<span><span>- The Chats have multiple major festival spots and a healthy -albeit naive- coverage from unsuspecting, mainstream TV networks are safely stashed away alongside two rough and ready EPs in the bag. The band are also dropping their debut album. It’s a record that I’ve been well and truly champing at the proverbial bit for the release thereof. Slick, three-chord fret-board abuse, snarling larrikin humour and the classic punk chorus stretched out across fourteen rippers of puerile, juvenile delinquency is what is on <em>High Risk Behaviour</em>. It isn’t going to tickle your fancy. It won’t even entertain it. It’ll ram its skateboard into your shins until your bleeding, battered legs give out. Once they’ve given out, you’ll be forced to kneel…and mate, you bloody well should.</span></span>
<span><span>The more times <em>High Risk Behaviour </em>is played in full, the more abundantly clear it becomes that most songs by the Sunny Coast trio maintain a rather strict structure. That structure has a tight-knit run time, picks a particular topic, leads in with a brief introduction, barking vocals spitting in your face, summarises the lot in a catchphrase chorus and bashes it all out in under two minutes. This kind of punk will always be my favourite and like <strong>Citric Dummies</strong>, <strong>The Coneheads</strong>, and <strong>wimps</strong> before them, there’s something about this keep it simple, stupid style of song-writing that is endlessly entertaining. In a murderer’s row of topics about the sub-tropical Sunshine State, the trio cover the oppressive Queensland heat and the suffering caused by it, as well as chlamydia, cyber-security, and characters from their postcode. <em>Drunk and Disorderly </em>and <em>Ross River </em>turn slogans into bellowing chants, the latter of which is basically a single <em>syllable</em> spat directly in your eye with infectious conviction. A verbose change is manifested on <em>Keep The Grubs Out</em>. The lyrics here are more akin to the density of an <strong>Aesop Rock </strong>number as the manager’s rant put to music makes what would have easily been a net negative into a solid album track. To round out a scintillating stampede, the collection cools down with the dogma relaxed and tweak. Two songs subvert the trend thus far and take a turn for the melodic with <em>Do What I Want </em>and <em>Better Than You </em>making a slower approach that opens into anthemic sing-a-longs.</span></span>
<span><span>If you buy into the notion that a song by The Chats is written in under half an hour because they don’t try too hard, every dork who writes eight minute epics should hang their head in shame. Downing an entire record in a fraction of happy hour, <em>High Risk Behaviour </em>is all reward. It’s short. It’s hardly sweet but it is to the point…that point being that kids making no frills, all thrills noise will always be the best kind of punk. </span></span>
<span><span>- Matt Lynch.</span></span>
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1756409543/size=large/bgcol=f…; seamless><a href="http://thechatslovebeer.bandcamp.com/album/high-risk-behaviour-2">High Risk Behaviour by The Chats</a></iframe><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/POM_98oi0oo" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>