Shop Talk Shop Talk LP
After a handful of short-form releases, New York’s SHOP TALK finally delivers their first full-length, produced by James Mechan of the SLEEVEENS. The three-piece gallops through ten songs in twenty-six-and-a-half minutes, led by Jonathan Garcia’s psychobilly-inflected guitar playing and his singing that lands somewhere between Jello Biafra’s nasal sneer and Leonard Graves Phillips of the DICKIES, and I mean that as real praise. But under the snottiness, there’s a genuine power pop instinct, the kind those Denton bands have, driven at a punk rock pace. The record manages to sound old and new at once, aware of its history without being ruled by it, and it’s really fucking good. My favorite moments are where they loosen their grip, like the tail end of track eight, “Golden Afternoon,” where things come apart in the best way. Definitely worth your stinkin’ time.
