Hired Muscle - The Last Minute

This little beauty has been out for a while now but the lads from Hired Muscle have only just got around to passing them on to me, talk about leaving it until 'the last minute', etc. Totally worth the wait though as Hired Muscle are the UK's finest hidden treasure which makes this humble little ten track CD the best kept secret in land. This abrasive DC-influenced three piece are from the same family of Bletchley lads that spawned Action Beat and sits comfortably on the Fortissimo roster as the best thing Don (Action Beat beat main man and Fortissimo head honcho) has ever released (I should exclude the Glenn Branca repress but honestly...I prefer this album, so I won't). The genius of Hired Muscle is their ultra posi(tive) attitude coupled with a humility you rarely see in the ambitious young bands of today. This is the kind of attitude I associate with a band like The Minutemen who incidentally the 'Muscle have a lot in common with. They wanna party, they wanna travel, meet people and enjoy the process of being in a band as much as possible but, most importantly, they want to be proud of the scene they helped spawn and the music they've created so they strive for better every step of the way. Imagine a classic 80's SST punk band if they were informed by the dynamics of the post hardcore DC scene of the mid-late-90's (Faraquet, Q And Not U, Hoover, Medications, Fugazi, etc) and you'd get Hired Muscle but it's the unique setting of Bletchley (Milton Keynes) that exerts the strongest influence over the band. 'The Last Minute' is the product of a community of friends that enjoy the process of making and performing music regardless of the bullshit that stands in their way. For me personally, that is commendable behaviour. It's also worth noting that every track is amazing, there are no fillers and this rates as one of my all time favourite records. At £2.99 you'd be a fool to not check it out.