Album Review
Return of the freaking dead! Here comes 800 Octane with their latest release “The Return”! And like the label clearly states, this is New School Punk www.newschoolpunk.com. Turn it up! Twist it hard and fast! And then Blur the mosh pit in a spin of phucked up faces. The Return: 13 tracks (if you can find them ALL) deliver fast-paced punk rock. 800 Octane calls themselves “Super Rock”, and I can buy into that with a smile. I can also buy into the idea that this may even be Ghoul Rock with a grin. I believe it’s half-serious, half-tongue-in-cheek FUN Rock. We are definitely agreed that this is ROCK! “Zombie makeup & photos by Lee Williamson”. This is the guy you want to do your make up for the Queen of Halloween Ball! The Return cd insert includes solo-photos of every ghoul who helped make and finance the music on this album. That’s right! This is 800 Octane on DIY! And, although the latest news from www.800octane.com reports that Jim (the drummer) is no longer with the band, he still helps a warmed-over-death-punk groove fast and hard where The Return is concerned. 800 Octane will keep your feet jumping, your hands moving, and all good things a groovin’! It carries enough of the “I wanna be a star” attitude to make it pop level punk. I can just hear “Day of the Dead” on KNRK (and other cheesy pop rawks radio stations) just as much as any of those other surf punk/gutter pop bands that make the airwaves. What’s great about 800 Octane is that for Portlanders, this band is local, and we can look in the Willy Week, or at www.800octane.com, for an upcoming neighborhood performance. And we can expect 800 Octane to share the billing with other freaks such as SK and the Punk Ass Bitches, Nekromantix, Groove Ghoulies, GWAR, Dead Stars on Hollywood, Antiworld, and so many other musical CREEPS out there! Skater punks will find The Return to be all-the-rage on the half-pipe, and into swimming pools everywhere. Skinheads poking along and driving down the boulevard will turn a few heads by simply turning up the volume. And all you wanna-be khaki-clad aggressive types just might get lucky one night by taking a date to a freak show with 800 Octane on the bill. Songs that particularly grab my attention include: “Ghosts of Monochrome”, “Hollywood”, “Day of the Dead”, “Holiday”, and “Feeding Time”. Oh, yeah, and that “hidden track” really creeps me out a bit, too. When you hear it, you’ll understand exactly what I mean. (Jett Black / In Music We Trust)
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