What if some crazy guys from the Finnish countryside (under the not so extraordinary name ‘The Achtungs‘) decide to play raw, shitty but even more intense garage punk than the good old Reatards? Well, if The Achtungs were only half as great as they are, they would still make their entry to my top punk records list of 2014 with their Full of hate LP (from Going Underground Records). Personally, I have always been fond of The Reatards but I think Jay Reatard’s songwriting skills were much more prominent on his later solo albums. So, what struck me about The Achtungs is that they preserve the overdriven garage punk sound but at the same time they manage to write really catchy songs – and by this I mean great and painful ones. In a quite thorough interview with singer Joni at It’s Psychedelic Baby he talks about the beginnings as simple as possible: ‘In the summer of 2010, I was really bored with the band I was in, Pill Poppers, and I wanted a band that sounded like The Reatards.  So, I formed one’.

It probably makes no sense to tell any more about them….in case the concept ‘great songs with a ferocious sound’ does not impress you, then why are you reading this anyway? Haha. But seriously, give them a listen. I think both of their releases have already been sold out, so we can only hope for a reissue or something… but as long as we have such great bands around, there’s no need to worry about punk at all.