Album Review: Red Scare Across Canada 7-inch
Release: Red Scare Across Canada 7-inch
Band: Various Artists
Label: Red Scare Industries
Year: 2025
Score: 8/10
review by Ricky Frankel
Red Scare Industries has been a staple punk/pop punk label for twenty years now. Chances are that one of your more recent favorite bands released some sort of album or EP through the label at one point. For this reviewer, that would be bands like Direct Hit!, The Copyrights, Teenage Bottlerocket, The Menzingers, The Falcon, Enemy You, Brendan Kelly And The Wandering Birds, and Cobra Skulls. With so much news about punk labels these days, Red Scare doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon, especially since they announced the Red Scare Across Canada Tour. To go along with this tour, Red Scare has released a 7-inch compilation featuring all four acts that will be performing across Canada together in mid-August.
Brendan Kelly And The Wandering Birds start off the ‘Red Scare Across Canada’ 7-inch with the song, “Tracksuit.” It has classic witty and funny lyrics we tend to get from Beex, but the song is also this very creative mixture of groovy, electro beats and sharp guitar-driven punk rock along with his classic throaty and raspy singing.
France’s Guerilla Poubelle’s contribution is “L’incendie, Le Canadair Et Le Colibri.” It’s an in-your-face, thrashy, and snotty tune with big gang vocals, heavy and choppy guitars that is quick and to the point. The band doesn’t waste any time cramming as much aggression as they can into this track that clocks in at just under a minute and a half. They really get a lot done in a pretty short amount of time.
Sam Russo’s track is sort of the “surprise” song of the four. It’s probably the best track that I’ve heard from him and it seems to signal a bit of a branching out style-wise. “Leaving” Sam Russo singing a more anthemic melody over his usual acoustic guitar, but an echo-y electric guitar accents are scattered through out. It’s livelier and more upbeat than his previous material.
In The Meantime closes this release out with the explosive track, “Old Gum.” It’s a good ol’ fashion anthemic and heavily melodic tune filled with three-part vocal harmonies, huge “woah’s,” and screaming guitar octaves. This very well could be a lot people’s introduction to In The Meantime and the band makes quite the first impression with “Old Gum.”
If you are able to catch this tour, this is definitely a very cool little compilation to pick up at the merch booth. It’s not only a great collection of new songs, but a sample of where things seems to be heading for Red Scare Industries in a time where independent labels are struggling or making some major moves to keep their legacy intact. Not to mention, all four songs are quite good in their own right. So snag a copy. I have feeling this 7-inch will age quite well, too.
***
About the Author
Denise Borders 41, Los Angeles. Denise founded PWV in 2008 and remains the primary manager and photographer/videographer. She is not secretly obsessed with Joey Cape.
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