Amyl And The Sniffers
U Should Not Be Doing That / Facts

Heaven forbid that a new release from Amyl and the Sniffers should pass unnoticed on DeBaser; it would no longer be the only bulletin board in the universe where you can find a report on everything that Amy, Dec, Bryce, and Gus (and before him, Cal) have done from 2016 to today, complete with interviews and live reports.

Anyway, last May 21st, the single “U Should Not Be Doing That / Facts” was released, anticipating the new album “Cartoon Darkness” coming on October 25th – noisily announced also by the recent release of the song “Chewing Gum” – and above all breaking a discographic silence that lasted since the previous “Comfort To Me” of 2021.

In the meantime, an impressive avalanche of concerts around the world, twice even in Italy, but listening to and humming a new song of theirs was an experience I quite missed after having memorized those that filled two EPs, a single, and two LPs.

“U Should Not Be Doing That,” side A and also in the new album’s tracklist, follows the trail of “Hertz,” signals and overtakes with ease. At the release of “Comfort To Me,” “Hertz” was one of the songs that surprised me the most, forgetting the fact that Amy had often expressed her great passion for hip-hop and that finding herself singing in a band put together to play some ramshackle pub punk was more than anything the “merit” of her past as a runner for an infinity of hardcore punk bands in Melbourne and surroundings, basically stripes earned on the field.

Then came success, the signing with Rough Trade and the encounter with the Sleaford Mods, the featuring with Amy in their “Nudge It,” and, inevitably, that “Hertz” which today is among my favorite tracks of Amyl and the Sniffers, for the way those four mix ingredients, chew them, and spit them back out: the story of contamination is an old one, but it always pleases me when someone comes back to tell it to me.

And if “Hertz” was the lighthearted yet melancholic reaction to the first glimpses of fame – “I stopped at the fish and chips under the house / Perfect strangers act like they're my best friends, it makes me laugh” – “U Should Not Be Doing That” is the annoyed reaction to established fame and all the dealers of unsolicited advice, sprouting like mushrooms after two days of rain: an implied 'screw you,' a closed fist with a well-raised middle finger in the face of anyone, from Melbourne to New York passing through London, who takes it upon themselves to shoot off random judgments. It's also and above all the attempt to evolve punk from pogo to dance, and let Amy's unlikely choreographies come forth.

It closes with “Facts.” Nothing to say about how it sounds, these are Amyl and the Sniffers in great shape, rattling rock 'n' roll, screaming and shrill voice: that they allow themselves to relegate such a piece to the B-side of a single and leave it off the album tells you a lot about these four. You understand even more when you get hammered by Amy with a series of “N.O. FUTURE” shouted at the top of her lungs and after realizing that, today, she's the only one who can get away with it without falling into ridicule. Precisely because, the path for the future Amyl and the Sniffers have been tracing for themselves for eight years now.