The Chicago punk band LURK has been around since 2017, and the five members of the band have been playing together since before then. According to frontman Kevin Kiley, the members of LURK started the project with the intent of exploring the outer rim of punk rock: “We wanted to do something that was sort of ‘Ramones meets Devo meets B-52’s meets the Cramps.’ A lot of those older bands could be pretty out-there, and punk can still be out-there if you want it to be.”

That four-band combination, great as it is, doesn’t really describe LURK. Instead, LURK have filtered a lot of classic-rock influences into their swaggering, ugly-catchy version of punk. LURK don’t sound anything like Turnstile, but in the same way that Turnstile are a straight-up rock band who present themselves as hardcore, LURK are a straight-up rock band who present themselves as punk. They’re good at what they do.

Up until now, LURK have cranked out a series of EPs, but they’ve never made an album. That has now changed. LURK’s debut LP Around The Sun is coming out in September, and the band has shared the video for first single “Crack A Smile.” The song is a big, nasty, energetic riff machine. In the video, the members of the band ride around in a VW bus, encounter red monoliths, and consume a frankly disgusting amount of milk. There is probably some obscure fetish community that will be very into this one. Check it out below.

Around The Sun is out 9/17 on Pure Noise.