Album #288: Joe & The Shitboys – The Reson for Hardcore Vibes

• Released: 2020
• Origin: Faroe Islands
• Label: Farmstead
• Best Track: Pretend Serious

I don’t know a lot about the Faroe Islands. There appear to be a lot of rocks and grass there, including grass on rooves. They have an international football team that almost always loses and once had a goalkeeper who wore a bobble hat. Now, this unlikely North Atlantic outpost is home to a raging, no-nonsense punk band extoling veganism and bisexuality within a usually conservative cluster of islands.

Ten minute of your time is all Joe & The Shitboys ask for on their debut (and an album can be ten minutes as I’ve argued many times before), and there are far worse ways to pass the time while waiting for your bus or sticking a vegan pizza in the oven. It’s not all lightning fast though, with ‘Life is Great You Suck’ and the closing anthem ‘Shitboys Theme’ trudging and grinding along.

Velocity is a key theme, nonetheless. One track, ‘FuCk’, is barely a second long. The comparative 20-second epic ‘If You Believe in Eating Meat Start with Your Dog’ hammers home their stance on animal welfare, and my personal favourite is the shout-along ‘Pretend Serious’.

The Shitboys seem to revel in the album’s disposability, referring to it as the ‘SHITALBUM’ on Facebook. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it takes no prisoners either and is refreshingly unpretentious. These lads know their shit!