If you poke around on the Melted Ice Cream Records bandcamp with a stick for long enough you’ll find something sticky. Big Scout take me back – way back – to the angry shouty noisy exciting days of post-punk. And I mean actual post-punk, being the music that came just after punk in 1979-ish and was punk but with better basslines and weird abstract angular guitar and better social commentary lyrics and less spitting. Songs like Big Scout’s “Arthur Fuxake”:

Big Scout’s blurb, which you can’t actually read because it’s white text on a palest pale blue background, asks “Is it post punk? Well what the fuck is that anyway?” which is a good question and about the only helpful thing in the blurb. I mean it doesn’t even say “Big Scout is from Blenheim” which I think they are. Nothing comes from Blenheim. Nothing good at least. Not since Blenheimer wine ceased production, fancied up into something drinkable in the 1990s.

Someone else – I’ve forgotten who sorry – recently commented that “post-punk” is a meaningless genre because everything is “post-punk”. I mean, that’s true. It is 2024 now and 1979 is 35 years ago. But it if you were actually around in 1979 and listening to actual “post-punk” as it was happening then it does actually mean something and stuff that sounds like “post-punk” did in 1979 does in fact sound “post-punk” and it is indeed a useful genre tag when used correctly.

Anyway, I’m sure Chairman Jim – who no doubt has been hanging out for dirty NZ guitar rock like this all month – would agree this song (and the rest of the album) can indeed meet the “post-punk” sniff test. Not sure if the provincial English accent here is faux-provincial English because it fits the “post-punk” ethos or because the vocalist is an actual provincial English-person. There are also Kiwi excents on other tracks on the album. The shouty speak-sing vocals are literate and clever, too coherent to emulate the style of actual “post-punk” band The Fall, and are more like Art Brut (refer their “Formed a Band” here) who were about 25 years “post-punk” and usually referred to as “Art Wave” which I think we can all agree is an even sillier genre label than “post-punk.”

So… go poke Melted Ice Cream Records’ Bandcamp with a stick and see what you find.