Challenger Give People What They Want In Lethal Doses

This is an album that does exactly what is says on the tin. Formed from Milemarker members Dave Laney, Al Burian and drummer Timothy Remis, this is old-school, power-chord-driven punk rawk. Laney and Burian, who alternate on guitars and vocals on this outing, are also renowned for their fanzines Media Reader and Burn Collector, polemic and edgy publications that reflect the driven music we find here. It's a world of battered Chevy's, cheap booze, cigarette burns and home-tattooing, psyched up three minute bum-rushes and learning only the chords that you really need. If you want musical complexity, avant-garde experimentation, or, well, any subtlety whatsoever, look away, 'cos this is balls-trapped-in-the-garage-door US punk.

It's not really worth discussing individual tracks, because each follows a very clear sonic architecture - crashing chords, angry-old-man vocals and galley-slave drums. Like stockcar racing, this is loud, fast, and very American. In the tradition of Husker Du, the Minutemen, or the Effigies, this trio, like a less compelling AC/DC, take the mould and stick to it. Which means that if you have any desire to see music that has evolved since 1978, you are in the wrong place. Quite why you would be looking here in the first place, I do not know.

What sets this outfit apart from many punk imitators is pedigree and skill. Laney and co know the ropes perfectly, have memorised the right power chords and perfected passive-aggressive lyrical misanthropy. There's a brief interlude in the shape of the quiet closer The Trojan Horse, but it's a track that only stands out because of the uniformity of the rest of the fare. Brand Loyalty boasts satirical lyrics that attempt a degree of polemic, but there's something to my eye rather anachronistic and faintly naff about anti-trade sloganeering in this type of punk. Indeed any sort of social protest this unsubtle and so very un-nuanced has more than a whiff of impotence about it, like middle-class dreads or ever-proliferating nose rings. Yes, more than once the sheer musical isolationism of this genre-reinforcing epic smacks of men screaming against the world from the confines of a locked room.

I've slated revivalists before, but I don't think Challenger fall into the horrible world of newby white Ska, Har Mar-style or retro funk. They are angry, committed and competent enough to deserve respect and support. But what leaves me cold is that they go nowhere, remaining hermetically sealed against time and the outside world. I'm not demanding something that they aren't trying to do, like the man who complains that Newcastle Brown Ale is not a patch on chilled Chablis; whereas AC/DC, Iron Maiden et al are all rehashing a model that stranded in the early 80s, without attempting anything other than testosterone power and joy, Challenger are aiming for subversion, edginess and inspiration, and therefore an interaction with the world. But while they remain so musically divorced from developments, changes and paradigm shifts, they remain forever trapped in the double-bind of superficially effectual ineffectualness that blights so many attempts at cultural resistance.