Clowns

“I’m Not Right”

Poison City Records

Melbourne, Australia, four-piece Clowns isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel with this one. Instead, what the band has done is set its jaws, crank the amps up to 11 and unleash a good, old fashioned noise-punk album. Teaming up with producer Lindsay Gravina — something of a stalwart in the Aussie punk music scene — Clowns has turned out an album that starts out hard and only goes up from there. Consisting of 12 blink-and-you’ll-miss-them tracks that will combine to eat up less than a half an hour of your time, “I’m Not Right” hits all the proper punk highlights. It’s really loud, really fast and really good. It isn’t perfect, but imperfections are what make punk, well, punk. The best track on the album is “Eat a Gun,” though closing track “Powders” isn’t far behind. CV

Check out “I’m Not Right” at http://poisoncityrecords.bandcamp.com/album/im-not-right.

Here Come The Mummies

“Cryptic”

Sphinxter Records

Here Come the Mummies is the most obvious example of a musical gimmick since Digital Underground. And much like Digital Underground, it’s really easy to underestimate just how good Here Come the Mummies is at what it does because of it. As a straight-up funk band, Here Come the Mummies is undeniably solid, and “Cryptic” features a couple of tracks that are some of the best I’ve heard this year, with “You Know the Drill” being the most noteworthy. But every so often — as with “Petting Zoo” or “Innuendo” — The Mummies feel the need to pay tribute to the schtick that got the band here. And that’s where, unlike D.U., its work suffers. Shock G rapped about ridiculous things but sold them to you in a committed manner. But The Mummies feels the need to bust into the middle of its own songs every so often and remind you that we’re all having fun here. CV

Listen to “Cryptic” at https://herecomethemummies.com.