The Arteries - Brought Up Not Dragged Up (No Label, 2005)

Hey, I'm still alive! Are you? You don't have to answer that.

Sorry about the long delay, gentle readers. Since my last entry I moved back to the US, got married, trained and competed for the World's Fastest Tator Tot Eating Competition (got 5th place), had 10 babies, finished my musical adaptation of "The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again" and overhauled the tranny in my Z-Roc 524.

Okay, the first 2 are true. Now I'm just a lazy American again who never updates my blog. Until now!

And boy do I have a humdinger for ya! So anyone remember a little punk outfit out of Swansea a few years back called The Arteries? They raged it something fierce with their hard rockin' style of punk. They put out a bunch of eps, some limited 10"s and 2 albums. Dead Sea was probably their highlight with melodic hardcore vocals over bulldozer rhythms, but tempered through a pop/skate punk sensibility.

Well, it turns out these guys were hiding a couple old releases, one of which I luckily learned about and then won on "the ebay." That CD I present you is actually their 2nd release entitled "Brought Up Not Dragged Up." They have one other release that I'm still trying to track down called, I believe, "More Books, Less TV." (If anyone has this, holla at ya boy. Yeah, I'm bringing that back.)

This album isn't far off from their next offering, "Blood, Sweat And Beers," just not quite as well recorded. It's not bad at all though. 8 songs of driving punk with a touch of metal that owes from the early days of Fat Wreck and skate punk without sounding like a copycat. There's even some weird horn playing on a track or two that's, uh, interesting.

The members have since gone onto Pale Angels (meh) and Hot Mass (whee).

The Arteries - Brought Up Not Dragged Up (R) (vbr 0)