The Triggers: Shoot your Mouth Off

The Triggers: Shoot your Mouth Off
Label: Dirtnap
Release Date: 2003
Review Date: 2003

The Triggers are fresh off the boat… A boat that docked in 1980 and was full of the third generation of punk bands from England. An easy comparison would be to Vice Squad, or at least it would be if I hadn’t sold my Vice Squad vinyl some time before the dawn of the nineties, I can’t remember that much of their music. The time trip is complete not only musically, but visually too. It’s solid driving punk from the era, a little sloppy and a lot of fun. They have been mouthing off in the press and ironically in songs like “Clones” about bands jumping on trends and copying each other. Pretty amusing considering they certainly aren’t blazing any new territory, just poking a slightly different vein of the same music. I guess they don’t like skinny ties. That’s ok, most of us don’t like mustaches either. Live shows are fun and the members of the band seem eager to please fans, but not by pandering to them. The Triggers make solid old style punk rock. Not hardcore, not powerpop punk, not new wave, not MTV punk. One of the minor production irritations is that lead vocals are almost lower in the mix than the backing vocals. They may be off key and/or atonal but they still pack an emphatic delivery. And hey, Exene never got pushed to the back. For all their faults and inconsistencies, The Triggers are hard not to like. At eleven bucks a CD, “Shoot Your Mouth Off” is a good buy.

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