Fucking finally…FINALLY! You’ve no idea how long I’ve waited for The Chats to come along. Under produced, raw, attitude filled, punk rock music that kills it live and thankfully has been totally overlooked by all radio.
The Chats are a young three piece from Brisbane who’ve been playing together for under two years but already destroy a live set. They came to attention last year when their video for ‘Smoko’ went viral. The fact that they’ve shot the in SD and the drummer spends most of the time trying not to laugh just makes it the best. And if you’re looking at 0:41 then the lead singer gets to punch you.
In 1985 The Cosmic Psychos started singing about life on the farm, creating a unique strand of Australian punk rock that they continue to own. It’s only ever been visited on ocassion by the awesomeness that is the likes of The Vines, Violent Soho and The Dune Rats, who’s more polished skuzz sound has allowed them to be supported by Triple J and taken them from pubs to the stadiums.
But The Chats style of homemade shed-rock lights itself from The Cosmic Psychos torch, and, almost surprisingly given the piss take nature of their viral single, their limited catalogue is entirely good. The self-titled release in 2016 is proper rough in recording and with tracks such as ‘VB Anthem’, and ‘Yeah Nah’ may make you assume on surface that they’d be in the Chris Franklin camp of bogan comedy. In reality it just serves as a reminder that their young, authentic and having fun. The chemistry in the sound they’re creating is phenomenal, and let’s not forget that Grinspoon’s debut included ‘Boundary’, a song about an AFL throw in and ‘DC3X’ which was about passing a dead cat three times.
Last year they self-released Get This In Ya via Bandcamp – https://thechatslovebeer.bandcamp.com/ – which is their first properly mixed and mastered offering. It’s up for ‘Name Your Price’ so you can grab it for free, but we’d encourage you to throw a couple of bucks their way. Hopefully that will mean more on the way soon, and in a perfect world a live album to boot. Make sure you go see them if they’re playing near you, though this unfortunately seems to only be Brisbane at present.