Released: 2007
Confusion. What is it good for? Well, in the case of The Bronx the odd little misunderstanding makes the world go round. Firstly, they’re not from New York, but instead live 3,000 miles away in Los Angeles. Every one of their six albums has been eponymously titled, differentiated only by adding the roman numeral of your choice. And finally they’re not to be confused with Mariachi El Bronx, who make music rooted in the Hispanic-inspired style, although they are in fact the same band. Got it?
That’s where any brain fade ends, however. As soon as you plug in to what they do you can hear that it is, without ambiguity, punk rock, stitched together from strips of hardcore and classic West Coast stomp. In this maelstrom singer Matt Caughthran’s voice has the quality of grit on glass, a power that carries any notions of derivation off into the sunset with it.
From The Bronx II – which came after I and before III, completists – Shitty Future is the aural equivalent of being assaulted with a baseball bat. On it Caughthran’s howl spits out bloody droplets of alienation, screeching about “Broke kids/In loveless gutters” and like bad sex the whole thing’s over in just over two uncomfortable minutes. Confused? You won’t be.
The Voice Of Unreason 
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