We’ve featured the punk band Bloody Knees a few times before, but now that they’ve dropped their first official release in the form of their self-titled EP we just couldn’t resist reviewing it and drawing some more attention on this extremely promising band. The first impression that the band made on us was based off of their eclectic debut music video for Ears, Eyes, Ohs and Yous. The video depicted a group of lads having a great time and not taking themselves too seriously even though they were playing one of the catchiest punk songs in recent memory, and after listening to the EP, this opinion has not altered much.

The band wears their influences on their sleeves, and it is obvious the group raises the Misfits up on a pedestal with the subject matter and energy they bring to their songs. If you were to just read some of the lyrics, a lot of people would be taken aback, with lines about death, pain and knives running rampant throughout the record. However, you can’t take these lyrics too seriously, as the energy that the lead singer Bradley Griffith brings to the table can almost negate the violence and depressing subject matter he chooses to cover. The EP kicks off with the most ‘romantic’ song on the EP, Who’s Hungry. The song starts with Bradley serenading the woman who’s captured his interest and then escalates when he starts crooning how he’ll cherish her “body with a knife.” He follows this with his anguished screams at the end of the track of how he wants to crawl inside her skin and feast on what’s within, and brings in some group vocals as well. Similar group vocals are featured on Ears, Eyes, Ohs and Yous, giving the song, and most of the other’s on here, an extremely anthemic feel, making the urge to sing along almost insatiable.

Nowhere is the influence of the horror punk band the Misfits more prevalent than on tracks like Ghosts and Dead, with the former possessing the cathy refrain “tonight I’ll wear the face of death, I’m coming and I will find you” and the latter being a despairing song about the inevitability of death and the futility of all actions prior to the event. While this track about the ending of life appropriately ends the album, listeners shouldn’t take these tracks on the basis of the lyrics alone, as the track (Not) Skateboarding in the middle of the album reminds listeners that Bloody Knees are just a group of rowdy kids, albeit very talented ones. The song is a complete break from the theme of death and violence and featuring the refrain of always having “grazed knees,” which explains the band’s name as a sort of tribute to the skating lifestyle, and distracts from the connotation’s that the adjective “bloody” could bring about considering some of the other songs’ subject matters.

Bradley’s vocals get the job done on all of these tracks, the job being mostly to convey a sense of anguish and angst while at the same time never relieving the listener from the infectiously catchy nature of the songs. The instrumentation also lends itself to this catchy nature of the album, with songs such as 100 Days and Ears, Eyes, Ohs and Yous featuring some standout guitar riffs, which sound cleaner than a lot of the other instruments on the album. On every other track the instruments sound very lo-fi and murky, which is not a bad thing, as it lends itself to the group’s sound of being a grimy yet frenetically energetic band. The bass and drums all drive the songs and always lend a sense of urgency to the tracks, and when they’re paired with the vocals it makes seeing Bloody Knees live one of the most pressing items on our to do lists.

Bloody Knees has managed to simultaneously provide a sort of throw back to the heyday of punk and define their own sound, and if every future release is a good as this one, then expect Bloody Knees to be become an established name within every self-respecting punk fan’s house.

9/10

Favourite songs: Ears, Eyes, Ohs and Yous, Dead, Ghosts