Bob Burns & the Breakups - Terminal Breakdown review
Bob Burns & the Breakups – “Terminal Breakdown”
(Gearhead Records)
Oh, boy! More full-on garage snottiness coming down the pipes is always a good thing. It’s kind of like listening to the New Bomb Turks, or Zeke without the anger, or the Dwarves without the pedophilia fixation. Terminal Breakdown is fast, it’s loud, and it’s got a cocksure swagger. Bob Burns & the Breakups have this sound down, and know what to do with it.
It’s a sound that every band on the label’s roster takes and processes through their own filter. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Soldiers took it and added James Brown screams and a little T. Rex swagger, whereas Bob Burns & the Breakups have taken that basic sound, added Dickies style snottiness, and revved it up like the Buzzcocks.
It’s fucking Gearhead, basically. The “Epitaph sound” used to be So-Cal punk. You could pick up any Epitaph release in the early ‘90s and have a pretty good idea of what you were going to get, even if you’d never heard of the band. The “Gearhead sound” is pretty much the same – you know that when you see the crossed flags, you’re going to get fast, punked-up rock ‘n’ roll with occasional nods to ‘70s-era cock rock via screaming guitar solos.