Merloaded – Back From The Bed CS (Tarantula Tapes)

What do you get when you mix alcoholic beverages, skateboarding, energetic punk rock, and loud rock’n’roll? You got entertaining, unpretentious, sincerely performed skate punk music with loads of great moments worth listening to while performing boardslide on the nearest ramp. Merloaded avoids any classifications into simplistic musical genres or terms, and they’re going it with the flow, fully aware of their capabilities as a band. The best part about their music is the devotion towards mid-eighties, old-school skate punk sound. The band rather explores the beforementioned old school style and avoids becoming another polished pop-punk band. Don’t get me wrong, I love some pop-punk from time to time, but bands like Merloaded are needed the most because there are only a couple of them out there capable of perfectly articulating the abrasive eighties skate punk sound.

Today, I will talk about their debut cassette release called Back From The Bed. This EP includes six energetic numbers entirely performed in a raw, thrashing, and dynamic manner. If you’re looking out for a contemporary technically demanding skate punk band, then you’re looking out at the wrong place. This is a proper mixture of relentless hardcore punk tunes, decorated with simplistic but yet effective melodies along the way. I adore their simplistic chord progressions, subtly distorted basslines, dynamic drumming performance, but above all, I admire their sincere, confident, powerful performance that forces me to jump to the roof and back. You may also notice how some late nineties melodic punk rock bands affected their songwriting and composing. However, these accentuations are reduced to a minimum and implemented at particular songs here and there.

No matter if you prefer vert or street skateboarding, Back From The Bed is a perfect soundtrack that will cheer you up and force you to pull those tricks with such ease. Even the purposely dirty-sounding production carries a certain dosage of rage you desperately need in the early morning. This material was previously released on a compact disc, but it was remixed and remastered for the purpose of this cassette release, so it sounds dirtier than before. Head over to the Tarantula Tapes and grab this excellent old school skate punk release.