Pkew Pkew Pkew

Punks and jocks haven't always seen eye-to-eye. The in-group/out-group dynamics of each haven't been very forgiving to the other. Luckily, the Toronto punk rockers in Pkew Pkew Pkew (sometimes stylized as PKEWx3) don't subscribe to one or the other- they're more interested in the transitional space in between.

That's the space the band inhabits on their self-titled debut record. It's being re-released through SideOneDummy Records under a new name: +One, so titled for the extra track it will include. On Bandcamp, the debut is tagged with the following: beer, pizza, punk, skateboarding, Toronto, and being broke. These are the topics that comprise a 22-minute flurry of unbridled guitar-punk glory; every fist-pumping whim is indulged, and no anthemic melody is underused. The compact runtime is a statement itself; rather than sketching out meandering tracks with occasional hooks, PKEW makes songs that are hooks, from start to finish. They position pop's steadfast belief in glossy generalities against head-bashing bar-chord guitar rock