Measuring seven inches from side to side and top to bottom, the vinyl single is quite the prudent item to display on the merch table whilst out on tour. If the songs are up to snuff, the situation grows from sensible to splendid. And when two bands on the road together elect to share the sides of a tour single? Well, that’s an even happier circumstance, and is exactly what’s transpired with Damaged Goods’ pairing of Leeds, UK-based Cyanide Pills and Bern, Switzerland’s Nasty Rumours. In celebration of their “Two Wrongs” Euro tour, it features four short sharp bursts of catchy punk rock und roll, two per band per side, with only 400 copies pressed, 200 on pink wax and 200 on yellow (and no digital), out February 28.
Cyanide Pills are nothing if not prolific, and nearly all of the band’s stuff has been released by Damaged Goods, starting back in 2009 with a pair of singles that teased a self-titled debut from the following year. Four more albums, one of them live, have hit the bins since, plus a slew of singles along the way, with a prime stylistic reference point being the Buzzcocks. Given Damaged Goods’ honcho Ian Damage’s love of punk rock classique, it’s no surprise Cyanide Pills found a spot on the label’s roster.
The danger that specialists in melodic punk face is going overboard with the catchiness so that the songs stop being fun and teeter over into obnoxiousness. This is thankfully rarely a problem with Cyanide Pills’ raw and snotty early stuff, which is represented on this new single with “Falling for You,” an unused track recorded for their debut album.
“Falling for You” is loaded with energy and neither too tight (which often results in streamlining) nor too sloppy, instead hitting the sweet spot of spontaneity, so that the harmonies in the chorus accent and complement the raucous velocity rather than overwhelm it. The other Cyanide Pills track “I Don’t Wanna Dance,” was cut during the same period that produced their latest album Soundtrack to the New Cold War; it intensifies the harmonies and guitar strum for a result that’s decidedly ’60s aligned, and we’re talking early Byrds, Bobby Fuller and Beau Brummels over the standard Nuggets moves.
Formed by members of the Strapones, Tight Finks and the Fuckadies, Nasty Rumours hit the scene with two singles in 2014. Clearly indebted to ’70s Brit punk (solidifying the bond with Cyanide Pills), they’ve cut two LPs since and added a few more 7-inches to a discography that further expands with the two songs they cut for inclusion on this split.
There’s no shortage of rough edges in Nasty Rumours’ early stuff, a facet that helped to offset a recurring anthemic tendency that’s been tempered a bit here. The band’s attack is still quite catchy, but the primary thrust of “My Final Heartbeat” is spastic, pogo ready forward motion. It’s followed by the ’60s-tinged thump and scorch of “Bury Me in My Leather Jacket”; it and Cyanide Pills’ “I Don’t Wanna Dance” make this single a winner on both sides and ultimately a keeper.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
