I love finding noise rock fossils like this, unearthed from the shale of some distant country. Forkboy were a Finnish band that was bashing skulls back during the tail end of noise rock's heyday in the 90s, but they only recorded three demos on a four track in their basement practice space before disbanding at thew end of the decade. I'd never heard of the band before as I'm sure most folks outside of Finland hadn't either, but this stuff is very much deserving of the re-issue treatment that Kaos Kontrol has given it here. 1993-1999 collects all three of those demos for the first time, presenting Forkboy's entire recorded output in chronological order. Taking their name from the Lard song, Forkboy wore most of their influences on their collective sleeve, namely the frantic hardcore of the Dead Kennedys and the feedback-soaked noise rock that Amphetamine Reptile trafficked in, but they forged an infectious sound out of it all that most importantly featured some really solid songwriting. The music does sound of it's time, a skronky noise rock assault that winds it's barbed-wire riffs and the singer's howling gravelly vocals around a bludgeoning rhythm section who swings back and forth between lopsided angular grooves and head-nodding, snare-driven tempos that often border on the motorik. The guitarists weave droning lines and traces of cowpunk twang around the chunkier riffs to give their songs an added dose of malevolence. and there's moments where they explode into storms of guitar noise that threaten to swamp the entire band. Forkboy's hardcore punk influences are more obvious than a lot of their peers from this period, songs like "Been There" racing along like a gnarlier version of West Coast punk, and the further into these demos you go, the more apparent their love of Dead Kennedys becomes. There are a couple of songs that are supremely catchy, like the burly stop-and-go grinder "Low Brow", which offers some of the disc's most memorable hooks.

It's heavy stuff, though, and swings around a big bottom end that anyone into the ugly, skull-cracking end of the Am Rep/Touch And Go field would really dig. Despite the fairly primitive recording setup that Forkboy used for all of their demos, this stuff sounds pretty damn heavy here. Pretty massive, actually. It's unpolished, but we're talking about nose rock here, so that's a perk. It's one of the cooler noise rock obscurities I've heard lately, and I recommend that you check this band out if you're pining for the glory days of Amphetamine Reptile, early Helmet, Unsane, and like me is always looking for more chugging, super-heavy scum-rock in their life.

Released in a limited edition of three hundred copies, re-mastered and accompanied by original artwork, liner notes and band photos.