The Dream of the ’80s is Alive in Brooklyn

The post punk trend that’s been on the rise lately has caused many bands to diverge from the snottier, messier punk style of the ’80s, but New York’s Cerebral Ballzy is not about to let that happen on their watch. With fast, thrashy drums, fuzzy guitar and uninhibited shouting for vocals, Cerebral Ballzy’s newest release, Jaded & Faded, which follows their self-titled debut in 2011, is the perfect record for street punks who are sick and tired of all the moping going on in punk these days. Other than the deviation from the darker sounds of today’s punk bands, Jaded & Faded doesn’t have too much in it worth writing home about, but these guys do know how to have fun.

The opening song, “Another Day,” is a premiere example of the old school skater punk attitude that Cerebral Ballzy tries to foster, and most of the other songs on the album largely follow suit. The highlight of this record comes relatively early on with “Better in Leather,” a track that was released at the beginning of the year as a single, and it was definitely the song to advertise. With fun, upbeat dual vocals that work perfectly together, the Screaming Females edge on this song would be a good format for their songs in the future. Cerebral Ballzy does verge on the lo-fi post punk sound sweeping underground communities lately in tracks like “Off With Your Head” that has a definitive grungy edge to it.

There is no doubt that Jaded & Faded is a thoroughly fun soundtrack for the summer ahead, and will surely back at least a few ragers in your friend’s basement, but once vacation is over and it’s time to focus on things other than pizza and skateboarding, it is unlikely that this record will hold up. Unless they throw some really interesting things into the mix in the near future, Julian Casablanca’s claim that Cerebral Ballzy is “probably the coolest band in the world at the moment” seems unlikely to hold true.