Boston's
Curses travel the same cheerfully obnoxious garage punk ground as that city's '80s skatepunk mavens
Gang Green, with a few echoes of their late-'70s U.K. brethren
Sham 69 as well. The songs are strictly three-chord punk of the old-school variety, with short songs, tough but catchy guitar riffs, and some wicked lyrics -- "Thank You for the Child Support," a winningly snotty update to an absent father, is both the funniest and the sharpest-edged -- that makes
The Curses sound like a great lost classic of post-hardcore '80s punk. The relative lack of sub-
Green Day pop-punk nods to the mainstream is refreshing; these songs are catchy, particularly the
Bo Diddley-on-speed bounce of "(Baby's Got A) New Guitar," but they're catchy in the offhand, casual way that
Ramones or
Replacements songs are catchy, not the tortured one eye on the pop charts way that
blink-182 songs are catchy. ~ Stewart Mason