Punk rock is great. Back in the darkest seventies you weren't allowed to be in bands unless you could crowbar 96 chords and a seven minute solo into each of your songs. Then punk came along with three chords, three minutes, and no twiddly bits. The problem with this is, as anyone who owns Nevermind The Bollocks will tell you, is what sounds immediate and attention grabbing for three minutes can sound repetitive and over simplistic after thirty.

Suicide Milkshake's first lp partially suffers from this affliction. Songs like Ride With The Tide and Boy Action are an enthusiastically buzzy blends of Blondie, Buzzcocks, Pistols, and, erm, Disco Pistol, and this is largely a good thing. However, as part of a fourteen song set the chord recycling and often unimaginative lyrics begin to grate. I Wanna Be Like You is a case in point, catchy and poppy yet incredibly derivitive of a hundred pop punk anthems before it. The less said about Everybody Is A Bumhole the better.

There is a lot to be proud of on here, certainly anyone under eighteen will not have their opinion of Too Scared To Sniff Glue blighted by the heard-it-all-before factor. Maybe that's the point. I'm 23. In punk rock terms i'm dead. So add an extra point to the rating for every year you are away from your twentieth birthday.