- It’s difficult to imagine a band called Cereal Killer taking themselves very seriously. The self-described Geelong stadium rock band is comprised of strays from Wet Blanket, Ausmuteants and ORB has been kicking around since they spat out a scrappy EP of demos in 2016. You’re probably not expecting me to tell you that, in 2019, they’ve decided to call it quits. That’s the truth however, but the real reason we’re here is because they’re celebrating their demise by releasing their first and only full-length record. Thing is, for a band that revels in titles like This Is Cereal Mum and Your Punk Scene Is Stupid they hit with the force of a squad of Special Branch goons and sound about as serious as a minute-and-a-half of screaming can.
That’s not quite true, if there’s one thing that art-punks know how to do, it’s inappropriate self-importance and The Beginning & End Of Cereal Killer is not that, it’s kind of the opposite of that. It’s slickly done but rough and authentic; not afraid of a good tune and similarly happy to hit you with it like a sack full of doorknobs; it’s talented but unpretentious in its execution. Hell it even has some sneaky synthesiser which is an excommunicable offence for many practicing punks.
In roughly twenty minutes, across thirteen cuts, Cereal Killer’s general schtick is this: they’ve got the proto-metal thunder of Motörhead but with the tunefulness and silly grins of The Ramones. The pace is like a bat-out-of-hell and everything is screamed, always screamed. It comes to a skidding halt right on the edge of the precipice of crust-punk without falling over into the po-faced abyss. Oh and it’s produced by the nearly inescapable Mikey Young who does a great job of making every element of the band ring, while pretending that it’s a lofi wall-of-sound.
I can’t understand the lyrics but it’s probably not important. Everything you need to understand you can probably garner from the title Your Punk Scene Is Stupid. It’s because I have no idea what they’re yelling about that I can’t really judge whether they’re serious or not. I think though that the truth is this: they’re deliberately irreverent, not just like punk is, but to all the ‘rules’ that have become rusted on to punk. They get away with it because they’re better than all the idiots who enforce dogma because they’re not good enough to blaze a trail of their own.
It’s probably better for all those injured punk feelings that this is The Beginning & End Of Cereal Killer. I gotta say though, it’s one of the better twenty minutes I’ve spent.
- Chris Cobcroft.