Nothing can get me pumped up quite like pop punk anthems. They might not be the loudest or heaviest tracks in the world, but there’s always a lot of positive energy to them. They can sometimes touch on kind of heavy issues and personal lives, but they’re always presented in a way that makes you think, “Yeah! Me too, dude!” You just want to join in the crowd and celebrate being human and alive. It’s rough and sloppy sometimes, but it really doesn’t matter if it sounds cleaned up or not. The point is the energy. So may I present Brisbane, Australia’s Dune Rats.
You have to feel this band. If you’re into the heavier side of music, you had an entry point somewhere on this lighter side of things. When I first got into heavy music, pop punk was my bread and butter. It sounded wholesome enough that my parents let me listen to it, but there it rocks in a heavy way which got my blood pumping. It felt like music that could help me exorcise my anger and redirect it in a positive way by just skankin’ it out.
For me, this is purely teenage nostalgia. Sure, being a teenager can kind of suck sometimes, but everyone can tap still tap into the good parts of it. No real responsibilities. Your biggest problem is math homework. It’s little things like that that only feel like little things when you’re older. When you’re that age, those are colossal issues. What makes them worse is that adults around you don’t even consider those stressors, and all you want to do is shout it all out. That’s what Dune Rats taps into. This kind of music reaches out to you to let you know that someone else feels that problem and gets what you’re going through. And the music is extremely accessible which makes it much easier to relate to. If any of what I described sounds like something you remember, then you need Dune Rats now.