Tracklisting:

1. Fire – Mal Devisa
2. wild fire/flowers – Trust Fall
3. Home Alone – Max Gardener
4. Your Love – Jeremy Squires
5. Veins – Camp Howard
6. How To Dance – Mount Moriah
7. Good Evening – Adeem the Artist
8. Shallow – Candy
9. Francie Cool – Francie Cool
10. Bad Vibes – Zebrafi
11. Piece of Ivy – Jake Bellissimo
12. Snow Day – Julia Brown
13. Alive – Dear Tracks
14. Ted the Radical Westy – Ravetank
15. ft1 – naps
16. We Have The Perimeter Surrounded – Hallelujah the Hills
17. Bullet in a Broken Gun – Oscar Lush
18. Color Peels – The Wandering Lake
19. Nowhere Nothing – Oceanator
20. Suagr Skull – The Washboard Abs
21. Of Wandering – Littler
22. bicycle – Twelve Gardens
23. Ya Ya Ya – You Won’t
24. Find You – Family Video
25. Jack Campbell (Quick Jammer) – Dingus.
26. Candy – Fish Food
27. It May Very Well Do – 100 Watt Horse
28. Life – Whim
29. Meg – Hovvdy
30. Piano Player – The Hotelier
31. Calvary – Chris Bathgate
32. Postman – Sam Moss

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‘Ha Ha, Then What’ is a desperate pop punk break-up song, with flailing drums and yelping vocals delivering lyrics steeped in defeated nihilism, “i’m not responsible for making you feel anything / we’re fucked and alone / i’m not happy or sad, i’m just not anything”. Follow-up ‘Loser’ springs out of a droning buzz and is another catchy, self-deprecating punk song,  a spiky anthem for the legions of lonely teens (“you call me a loser / laugh at my basement skin / i drink alone every night / and tell my friends i’m staying in again”). ‘Jack Campbell (Quick Jammer)’ is perhaps my favourite on the record, the slightly slower verses building into a big heavy chorus:

“on a telephone
pretty sure all my friends r ghosts
watched you walk through the wall
woulda tried to catch ya
didn’t wanna fall”

‘Trash’ is another pulsating indie rocker, before ‘Puke’ brings a change of pace, an acoustic love song that is still not without the general lack of self worth on the rest of the release “who would want to be with a guy like me / i’m skinny, i’m clumsy, i’m just so embarrassing”. The final track is the song’s sequel, ‘Puke, Part Two’, another slow song about a break-up which, at least lyrically, brings to mind Gleemer’s No Goodbyes.  It’s a fitting end to a release which charts the ups and downs of young, of saying “fuck it” to feeling sad before sinking into a sense of doom anyway.

You can get I Was Never a Boy Scout on cassette via Near Mint (most editions have sold out but as of now you can still get the white/grape edition below) or as a name-your-price download via the Dingus Bandcamp page.

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