The Quitters – No Big Deal

The Quitters – No Big Deal

URL: https://www.quitterspunk.com/

The eclectic Los Vegas based punk act The Quitters is a four piece unit whose second release, No Big Deal, builds on the tremendous promise shown on the band’s first release Contributing to Erosion. They pull from a deep vein of influences filtered through an uniquely individual attack and display a wide breadth of musicianship typically not touted by “punk” bands. It never smacks of pretension once, however, and the band’s performance always aims to serve the song. They effortlessly whip up the uptempo charge of classic punk while freely indulging in much riffier material listeners might find on a hard rock or even metal album. These characteristics make moments of real diversity stand out when they come and The Quitters delivers many such moments.

The drumming of Miqah Mayhem is the band’s lifeblood. As Mayhem goes, The Quitters go, and the opener “Pay No Attention” goes to the wall before smashing through it. They unleash every bit of punk attitude they can muster and will certainly blow the doors off any unsuspecting listeners thanks to the machine gunning guitars, mammoth rhythm section work, and Marc Roqsberg’s white-knuckled wail. The song “Dr. Crash” marries the high velocity chord shredding of the opener with extended passages of heavy riffing, but The Quitters move even further in that direction with the track “Paper Street”. A consistent and, perhaps for some, unexpected highlight of the album is the songwriting. It isn’t common, certainly, for such unapologetically fast and unforgiving guitar rock to contain such on point lyrical content. They explore dynamics on a lot of tracks too – not everything is presented as a wide open, uptempo lunge for the listener’s throat. “Gated Community” has some of that going on, as well as seriousness and dark comedy in equal measure.

“Armageddon Outta Here” draws more attention to the band’s wit, but it’s a musically superb number as well thanks to the compelling arrangement and interplay between the drums and vocals. The Quitters have an impressive chemistry that comes through on every song – this was certainly an album without overdubs and the fact they can enter a room and lay down these tracks with such raucous precision says a lot about their intuitive understanding of each other. “Gulf Coast Beach Party!” is one of the album’s truly more skewed moments as they conjure up a raver that’s part punk and part freaked out surf music, but they make the genre clash work. “One For the Books” is much more of a straight ahead riff workout but amasses tremendous strength as it steamrolls towards its inevitable conclusion. The album’s concluding song, “Sex Drive Attack”, spreads itself out in some unexpected ways, but it’s anchored once again by their focus on delivering muscular and stripped down punk for their audiences. The Quitters have hit this one out of the park and prove, for any doubters, that punk music is still living and vital. The fifteen songs on No Big Deal waste no time at all in establishing their presence in a listener’s life and breath fire in all the ways you’ll expect it to.

9 out of 10 stars

AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/No-Big-Deal-Quitters/dp/B0052ZP6EI

Jason Hillenburg