sounding like something your cousin recorded in his basement in one night and posted on his Myspace for all of his high school buddies to listen to. It is, however, impossible to deny the energy in these tracks, but instead of knocking me on my ass like a good punk record does, it just left me searching for the Excedrin.

Read Full Article