Cerebral Ballzy - Don’t Tell Me What To Do

Ageing Canadian alt-rockers are probably not the kind of popular culture reference New Yorkers Cerebral Ballzy are after, but ever since being unable to decipher the lyrics for Barenaked Ladies’ ‘One Week’ on Top of the Pops in the depths of the late 90s, bands doing things really fast has been impressive. Inevitably, hindsight shows us that it really wasn’t that fast at all, but the point still stands - speed is cool.

‘Don’t Tell Me What To Do’, the flip-side to the self-styled ‘ghettocore’ quintet’s ‘Insufficient Fare’ is just about the fastest adrenaline rush we’ve heard all year (although if there’s faster, PLEASE TELL US! PLEASE!), and its mixture of familiarly brash punk and anti-commercialist message that’s more ‘no, I will NOT tidy my bedroom!’ than ‘fuck the establishment’ is overwhelmingly charming. Knowingly petulant, it’s noise for noise’s sake - rarely a bad thing.

We don’t have a flying expletive what ‘Insufficient Fare’ is banging on about, but bang on it does, and in the best kind of way; it doesn’t matter if they’re complaining about needing an extra 20 cents for the subway or it’s a typo regarding the school summer fete. It sounds like fun to our ears.