“Punks (sic) not dead”, read the graffiti adorning a wall adjacent to the local train station of my childhood. I first saw this statement in 1979, a time when the Sex Pistols were only a year from their self-inflicted demise, when The Ramones were still firing on a substantial number of cylinders and Iggy Pop was yet to plunge deep into the abyss of LA-glazed pop rock. As it was, I associated punk with the coloured mohawk hairstyles so enamoured by tabloid editors, and thought little more of the cultural significance of the defiant rhetoric.

Years later, when I’d realised belatedly that punk was more substance than fashion style, I offered a pithy, and possibly superficial, analysis of punk to a pre-HTML online social networking group. I was soon confronted by some, um, punk whose reaction championed the indefinable and extreme cultural and artistic resistance of punk, citing GG Allin as empirical evidence.

While their name evokes a punk-like quality, Useless Children don’t appear to trade on that label. What’s punk about Useless Children, and their new record The Sky is Falling, is the spark, attitude and passion with which it’s constructed, performed and served up.

The opening title track is suitably cataclysmic: feedback, some solid punk rock chords and drummer Cinta Master’s razor sharp vocals give way to a frenetic cacophony of noise. ‘Haunted’, a psychotic journey through territory inhabited originally by the speed freaks of the San Francisco scene in the late 1970s, picks up where its predecessor left off, while ‘Not My Friend’ takes the amphetamines down to a surfside setting. The product is an invigorating blend of early Go-Gos and Radio Birdman.

‘Give Up’ is awash with the intensity of Bikini Kill fronted by Toby Vail, its lyrical message more a call to arms than suggested by the superficial nihilism of its title. After the Hot Tomatoes meets Acid Drops psychotic attack of ‘Not Happening’, Side 1 rolls out with the brooding ‘Falling Apart’. Masters’ emphatic refrain, “I’m falling apart”, could be the prophetic confession of anyone on the verge of sociopathic behaviour.

Side 2 opens with ‘Freezing Cold’, four furious minutes of No Means No-inspired punk rock punctuated with a call-and-response effort so intense not even an overdose of west coast pop could remove. ‘Out on Life’ is to American college rock what the Pacific North-West anarchist movement is to the Democratic Party; ‘Thief’ is speed rock 101 practised by true believers; and if you haven’t been listening intently by the time ‘Say You’ll Listen From the Start’ appears, then you’re a lost cause.

The album rounds out with the contemplative ‘Wither’, an Antipodean take on the punk-stained emotional politics of the Kill Rock Stars stable, and Useless Children’s journey – as powerful as a totalitarian regime and as potent as absinthe – is over. For the time being at least. But if that’s not enough, there’s the presentation: deep ocean blue vinyl, three-dimensional artwork with 3D glasses thrown in for good measure. No one ever said you can’t mix punk attitude with visual aesthetics – and with Useless Children, you’ve got the complete package.

by Patrick Emery