Narcos Family Band is one of those groups who perfectly represent a place and way of life. They embody the power of the Philadelphia metal scene and their unique brand of stripped back ass shaking rock and roll is strangely delicious. There is a sort of hedonistic majesty to their latest offering Pink Blues with its crazed horns, punk rock gang vocals and overarching sense of fun which makes it very hard to forget.
Sure this isn't a record that's striving to be 'high art' but it's certainly art made for people who like to get high, and maybe things are a little bit better that way. Spitting in the face of the establishment and unwilling to compromise, the fact that this record is less than fifteen minutes long only adds to the gleeful nihilism.
The bands punk rock attitude is surprisingly complimented by the rich arrangements, if you can call them such. When it comes down to it these aren't so much arrangements as they are weird explosions into 60's style rock and roll madness overlaid onto early hardcore. It creates something with a surprising amount of groove and which serves to remind us time and time again just how weirdly demented and endlessly powerful that this kind of music can be, no matter who or where you are. This is the sort of document to the power of heavy music that scenes need in order to have it even be worth continuing. That in and of itself serves to make Pink Blues the weirdly reassuring punk rock lullaby you never knew you needed.
Score: 8/10
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