Kicking sceptics sprawling in the gutter as though they’ve just stage-dived from a festival stage the erstwhile Agnostic Front-man takes the battle to Lard Frederickson’s Bastards in the street-punk trash ‘n’ roll stakes, establishing frontlines and a whole network of supply trenches and crowd surfs into the sunset of a smoggy New York evening. Battened down(town) under an undeniable belief and honesty Miret wins out over accusations of fighting the same fights over and over again in the manner of the mindless massacres of World War One.

With the menace and sinister savagery of guard dogs patrolling a compound of underworld underachievers the Disasters chase clichés out of their cosmos with the sheer amount of ham on these songs hound dog haunches. Plainly still huge fans and believers in punk patois and rhetoric (the Ramones tribute ‘Ramones’ and Clash crib ‘Janie and Johnny’). Whether or not they’ve lived it and seen it more than Mick ‘n’ Joe they have a similar fascination with street level gangster schtick, if not the chic, as though they’re caught between ‘The Warriors’, ‘The Wanderers’ and ‘The Outsiders’ with an agit-agenda of inflammable materials and an undeniable business sense, if ya dig, tho’ I can’t imagine a ‘New York Calling’ coming from the brink of these Disasters. Perhaps that’s unnecessary, perhaps it should be obligatory.  __________________________________________________

- Stu Gibson