Tv Freaks

Tv Freaks

Dyot / The Pits

Schizophrenic

***On the tail of their third LP Bad Luck Charms, the latest buzzsaw guitar-rock barrage from TV FREAKS delivers two new essential cuts on March 11, 2016. Following a clutch of releases they’ve come home to Hamilton, ON’s long-running Schizophrenic Records. Recorded to eight-track in a single night, this two-song 7” reveals the band painting their typical wide-reaching emotional palette, or lackthereof. “D.Y.O.T.” is an epic mid-tempo jam, pulling sonic cues from anything and everything without compromise, seemingly less concerned with “punk” as a sound while still inevitably being just that. The flip side on the other hand is that, a frothing-at-the-mouth garage-punk burner more in line with something off the Rip Off Records catalogue of past. One of Canada’s best punk bands show off their range while continuing, as always, to do their own thing. Limited to 500 copies, all housed in a beautifully screen-printed die-cut sleeve.

Tv Freaks

Bad Luck Charms

Deranged

With a fistful of singles and two albums behind them, Hamilton, Ontario’s TV Freaks spew up a miasma of contradictions on their third LP. Angular yet liquid, chunky but with gravy and, like a sour grape, hard to keep down—it’s aptly titled Bad Luck Charms.  A trio of underground rock royalty brought the album to life, with production from Dallas Good (The Sadies, Elevator, Career Suicide, The Filthy Gaze of Europe), mixing from Don Pyle (Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, Crash Kills Five), and mastering from Mikey Young (Total Control, Eddy Current Suppression Ring). This is art made by near-descendants of early man and as intricate and nuanced as a Biblical fresco, painted with a boulder instead of a brush. Pummeling, primal rhythms battle with snaky guitars and static-shock bass as a man cries out and rips his own shirt off, with nothing more to offer but his own flesh. Is our luck about to turn?

Tv Freaks

S/t [7inch]

Schizophrenic

***Hamilton's TV FREAKS are busting at the seams with energy and spit. As if you were gazing at a school shooter's instagram account, the cover art here is nihilistically gorgeous with a child playing with dad's gun pressing it against his head, all smiles in the sun while the band's logo sprays out prophetically in white blood spatter from the other side. One way of making your Sunday afternoon in the park a real bummer. The sleeve speaks volumes about the music inside and that music is loud and scathing. The vocals are just as distorted as the guitar.  There is a smug cynicism that sits on top of every song. An angry din of frustrated chord pounding, shouting and the drumming like they're trying to stab through cymbals and skins. Perhaps the last minute of the record is relative to the next frame of the cute kid in overalls playing roulette on the grass? Whatever it is, it's a glorious mess and leaves the same type of experience that you'd get out of a Flipper album. TV Freaks do a great job of taking some classic and modern influences to come up with their own unique and fresh sound. This is pure punk rock that looks better in blood on a guitar than spray painted on a leather jacket and I'm sure if the gods of good taste get off their asses you'll see both.