The Spears ‘People Are Bad’ 7” review

The Spears ‘People Are Bad’ 7” review


The Pink Lincolns were the first band (at least that I am aware of) Chris Barrows fronted, and in their tenure, the band penned some highly snotty, catchy punk rock tunes that were highly enjoyable. Hated Youth too was sarcastic and snotty, but the purity of the 80s hardcore sound may have distracted from this. Respectively, the singers of these two Florida punk bands, Barrows and Gary Strickland, would find themselves together in rock-influenced punk band the Spears (with Barrows again on vocals and Strickland on bass guitar), and soon released this 7” on Choking Hazard Records to an interested crowd of listeners, eager to hear fast and snotty punk like the former bands of these two men. What the public got was a rock-influenced snot-punk band with a quicker pace.

“People Are Bad” is a teenage anthem of inward social loathing of humanity, all too painfully accurate in the increasingly self-centered and entitled society of the United States. The song grooves to a simple, catchy riff, beating in the background dually with Barrows’ cutting, high-pitched snot-spewing singing. “Upset Down” is another isolation-laden track that includes rock riffs over social anxiety squeaked out with former D.R.I. guitarist Sam Williams’ guitar and Barrows’ voice. Finishing the very short slab of plastic is “Bulletproof”, unquestionably a misanthropic song that could (and maybe should) be a school shooter’s theme song. The pulsating beat of the drums is the sound of bullets flying, the guitar the ripping of these bullets into innocent victims’ flesh, and the vocals the catcall of cynical Columbine youth as they exhort their frustrations on the world at large. The sound on this album is particularly grabbing and gritty; one wonders why the band changed the sound for their album. Definitely one of the best 7” records I’ve heard yet.

-Aunty Social