Finally Punk - "Hypertension" 7"

Finally Punk – Hypertension EP

M’lady’s Records, 2008

Acquired: Love Garden, New, 2008

Price: $5

 

On a deep personal level, I think $5 is too much for a 7”. I know cost-of-goods has gone up and all, and I’m not arguing the actual pricing of the thing, but unless I have a very good reason I can’t bring myself to pay $5 for two songs when I can just buy the record for $15-18, no matter how much fun I think 7”s are. What is my ideal price for a 7”? $3-4. Even $4 gives the illusion that you are getting a deal. I’m only making this point because this was one of the few new 7”s I ever bought and I legitimately cannot remember why I bought it. Something struck me that day as I was browsing the new 7”s at the old upstairs Love Garden. It’s weird how well I remember buying this, but only bits and pieces. Had I just wanted to buy something and asked for a recommendation? Was I under the requisite $8 you must spend to use a credit card and in need of padding my bill? I forget the important details, but I do remember immediately taking it home, throwing it on my turntable and then never listening to it again until this afternoon.

This time around, I’m not giving it the old cursory listen. I’ve listened to it about five times trying to find something about this scrappy all-girl punk band from Austin special. All I can think about is that wave of all-girl punk bands that bubbled up until Best Coast crawled out and started putting their songs in Old Navy commercials. I feel like there were a ton of all-girl punk bands when I went to SXSW in ’08 and ’09. I remember seeing Mika Miko like three times. It was really refreshing to see the ghost of Bikini Kill haunting college radio. All-girl bands are important to a healthy musical economy. Finally Punk’s Hypertension EP is shouty art-punk that is all sharp edges and disjointed songs. It’s a bit outside of my realm of enjoyability, but these noisy punk bands tend to really shine in a live setting. Plus the songs are all like, a minute or so long which earns a thumbs up in my book. We should all mourn the day punk bands started making songs that were over five minutes long (The Decline being the exception).

"Hypertension"(Note: Finally Punk compiled their first three EPs into an album called Casual Goths, which I should not is a fantastic record title).