By Vinnie Apicella

The first reaction I had after listening to this was---are these guys really from Tennessee? I've spent enough time down in the Knoxville area to know The Malignmen must be complete outcasts down in the center of the Bible Belt because I never, ever thought I'd hear something like this originate from down there. These guys have the classic punk sound down to a science...damn good to hear, too, since many of those forerunner punk artists are no longer producing it. If you were to combine early Misfits, The Ramones, and maybe Bad Religion, just to name a few obviously, in their crudest forms, that's a heaping mouthful of what you'll get from Th Malignmen. Underproduced much as you might expect, you can go down the list here beginning with "The Hit," "Ladykiller," "Totalitarian," "In One Kill" and so forth and everything that's supposed to be there is---shoddy guitar-playing, symbol crashing, timely drum beats and gang vocals. Be in the mood for a step backward in time before throwing this one on and laugh out loud, throw fits and relive the great memories of a dead end youth.

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