The Real Losers

Reviews

The Real Losers Time to Lose LP reissue

The REAL LOSERS, a garage punk three-piece from Leeds, UK, don’t lose their raw and raucous energy in this remixed reissue of their 2003 album Time to Lose, out now on the Portland-based Total Punk label. If you’ve ever blasted TEENGENERATE or the MUMMIES and wished it sounded even more fried, this no-fi wrecking ball might be for you—vocals splatter like static from a busted radio, giving this the feel of a bootleg of the greatest rock show you never saw. This remixed version boosts the low end and gives the instruments more punch; it’s a significant improvement overall, but I think I might actually prefer the original’s shitty charm. The reissue includes the fifteen original tracks plus two bonus cuts, “Tell Me Something” and “Johnny’s Got The Action.” It’s primitive, overdriven garage punk that never lets up—a snotty, swaggering mess in all the right ways.

The Real Losers Good Clean Fun LP

Rescued from obscurity by the esteemed Total Punk, it’s the unreleased intended second album from the REAL LOSERS! And it’s an old-fashioned smoker for all you garage freaks out there. Fed on ’70s sleaze and forged in the apex of the budget rock movement back in the early ’00s, these fourteen blown-out tracks deliver raucous and rocking ’90s-style punk in the lineage of early MAKERS, REATARDS, the REDS, CHINESE MILLIONAIRES, et al., channeling the likes of TEENGENERATE and CLONE DEFECTS in places. It’s down, dirty, and to-the-point rock action. They’ve got a real knack for making their simplicity so filthy, and they’re not afraid to shake a tambourine. Just when I thought the well had run dry on this kind of stuff, I get smacked with this banger. It’s easily one of the greatest revelations of the year thus far, right next to realizing that the fantastic KÜKEN are the same dudes from later-era Rip Off Records act the KIDNAPPERS! Who knew?