News Bloody Knees

: Bradley Griffiths, Christian Wilkes, Tom Wilkes, Sam Conway
Based: Cambridge
Listen: Soundcloud.com/bloodyknees
Sounds Like: Wavves, Best Friends

Have you ever wondered what Nathan Williams fronting the Misfits would sound like? If his lo-fi, garage rock jams were suddenly not about skateboards and chilling at the beach, but about NOT being able to skateboard and what happens when we’re all dead in the ground? If so, you’re in luck, because Bloody Knees are at hand to answer these questions for you with their debut, self-titled record – it’s even available to download for free.

Hailing from Cambridge via Southsea, this four-piece are all about making slacker anthems that pack as much punch as Wavves’ biggest hooks but throw back to lyrical themes first coined by Danzig’s men and refined by the likes of Black Flag and Dead Kennedys. Album highlight ‘Ears, Eyes, Ohs and Yous’ is a sincere, riff-heavy promise to quit singing songs about murder; ‘Dead’ an anthem that bluntly reminds us that we’ll all end of in the ground some day, and yet they mix in some of the more traditional garage rock revival themes too: getting the urge to go to the cinema (‘Towerfields’) and becoming bored with everything around you (‘Impending Gloom’).

Do you like skateboards? Do you find yourself stuck in your room for most of the day, unmotivated with no idea why? ‘Bloody Knees’ is one of the more genuine slacker-punk records you’ll hear this year, and you’d do well to give it a spin and thrash about on your bed whilst you do so. After all, no one’s going to do it for you.