The Runs
Wet Sounds
Urban Cheese
Before even giving San Jose, California’s The Runs a listen I was won over completely by the album cover. If the title Wet Sounds doesn’t catch your attention, then the green, yellow, and white header should… if it does not, then you don’t know The Beach Boys and you don’t own Pet Sounds, and you should stop reading right now and go buy a copy – no respectable record collection would be complete without it. Back to The Runs, this punk rock take on this pop classic replaces the original image of the band feeding goats with a band unseen save for ankles beneath bathroom stalls. Classy.
Opening song “She Don’t Want Me” begins with the first five seconds of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” but that’s where the Beach Boys homage comes to a close. From there on out this ear-catching debut screams like an old Lookout! Album, with songs about distrusting the government, getting high, and sleeping with a freaky deaky women.
It’s hops-soaked punk rock in the age-old tradition of The Queers, The Stooges, or 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours era Green Day, and I have never gotten tired of that brand of beer!
I am absolutely infatuated with this album.
The Runs: http://www.theRuns.com • CD Baby: http://cdbaby.com/cd/runs
