Virgins - Miscarriage

"Next year things won't be so bad / I know you're sick of being sad / I'm skipping my own funeral."

Dear Virgins, thank you for a kick ass record! Thank you for restoring my faith in punk rock, which definitely is not the simplest of things to do in 2009. I don't know you as people, but if the ten songs on Miscarriage say anything about you, then I'd like to shake your hands and share a drink. Or seven.

But anyway, this is supposed to be a record review, and not a letter of fandom - even though I pretty much became a fan boy the moment I popped in this CD. The roaring guitars in the first 15 seconds of "Another's Gun" were enough to get me hooked and keep my glued to the stereo, in all their as-if-Frankie-Stubbs-was-playing-Rites-Of-Spring- songs glory. (Note to self: Should I ever finish my magnum opus, the Comprehensive Guide to Punk Rock for Complete Dummies, I will make sure to include a lengthy chapter about what will referred to as the "fuck yeah factor" by future generations.)

So yes, the Virgins rule. Their band name in connection with the album title is probably more punk than your entire lame record collection. And it's so fucking easy to see why: these dudes are angry. Like, super pissed off for a reason. And this, dear message board hero, is because they have a reason for all that rage. This world is a shit hole, and once mom and dad stop putting money in your pocket, this shit will really hit the fan like fucking napalm. There is a giant difference between their anger and your anger. Let me explain.

It's cool if you're 20 and feel alienated. Everybody does. But what the fuck are you angry about? What do you rebel against? The price of soy milk if you're vegan? Your parents? The bombardment of Gaza (pro or con), if you're book smart enough because of your political science college classes? Yeah, right. But this is exactly why your crappy band sucks so much... you have nothing to scream about, apart from being stabbed in the back by another PC punk douchebag maybe. But this is just the cartoon version of being angry, pretty much like Donald Duck squeaking his head off. In other words: it gets boring pretty soon when you're older than three.

The Virgins, on the other hand, boy... they do what every great punk band does: they are mad at the world, they write songs about it, but - and this is the main difference - they do something about it, even if it's just writing songs to make their own miserable lives a little bit better. These songs have substance, they breathe, they are alive with emotion. They are about what the thousands of songs that saved thousands of lives are about: the human experience. And if punk is not about that, it's about nothing at all.

Dear Virgins, thank you!

www.kissofdeathrecords.com