MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: THE ORWELLS - TERRIBLE HUMAN BEINGS

Ah, young, loud and snotty, the basic recipe for modern-day punk.  Not much has changed since the '70s really, although this is a tad more polished than your granddad's punk.  More like latter-day Green Day punk, if you get my drift.  The must-hear band of 2014 by some accounts has now got to put up or shut up.  They've cleaned up the production a bit, but kept the attitude and power chords, and thrown in some gratuitous shocks ("No one can fill your vision/They're on vacation masturbating").

There's some fun going on certainly.  The tribute song called "Black Francis," goes about it in a roundabout way, including a conversation in the second verse:  "Have you heard that band?  Yeah I think they're shit."  It's off-kilter, like Bowie's "Andy Warhol."  There's great sha-lala's in "Hippie Soldier," a good contrast to the distorted bits to come.   Even some very, very dark lyrics are treated with goofball irony:  "So take me to the desert and chop off my heavy, heavy head.  Put it in an Easter basket and place it down upon my mama's bed."  I guess jaded never gets old.