Oi, yah beautiful bums of the void! This week, Ryan and I invited our pal Tarek (vocalist of Intercourse) to chat with us about last year’s C.O.F.F.I.N release, which is a non-abbreviated self-titled album known as Children of Finland Fighting In Norway. We last covered these Aussies back in the summer of 2019 with their EP Be Gone, and we used that as an excuse to cover their Piss~Up LP (2018) as well. After getting so jazzed on the sound of Piss~Up, it took us a while to warm up to this new album, yet once we abandoned our preconceived expectations that this record would be Piss~Up: Part Two and embraced the sharpened rock ‘n’ roll sound it harbors, this record became an enlivening romp. In the episode, we dissect their lyrics, go on random tangents, talk about Australian wildlife, and listen in awe to Tarek’s uh… fascinating stories (Facebook marketplace is a lovely place to shop for underoonies FYI).

Once again the vocals stand out in the band as Ben Portnoy lets out his drunken grunts and groans galore! Punky back up vocals only heighten the awesome choruses permeating the LP’s duration. This time around the guitars bring on a fun party time rock jam in each track. This includes well-placed guitar leads that will have you finger wank widdlin out of car windows. Some tracks give you a totally different flavor of the week in general, such as the slow and bluesy bar tale in “Ransack Blues”, or the heavier thrash track “Average Death”. My personal favorite, “Dead Land”, has a solid ambient opening that brings us into charcoaled doom riffs and tribal drum beats. Let’s hope the world is wild fire-free this year across all continents. Save the damn koalas!

How about I just rip off the background info Ryan posted last time (deal with it Mr. Knapp)! Children of Finland Fighting in Norway (C.O.F.F.I.N) are an Aussie pub thrash quintet from the shores of Sydney. Founded back in 2005, they formulated when they were school mates, and in 2011, they crafted their first LP while in high school. From there C.O.F.F.I.N went on to produce two more full-lengths, a handful of EPs, and a live album with a myriad of international gigs along the way. This self-titled release came out on September 17th, 2020.