Review
Guff
Engine Trouble

Go Kart (2003) Sean

Guff – Engine Trouble cover artwork
Guff – Engine Trouble — Go Kart, 2003

Sometimes I really wonder about people. I turn on the television and I see rape, murder, and complete apathy towards the billions of human beings living on 40 cents a day. It's time for a change, it's time for a revolution to make everyone on Earth stop in their tracks and think about things in a brand new way, so that maybe there is hope for this world yet.

Guff bring that revolution. Forging elements of pop and punk into an exciting new genre called "pop-punk". Their palm-muted guitars, overuse of pick slides, and melancholy lyrics filled with references to failed relationships and other trials and tribulations of being a misled youth are going to forever change the shape and sound of today's music. The boys in Guff spit in the face of interesting song structure, intelligence, and good songwriting, and instead cherish a new approach to music. This approach consists of lacking a strong pop sense, completely shattering the preconceptions that a good pop song and a smart pop sense go hand in hand. "Who needs a memorable catchy tune when you can write boring ones that sound a lot like 143,774 other bands?", asks the members of Guff. Song titles like "Scars are Tough Too" and "Yesterday Seems" you know you're in for an album packed with emotion, innovation, and truly amazing songwriting. "With a terrible, or as they like to say, "unconventional", vocalist and repetitive chord progressions, Guff are sure to leave their mark on every band to follow from this day on.

Oh I feel the tides a-changin', I feel the winds a-rearrangin'. I think this "pop-punk" thing is going to be huge.

3.0 / 10Sean • February 28, 2004

Guff – Engine Trouble cover artwork
Guff – Engine Trouble — Go Kart, 2003

Recently-posted album reviews

Økse

Økse
Backwoodz Recordz (2024)

Økse is a gathering of brilliant, creative minds. The project's roster is pristine, with avant-jazz phenoms Mette Rasmussen on saxophone, Savannah Harris on drums, and Petter Eldh on bass/synths/samplers joining electronic artist and multidisciplinery extraordinaire Val Jeanty (of the fantastic Turning Jewels Into Water project.) The result is a multi-faceted work that stands on top of multiple sonic pillars, as … Read more

Final

What We Don't See
Room40 (2024)

Justin K. Broadrick's prolific output keeps giving, and may it never stop! The latest release is one of Broadrick's earliest projects, Final, which started in the power electronics tradition but since its resurrection in the early '90s, it is solidly standing in the ambient realm. Final's new full-length What We Don't See continues on the same trajectory, relishing drone's minimalistic … Read more

Bambies

Snotty Angels
Spaghetty Town Records, Wanda Records (2024)

The digital files I’ve been listening to as I write this review are all tagged to begin with the band name, e.g. “Bambies Teenage Night,” “Bambies Love Bite,” etc. It seems like a fitting metaphor. The Bambies play the kind of Ramones-adjacent garage-punk that’s often self-referential and in on their own joke. The Bambies play leather jacket-clad, straight-forward punky songs … Read more