PUNK ROCK RAAAAAHHHHHHH

Crammed into a loud and rowdy crowd, the stink of sweat and beer surrounding you as their heat keeps you warm against the frigid air leaking in, you are at the precipice of a movement in America. Shrill guitar rips, drums blast, and screams fill your ears. The crowd erupts, jumping and yelling and kicking violently. It’s the winter of 1982 in a small Minneapolis venue tucked between Hennepin and Nicollet, and you're witnessing the rise of the newest genre in the Midwest – hardcore punk.

Forged in the Minneapolis punk scene, the Citric Dummies feel like a screaming, kicking love letter to the days of early hardcore, with an irreverent and high energy sound that brings you back to the bands that started it all. In their last full length LP, Zen and the Arcade of Beating Your Ass – a title paying homage to both Saint Paul’s Hüsker Dü as well as 9 Shocks Terror from Cleveland – the band set their tone with both introspective and idiotic tracks like “I’m Gonna Punch Larry Bird” and “Tubing Down a River of Anxiety.” Now, they continue their punk rock escapades into their EP Trapped in the Parking Garage.

With 4 tracks and a playtime of just under 7 minutes, the EP is the Citric Dummies shortest release yet, but the band is no stranger to running fast – Zen and the Arcade of Beating Your Ass has 14 tracks and a runtime of 22 minutes. The band continues to show their mastery of the short form track – in a genre defined by its unceasing speed, the Dummies show how it's done with tracks that draw you in instead of just speeding by.

The sound of this EP is characterized by its driving instrumentals, fierce vocals and electric melodies that jolt you to move. In the first track of the album, “Look out World, I’m Eating Arbys,” the vocals are on full display – in fact, they sound so good it almost feels out of place in its surrounding rough and raw punk instrumentals.

Repeating lines are a staple of Trapped in a Parking Garage, most prominently in “Driving a Piece of Shit,” a ripping fast song with some of the sickest guitar riffs of the EP. Each track (all 4 of them) feels like a visit to a different scene of hardcore, from New Jersey’s Misfits-esque ballads to California's Black Flag inspired anger, all through the twisted eyes of the Citric Dummies.

Trapped in a Parking Garage continues the legacy hardcore punk started all those years ago in dingy clubs, bars and basements across the US – fast, aggressive and irreverent music that just makes you want to move. Be it punching basketball stars, eating at fast food joints or lamenting their piece of shit car, the Citric Dummies have once again earned their place in the history of the genre.