It's Bandcamp Friday, which means there's a lot of new music out there, especially of the underground variety. If you are in the market for fast, raw, unflashy punk rock, then you are pretty much smothered under an avalanche of new shit today. I'm excited to dig through it all, but it's going to take me a while. However, there's one fast, raw, unflashy new punk record that demands my immediate attention, and yours. Today is a good day because today we got a new motherfucking Dark Thoughts album.
Dark Thoughts, from Philadelphia, are our finest current purveyors of down-the-middle Ramones-style fastball punk. They bash out hooks with head-spinning efficiency, and they always sound like they're having fun even when they're singing about being miserable. (Their band name, after all, is literally Dark Thoughts.) Dark Thoughts don't release new music that often these days. Must Be Nice, their last album. came out back in 2019. Last month, they shared a promo tape with three absolute bangers and one Ramones cover, and they promised an upcoming LP called Highway To The End. That new album is out today, and it's exactly what I wanted.
For the most part, you know what to expect from a Dark Thoughts song. The vast majority of them are ultra-simple bashers with romantic-honk vocals and overdriven guitars, and they last somewhere between 45 seconds and two minutes. But Dark Thoughts truly take flight when they branch out, and I really like "Please Don't Be Lonesome," the bittersweet acoustic ballad that arrives in the final stretch of Highway To The End. I mean, I really like the whole album, but that song stands out. Check out Highway To The End below.
Physical copies of Highway To The End are coming in September via Stupid Bag in the US and Drunken Sailor in the UK and Europe. Dark Thoughts will tour the US with Béton Armé in September, and they're playing a record release show 11/9 at Philadelphia's First Unitarian Church.
