Southend is never really renowned for much. It is a seaside resort in Essex known particularly for having the longest leisure pier in the world but any recognition of the place sort of ends there. It is interesting to work out why or how it is home to one of the UK’s most exciting guitar-punk groups then.

Asylums have been teasing us over the past 18 months or so with samples of their sound. Much like yoghurt stuck in the corners of a pot – out of reach of the spoon – they have been providing us with just enough to keep us satisfied but never enough to fill us completely. Singles such as ‘Wet Dream Fanzine’, ‘I’ve Seen Your Face In A Music Magazine’ and ‘Joy In A Small Wage’ have been doing the rounds for a while now on radio and online music blogs. Asylums have been building an intense audience in that time who have been packing out their gigs around the country, regardless of the fact they had no LP to cement any of the success. Killer Brain Waves in that respect is a long-anticipated album. It looks to glue together their eccentric punk-rock, providing the binding for their story so far.

2016 has been a throwback to guitar-rock really. Spring King, Yak and now Asylums are all examples of British bands attempting to put the gonads back into guitar music and with Killer Brain Waves, Asylums are keen to assert their authority early on. ‘Second Class Sex’ is a youthful surge of a millennial’s take on pop-punk. If the genre became tired in the early 00s, it has found a new mould nowadays making it appealing and cool to like oncemore. It’s a fraught, treble-driven guitar song that seems as anxious as the crimson-faced tales of sexual encounters it tells.

‘I’ve Seen Your Face In A Music Magazine’ continues the manic thrust – guitars lurch upon a high-velocity tempo that race away from you like Roadrunner on fast-forward. ‘Joy In A Small Wage’ proves that Asylums have more tricks up their sleeve than just the ability write full-throttle punk though. The melodic shift arrives at the precise time in the album to remind you that these are methodic musicians below their youthful angst, giving a shade of maturity to their sound.

The quick to the point rock’n’roll certainly sets itself as the Asylums’ forte though. It dominates much of the album; what differs these from their contemporaries though is their ability to place concrete hooks within their songs. No song becomes boring, neither does the sound. This comes down to two factors: bellowing guitar lines and the fantastic set of lungs that lie behind Luke Branch. ‘Bad Influence’, ‘Born To Belong’ and ‘Wet Dream Fanzine’ all kick-out electric melodies behind punk-fuelled madness.

Asylums do not only strike with their abrasive hooks and guitar-pop but also within the topics they talk of. Every track throughout the album is a relatable image that all millennials can find sentiment with. ‘Second Class Sex’ speaks of rejection towards below-par sexual encounters (“So no one’s going to put the fuck into it”), ‘I’ve Seen Your Face In A Music Magazine’ talks of the vanity and ego attached to the music industry and ‘Joy In A Small Wage’ makes reference to a happy-go-lucky young 20-year-old mentality, making do with the bare minimum. A tongue in cheek take on television and the media industry is presented in ‘The Death Of Television’, a song that laments the brain-washing process that the small black box offers. It’s wrong to assume that Asylums are just about music; Branch’s poetics are witty and full of accusations of the idiosyncrasies that plague Generation Y.

‘Monosyllabic Saliva’ digs a little deeper into current musical trends, it is a branch falling not too far from the tree of Demob Happy and Tigercub. There is a preference for doom-driven rhythm sections hitting you a little harder with a more assertive guitar cutting through it. ‘Sunday Commuter’ uses a similar, slower pace but with a slightly Brit-pop-tinged outlook. Bernard Butler-esque guitars reign the song in from the start as lyrically it provokes the voiceless rebellion we have nowadays: “Staring into advertising space / How graffiti connects but has nothing to say.”

‘Missing Persons’ is the stand out piece on the album and boasts refreshing optimism with its slight nod to the likes of The Cribs and The Automatic. It pinpoints all the insecurities that plague personalities, loneliness, depression, job worries, financial strife, the list goes on. It gives you an answer to these issues and speaks of doing what we all wish we could occasionally do: go missing. “Maybe I won’t be lonely / Maybe I won’t be mad / Maybe you’ll be the only / Friend I have.”

As the album reaches its final sprint with ‘Slacker Shopper’ – another distorted, furious punk number that brinks on hardcore – they leave a lasting impression with a hidden track. The hidden track is unlike much on the album, showing a far more delicate sound to the group. Going back to the teasing that Asylums continuously leave their audience, it acts as another lure to the future. Just as you feel full, just as you get your sufficient dose of their music they lean on the future somewhat and you want to know more.

The songs are sharp, short and to the point. Nothing stretches much over three minutes and for this reason, nothing grows wary on the album. It is a cocktail of punk, nostalgia and social commentary of the contemporary young adult. It picks up on insecurity and paranoia, ultimately lending it to be the most relatable piece of music for the modern millennial. Looks like we have our new social commentators and who’d have thought they would come from Southend?
Tom Churchill

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