Album review: Angel Du$t – Yak: A Collection Of Truck Songs

From petrol to pigs in blankets, the UK’s current lack of HGV drivers is causing a shortage of just about everything the great British public hold dear. But never fear: Baltimore’s Angel Du$t have crossed the Atlantic with their own Truck Songs to make sure that the one thing we don’t run out of this winter is tunes.

Composed of members of hardcore outfits Trapped Under Ice and Turnstile, you might expect plenty of punk rock fury to match the anger of the times. But Yak is very much the calm after the storm of those acts. Instead, erstwhile TUI frontman Justice Tripp guides his cohorts through a breezy selection of songs that echo the explosion of melodic, post-punk U.S. indie-rock of the ’80s and ’90s.

So Fear Some could be straight off an early Weezer album, Big Bite goes heavy on the jangly Lemonheads guitars and 'na-na-na’s and Yak brings a lorry-load of LOLZ to the party. And all the while, the metronomic grooves and blaring brass mean this is more sax pistols than Sex Pistols.

Not that Angel Du$t don’t have teeth – the biting riff of Truck Songs and the presence of Rancid’s Tim Armstrong on the genial skank of Dancing On The Radio show that their punk rock spirit, unlike everything else in post-Brexit Britain, remains in plentiful supply. But they’re also free to escape the fractiousness of modern life with the rambunctious folky shimmer of No Fun or the crafty pop of Love Is The Greatest.

A winter of discontent may be on the way. But whatever disasters occur in the real world, rest assured Angel Du$t will keep on trucking.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Weezer, The Lemonheads, Hüsker Dü

Yak: A Collection Of Truck Songs is out now via Roadrunner

Watch: Angel Du$t play a tiny dive bar show