The Vermin - The Vermin Must Die

Written by GE 138.

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Hey! Remember when this album came out a few months ago? Do ya? Yeah, I don't either - and neither does anybody else, apparently. I certainly forgot all about it, because from what I heard it was just a rehashing of previously released material, so I had no rush to buy what I already had, no matter how pretty the repackaging, and when I recently asked around about it, because a friend of mine had given me a copy (gray vinyl!) that he says he stole from the record release party when it went down, and I was asking my friends if they had gotten this new Vermin release, responses varied from out and out laughter to quizzical looks that basically said 'Why would I do that?'. lol Yeah, The Vermin have established themselves as one of those bands that you suffer through their sets when they play, where you're putting up with 25 minutes of bad jokes and shit talking, and 10 minutes of actual Punk Rock music. They've been doing their shtick for years now, either you dig it or you don't, but if you can get past the purposeful annoyance thing that they've perfected to a science, the band really had a couple of great fucking tunes in their repertoire, songs like Girl Says No, Boredom Was The Reason, Lipstick Smears And Bloodshot Eyes, Just Another Nightmare, songs that were mega hooky, super catchy, heavy guitar riff filled, short venomous bursts of Fury and Spite, with memorable, anthemic, shouted out vocal work, like drunk soccer hooligans on the terraces, songs which highlighted the musicianship of the band, which was limited, yet powerful in the right moment. If this album was a comic book, it would be called The Many Adventures Of The Vermin, because it's got a little bit of everything that the band has done in their musical career - their be-bop pseudo Lounge music, a little Rockasilly, a little Country, some beatnik spoken word shit, some Rock 'N' Roll, and loads and loads of fast as fuck Punk songs, all embellished with the Vermin's trademark snotty, 1-2 fuck you vitriol  and Devil may care attitude. Some of the songs sound better on here than I remember them sounding, and some of them don't. Whatever. Is this a greatest hits collection of sorts? Guess so. If you need a stand alone collection to simplify your Vermin musical collection, then this is the album for you. If you already have most of this stuff, like most of us do that live in Las Vegas, well then maybe you can buy it for the colored vinyl aspect of it. The gray vinyl is very cool looking. Is this the first release by The Vermin on vinyl? Don't know. If you need a bit more incentive to buy this album, on the digital download that comes with every copy of this record, there are 5 extra songs you can get that are covers by the Vermin of some of their favorite bands that have influenced their sound, songs by bands like the Ramones, The Damned, Elvis Presley and Van Halen, all songs from various compilations and a few that (I think) that have never been released before.  Too bad they didn't include their 20 minute version of Bauhaus' Bela Lugosi on here. I think that was a missed opportunity! I can still hear it going on forever... Bellllaaaaaa Luuuuugooooosssiiiiii... hahahaha This is supposedly the last ever release from the Vermin, as they've supposedly broken up just after the release of this album, but I believe that about as much as I believe that Las Vegas will let the old casinos stand around forever and not blow them up and watch them fall down in a cloud of debris and dust. The Vermin will be back, in some form or another. Wouldn't be a proper Las Vegas Music Scene without them. ;-)

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Available on vinyl from SquidHat Records by clicking here. It's also available from SquidHat on CD right here, where you get 7 extra songs of "popular Vegas bands" doing Vermin covers, which I'm sure is laughable. Oh, the things you have to do when you're "signed" to a label... LOL It's also available digitally via Bandcamp by clicking here, it's also available on iTunes (click here), Amazon (click here), Target (click here) and any other place their TV popularity has opened the doors to their music being peddled.

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