Great review of Guttermouth's "Gusto" by punkupdates.com

Guttermouth is a band full of surprises. Their albums "Teri Yakimoto" and "Musical Monkey" were filled with melodic punkrock with sing-along HILLARIOUS lyrics. I love those albums. Then they released "Gorgeous", which was pretty much pure chaos - in my ears a bunch of crap. Last year they moved from Nitro records to Epitaph and released "Covered with ants". For me this was a steb towards the right direction, with less chaos and more melody, yet I never liked it as much as their earlier work.
About a month ago I saw that a song off of their new album was available for download on Epitaph's website and after listening to it i looked forward to the release date. The song was/is "Scholarship In Punk", in which Guttermouth goes back to their "Musical Monkey"-sound. A mixture between punk, rock, energy and melody that follows half of the songs on this record. The other half consists of very not-punk weird songs like the title track "Gusto" which is some kind of country/squaredance-pop, or "Contagious" that could be described like Jazz-rock-boogie. "Looking Out For #1" Is clearly influenced by celtic music and bands like Flogging Molly. Now this may sound horrible to most of you but I found myself instantly loving the variation this adds to the album. These weird songs have one thing in common: they're all very catchy and sticks in your head for a while.
Stand out great songs are "Pee In The Shower", "Twins" and "My Girlfriend", along with the previously mentioned "Scholarship In Punk". Worth mentioning is that the production and sound quality is superb and absolutly flawless and that the lyrics actually are a bit more mature than on their previous releases. So in conclusion this is a great album with good variation in the songs, eventhough some of them are as far from punk as immaginable. Those of you who think "Gorgeous" is Guttermouth's best album to date will probably hate "Gusto!" so don't even waste your time, but for us other fans of the band and this type of music this one is a typical "Listen before you buy". Personally i think this is one of the most creative, exciting and catchy releases so far this year! And by the way: The artwork is really amazing!

Rating: 90%

-Karl Hansen

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