Stay Young

Album review

Following a pair of demos shared online in 2022, the four-song Stay Young EP is the first material to surface from Finnoguns Wake, a project led by former Royal Headache vocalist Shogun and co-vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Finn Berzin. Though Stay Young is a short release, it offers up a mission statement from the band with non-stop energy and melodically charged punk reliant on a special chemistry shared by the two core members. Those who were fans of Royal Headache's ramshackle soul-punk will be immediately taken with the Shogun-led songs "Blue Skies" and "Strawberry Avalanche," both of which feature the singer's distinctively full-throttle but deftly controlled lead vocals. While these songs still have some of the fuzz and grit that made Royal Headache exciting, they're slower and more sophisticated. Touches of psychedelia and wistful pop recall early Oasis if they were playing at full volume in a dive bar. Berzin's songs offer a bounding, fresh-faced counterpoint to Shogun's often world-weary perspectives. "So Nice" is a fast, jaunty tune that brings together the idealistic pep of the Clash at their best with the straightforward song construction of touchstones like Hüsker Dü or Social Distortion. "Lovers All" is more riff-focused but equally catchy. Where the earlier demos were roughly produced, Shogun and Berzin are backed by a full band on these recordings, and blaring keyboard and organ sounds from Gabrielle De Giorgio fill out the caustically catchy arrangements nicely. Stay Young flies by in about the same amount of time as a jam-packed 7" single, but delivers a lot of heart and intensity in its less than 15-minute runtime. It's a great starting point that suggests even better things will follow when Finnoguns Wake gathers more songs and further perfects the formula they're just diving into here.

© Fred Thomas /TiVo