With riotous energy, cheeky humour, and a powerful punk punch, this is a track that slaps its righteous message around the cheeks of the pretentious and ill-mannered punk posers that populate the live music scene.
“Larry The Cucumber is just a better fucking person than you, and he’s a fucking vegetable!” let’s start the review here, this might be one of the best punk anthem calls to action we have ever heard. It’s unexpected, ridiculous, and frankly hilarious. In isolation it may seem batshit bizarre and barmy, but within the songs message and morality it is wielded with weighty worth.
The titular Vegetales hero has always leaned a little Christian in the past. But let’s be clear, he isn’t a total stranger to the music scene or to having a little fun with his moral messaging. With such abstract classic bangers as “Where Is My Hairbrush” and “Water Buffalo” to his name Larry The Cucumber has always shown a strong connection with silliness in song and it’s this affinity that allows him to emerge as the punk rock icon we need in the modern age.
It begins with the skip and skitter of a muted palm string stroke, before the distorted growl of the guitars storm the soundscape with a frenzied and furious central riff. The drums are a bezerker bop bouncing from skin to cymbal crash with breakneck speed. The vocals begin with the throat shredding roar necessary to deliver the high octane power that fuels the kick of the track. The song finds a moment of calm in instrumentation and vocality for long enough to present its prophetic, poetic, and powerful ode to the cucumber in a much cleaner way that lets the message ring through clearly.
The chorus is as acerbic as it is addictive and it’s a whirling whirlwind of sound that it is easy to get whipped up into and lose yourself in. The humour at the heart of it is matched by the merit of its message and the skill of its execution. This is music that has a purpose, and that purpose is punting the pathetic puke painted punk posers out the front door of the venue and out onto the street where they can stay while Larry The Cucumber and his flock of well-mannered and authentic fans of real music waltz in to take their spot.
It’s fun, frenetic, and fabulous. There is an undeniable energy that pours out of your speaker and infects you both with the drive to be a better person, and the irresistible urge to dance until your dizzy. The Human Fund are carving themselves out an intelligent, irreverent, and very relevant niche.
Listened twice so far. Good find!