A Few Good Losers – Hi-Speed Skate

A Few Good Losers, a newish Atlanta-area-based punk band, recently released their debut album, Hi-Speed Skate. The record features eleven tracks of loud, frantic, aggressive 1990s-esque “skate punk” anthems, in the vein of new-school (now probably kinda considered old-school) punk genre stalwarts such as Lagwagon, Pulley, MxPx, etc.

Production by Andrew Brett Davis is tight, deliberate, and focused, filled with all the genre trappings – no frills, downbeat drums; distorted guitars; simple bass lines; and sing-songy, broken-sentence vocals. “Blank Stare” starts the album off right: fast-paced and in-your-face, which is obviously – as becomes clear as the record goes on – the band’s wheelhouse. “Grim Reaper” slows the album down ever so slightly with a more pop-punk sound. “Fear of Missing Out” has some tempo changes, but in good taste, and even has an upbeat ska part, making it extra-90s. “Miller Killer” features a heavy-metal-sounding bridge. If the album had a single, it’d be “Love Song,” by far the band’s catchiest song.

Elsewhere, “Poverty Pimp” is the epitome of punk rock, clocking in at about a minute long. The record’s last song, “Born Millennial,” plays pissed-off with sardonic undertones, both defending being a millennial while making fun of it at the same time, mentioning smartphones, hashtags, taking pictures of your food and posting it on social media, et al. The song features cheeky lyrics like “We’re more in-tune as a generation to give trophies for participation/ What on God’s green earth could possibly go wrong?”

While the band doesn’t reinvent the wheel here, they do breathe some new life into what some may call an outdated genre, and it’s somewhat refreshing. You can stream A Few Good Losers on Spotify and if you see them play live you can actually pick up a real, physical copy of their record, which seems rare for local bands to have in 2020.

A Few Good Losers
Hi-Speed Skate
[self-released]