The Terminals

Forget About Never (Deadbeat)
by Ewan Wadharmi

Is it Black Monk time already again? There’s a practice space somewhere in Nebraska with a 30 year old cassette recorder sitting on a dumpster-score desk with bubbling veneer. That’s how horrendous the sound is on this debut, and word is The Terminals were none too pleased with the initial outcome. But despite and because of the unusual engineering, the room noise and unsafe at any volume recording level, Forget About Never is the most exciting garage punk to assault my eardrums in many moons. The band’s talents are clearly evident through the framework of feedback and fuzz. You just don’t mess around with a classic like The Castaway’s “Liar Liar” unless you can add something to it, and what they add is unfettered vitriol. The prominent soul organ provides a house-dance element like the mixers in that awful Hairspray movie remade recently with Travolta in drag. It’s often difficult to tell the gender of the singer as the raw sound becomes more like the 4th member. I think they trade off urgent vocals. Mind-blowing stuff that’s likely to spawn a band for every album sold.
(www.dead-beat-records.com)