CLASS - Epoca de Los Vaqueros LP

Highly recommended.

The debut LP by glamazonian Arizonans Class is a band name-justifyingly good release in its own right; as dishevelled, quickstep protopunk made by American punk/HC figures of note went in 2022, Epoca De Los Vaqueros goes toe-to-toe with Moses Brown’s delicious album as Peace De Résistance. With that out of the way, back to Class: most notably, they’re the baton Rik Meyer has taken up since folding Rik and the Pigs. To be reductive, you could liken them to a reversed-time Cheetah Chrome, on a Rocket From The Tombs tip where Rik and the Pigs were the Dead Boys. Beyond that, there’s a song titled ‘Cockney Rebel’ which sounds nothing like Cockney Rebel (and a little like the Buzzcocks), Stones-meets-psych guitars on ‘Light Switch Tripper’ and a darker turn to close with ‘Unlocking Heaven’s Gate’, which pulls similar moves to someone like Constant Mongrel and seems to either be about COVID or leaning on it for allegorical purposes.

"Class of Tucson AZ—instantly familiar, idiosyncratic to the max, a glorious collision in which several of American punk’s leading lights emerge from their vehicles unscathed (though I make no promises for the rest of you, see below). What more can I say about 2022’s most eagerly anticipated full-length album?

These songs have the requisite crunch / glue ratio and more than anyone else in their idiom, remind me of moments that don’t happen nearly enough, in rock, in life, when your eyes are closed, anywhere. I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to presume the persons responsible for these gems are keen students of the last 40+ years of underground/overground sounds (the good shit anyway), but there’s a singular voice, a defined worldview if you will, somehow cutting through our bland, brutal, grim as fuck moment in history.

And if you’re wary of being hyped-2-death, spare a thought for me for just a minute. I’m the one who’s gonna have to talk them off a ledge (figuratively, it’s mostly single stories in this part of the country)." - Gerard Cosloy