Death By Unga Bunga: Raw Muscular Power

These Swedes just love their garage rock, don’t they? But man are they good at it. There’s a band called Millencolin that I remember downloading from some illegal site a million years ago and just loving the heck out of. It’s fun garage punk that is both tongue-in-cheek but also incredibly competent music. Not unlike that band, the obviously jokey-named Death by Unga Bunga is fast, fun and endlessly catchy garage rock that brings punk energy and classic rock riffage. Wait, what, these dudes are Norwegian? And that’s a different country? Well, hell, I’m sure the Norwegians have the same rock ‘n’ roll tradition. There’s… literally nobody. Aha! No, a-ha. Not rock. Not at all.

I’d say this band’s music is like the Stonehenge version of White Reaper or the blown-up version of Mike Krol — who actually appears on one track of the album, “Therapy.” Which makes total and utter sense. And, look, I’ve never been a huge fan of goofy rock that verges on parody, but then I listen to bands like Death by Unga Bunga and I wonder why not. I think somewhere under there they want to be taken seriously. They’re clearly proficient musicians and can write a great hook. So why not be Weezer? Shit, why not at least be their neighbors to the east, The Hives? It makes me wonder where they picked up this very specific American garage rock sound — one that does sound particularly of this country and different than the harder core stuff of that region like Refused or what I imagine is a pretty heavy black metal scene or whatever goes on up in the land perpetual darkness.

And somehow despite the darkness and the brain eating of their fellow rock community, these guys have managed to put out something upbeat and fun. It’s not cerebral. It’s not emo. But it’s most definitely rock and roll in the truest sense. Not nutless navel gazing or bellyaching. It will sound a little uncanny at times, like you’ve heard the tunes before on another record from this kind of fast garage punk stuff from Krol or Jeff Rosenstock or Jay Reatard, but they do throw in some fun squealing dual guitar attacks as well, which gives it some of that 70s hard rock sheen the others may be missing. I enjoyed the hell out of this thing and I’m not ashamed. Unga bunga.