3 out of 5

Label: Michigan Independence Network

Produced by: Dan Mohr (recorded by)

The Bismarck have been a kick-ass group of punkers / rockers for a couple decades now, and I always admire how much energy they bring to every tune, and that they’ve been running this game pretty hard all this time. Seriously, check out how hard their most recent release (at this point) hits, then go back and listen to anything from early on, and these tunes are, like, universally passionate and sweaty, and thickly ridden with riffage.

The Bismarck are also very much a “working class” band, though, never breaking out of a middleground of barked lyrics, solid drumbeats, and headbobbing riffage. I own a few of their discs, but I’m not positive I can call out specific tunes, necessarily. That consistency of rockin’ and rollin’ is also a relevant consistency in their sound, which is absolutely attention grabbing while it’s on, but also moderately indistinct. Like, they all gotta go back to work on Monday, so let’s knock out some tunes and then get home to the kids.

This 7″ is a slice of exactly that, two solid tunes which individually kick-ass but may also be interchangeable, down to their soundalike names. I realize that’s kind of insulting, making it sound like there’s nothing new under the sun, but having such reliable traits is also certainly a skill.

On the one hand, that means you maybe only ever need to own one Bismarck release, but on the other hand, I can listen to them all and not tire of their penchant for good, solid tunes.