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After a few years of relative silence Atlanta’s main purveyors of mean and lean punk, Predator, are back on the scene. In the downtime they have managed to further tighten their already razor sharp sound offering their two best tracks yet. Dark, minimal and brooding with buzzsaw guitars and muscled delivery. Predator are almost hypnotic in their simplicity, but still manage a full and powerful sound. 100% TOTAL PUNK!
Our take: Latest single from this long-running (but slow-moving) Atlanta institution. A lot of the bands from Atlanta have a dark, pop-garage sensibility, and Predator fit the mold in many respects… if you’re a fan of other Atlanta bands and projects like GG King, Uniform, Näg, or Wymyns Prysyn then you’re virtually guaranteed to like Predator. However, Predator has their own take on the style. I’d describe them as “space garage:” Carbonas-esque, catchy, song-oriented punk delivered with the retro-paranoia of the Cold War. The voices sound robotic, the guitar leads hang in the air in a sinister way, and drums drive forward with the relentless, mechanistic thump of progress. The a-side is the pop hit (or as close as Predator get to one), while the b-side is mid-paced, jagged, and stomping. There are two little chords that remind me of “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” but instead of dropping into the expected third chord it snaps into staccato downstrokes that recall Devo’s “Mongoloid.” Predator knows their punk history, but they also know how to write a song that’s catchy and immediate, so you get the best of both worlds: something that’s dense and contextualized enough for the record collectors but still classic-sounding and straightforward enough to make the barflies wander over to the stage to see who’s playing tonight.