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ETT is honored to bring another mindblowing debut LP on your turntable. All the way from Naarm (Melbourne, Australia) we have a unique debut album. Jordan from Pinch Points, Miranda from Dr Sure's Unusual Practice, Tom from Gonzo and Dragnet, Amada from Carpet Burn, Gutter Girls plus Chris and Erik from Hobsons Bay Coast Guard. What do you get when you put these people in one practice room? Yes - CHECKPOINT!
This is a no-filler record; every song feels as though it’s been crafted carefully, and explored fully. There is so much to explore here and every listen will make you piece this puzzle even better. It’s pretty damn catchy, and old spiky punks might find themselves nodding along as they grumble. Front to back, DRIFT is like shotgunning a Red Bull. It never slows down, it has some solid punk grit and the speed and style works in the album’s favor. Each track has just enough variation to keep you hungry and the song topics at times will have you questioning if the world will make it!
It’s always good to see this loose coalition of bands keep the spirit of 00's garage punk alive and supercharged into the now. I won’t throw around the usual references, but this is the type of attitude that first turned my ear to this style and it’s just getting better. It’s exhilarating, and already leaves me breathless for the next release. It’s music you can’t help but enjoy. I think you are under the impression that this is an album by the amazing band Checkpoint. After purchasing the record and enjoying it, you will be pleasantly surprised to learn that you were correct and you would do it again.
Our take: Erste Theke Tonträger brings us yet another great new band from Australia. Like the Spllit LP I wrote about last week, Checkpoint’s debut LP, Drift, has some of the surface-level trappings of egg punk—namely the wobbly, underwater-sounding production—but lacks the tossed-off feeling I get from some similar-sounding bands. Checkpoint’s music is ambitious, their songs dense with ideas and meticulous in their composition and arrangement. Some parts are unexpected, like the tropical-sounding breakdown in “Friends” or the almost orchestral outro section of “Break.” The record’s crowning achievement, though, is the nearly twelve-minute “10th Dimension Advertisment Apocalypse.” You’d think a twelve-minute song would be full of long, droning sections or a lot of aimless fucking around, but it’s not like that at all. No part of “10th Dimension” feels like a throwaway or a time killer, and Checkpoint weaves through the song’s numerous twists and turns with confidence. It’s clear Checkpoint is aiming at something bigger than just another entry in the latest punk fad, which they emphasize with the lyrics for “Teachers pt. II,” which name-checks dozens of Checkpoint’s influences, locating the group in a long tradition of outsider music as diverse as Can, little-known Gong sideman David Wise, and the Oh Sees’ John Dwyer. If you liked that Spllit LP, or if your taste encompasses both underground punk and the mannered compositions of Sparks, Drift is well worth your attention.