Hunx and His Punx - Street Punk [VINYL]

Now back with his awesomely fierce Punx, Hunx (Seth Bogart) has shifted his sound from 60s girl-group melodrama to hairy hardcore punk, New York Dolls sleaze 'n' roll and straight-ahead power-pop for new album Street Punk. Apart from that little hop, skip and mince in musical approach, things remain much the same in Hunx world: boys are cheating scum (the ferocious 'I'm Coming Back'), style is all important ('Bad Skin', 'Born Blonde') and trash culture is a lifeline in a cold world (the title track).

It's all simple, hard, fast, and it's fucking great; a wham-slam smash 'n' grab of camp, pouty, balls-out rock 'n' roll, like the roughest, most unhinged parts of The Ramones and NY Dolls' back-catalogue. Hunx hands vocal duties over to right-hand gal Shannon Shaw on the excellent, pounding 'You Think You're Tuff', while a couple of ultra-brief scream-alongs air a few of Hunx's bugbears, notably in the self-explanatory 'Don't Call Me Fabulous'.

As fun as all this is, the album's best track leaves the thrash behind and takes a trip back to the high-drama pop which informed the band's earlier work. 'It's Not Easy' is a super-sonic sulk but it's also the most melodic, fully-realised song on an otherwise intentionally scrappy album. Hunx's snearing, sexually-bubbling vocal puts one in mind of Marc Bolan, and in fact the song climaxes with a bout of none-more-Bolan glam rock soloing. It may not be very original, but it sure is fucking fantastic. Just don't call it fabulous.