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Album review: M.U.T.T. – ‘Toughest Street In Town’

By Alex Goose

The San Francisco quartet strike punk n' roll gold on their sophomore effort!

Here at Punktuation, we like it when bands blend punk and rock n’ roll with a sense of humour, and in that respect, this second album from Bay Area quartet M.U.T.T. is pretty much tailor-made for us! Formed from the ashes of the critically acclaimed Culture Abuse, they’ve taken the ballsy (or just crazy?) step of naming several of their tracks after classic rock and metal songs (‘Living After Midnight’, ‘Sweet Emotion’, ‘Dirty Deeds’, etc.). Well, it’s a way to get yourself noticed, and it certainly made us smile, but is their level of quality control up there with those of prime-era Priest or AC/DC?

Happily, the answer is – for the most part – yes, although you’re unlikely to hear anything from these guys on classic rock radio anytime soon (more’s the pity). Make no mistake, ‘Toughest Street In Town’ sees M.U.T.T. firing on all cylinders, mixing raw punk rock speed and fury with the rock n’ roll swagger of early Guns N’ Roses, and the results are great. 

They set out their stall on ‘Living After Midnight’, with a lengthy, feedback-drenched intro giving way to a beast of a riff – the kind that evokes the Sunset Strip’s seedy underbelly much more than its glitzy, glamorous facade. Imagine, at times, a punked-up Queens Of The Stone Age, overlaid with nimble-fingered lead guitar, and all kept firmly at street level by vocalist John Jr’s deranged howl. Apparently, much of the record was inspired by his gritty neighbourhood, and it shows – in the best possible way.

Uncompromising stuff, for sure, but M.U.T.T. can pen an addictive tune with the best of them, as long as it’s done entirely on their own terms. We have a feeling that the bluesy rhythm and absurdly catchy guitar line of ‘Downtown Boy’ will be bouncing around our heads for weeks to come, whilst the chorus of ‘Breaking The Law’ is going to sound amazing with a few hundred odd (and hopefully more!) folks on backing vocals, as M.U.T.T. lay waste to yet another sweat-soaked dive.

If we have to be picky, the distorted outro of the closing ‘Dirty Deeds’ drags on a couple of minutes longer than it really needs to, but in the grand scheme of things, that matters little. On ‘Toughest Street In Town’. M.U.T.T. have shown themselves to be among the top dogs (or should that be top D.O.G.S.?) of punk n’ roll, and if they’d care to shift themselves across the Atlantic sometime soon, we’d welcome them with open arms.

‘Toughest Street In Town’ is out now on Quiet Panic Records – order it HERE

  1. Living After Midnight
  2. Runnin’ With The Devil
  3. Sweet Emotion
  4. Toughest Street In Town
  5. Dazed And Confused
  6. Damaged
  7. SF Is Killing Me
  8. Downtown Boy
  9. Breaking The Law
  10. Dirty Deeds
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