Energetic aural-assault from the Oakland punks.
In the bands’ own words, “Fleshies make giant rock big explosion sound yes! Much excitement, four members stand and make jumping leaps with yelling, drums, rock electric guitar!”, which pretty much sums up the Fleshies’ manic, messy sound.
Gung Ho is a collection of Fleshies singles, comp tracks and B-sides that comes complete with a thorough re-mastering and liner notes, and with titles such as “I Just Took The Most Punk Rock Shit Of My Life”, its obvious that this is definitely a band your parents will despise (and you’ll be secretly pleased that they do).
Simple melodies but ferocious lyrics, roaring guitars and manic tub-thumping – if you like your punk fast, hard and with a definite kick to it, this is the band for you. OK, so the sound quality might not be amazing on some tracks, but it’s that un-polished, raw sound that captures the band's energy and sets them apart from other punk bands' glossy offerings, which have obviously been fiddled and twiddled with in a studio for months. Songs like “Somebody Twisted Your Arm” and “It’s Alright” end in a satisfying barrage of shouts and turmoil, but despite the outbursts of manic noise, Fleshies’ manage to keep their fingers firmly on the melody button, creating many memorable shout-a-longs and hummable tunes.
Fed up with the likes of Good Charlotte turning the ‘punk’ genre into a joke? Have your confidence in damn good, dirty punk rock and roll restored by looking no further than Gung Ho. You won’t regret it.