I don't care how many goddamn cute hobo bands there are out there right now. Not two runny shits. There's something Hank IV knows that few other current "of interest" bands realize, and it's a painfully simple thing: guitars were meant to sound like this, not that (pick something). That's as plainly as it can be put. This is twin-guitar punk rock in a class of its own, driving more than dueling and hot-sauce-free. I'd say "power with taste" but then I'd have to kill myself. I will say that III is Hank Baby's third and finest album yet and they are, in short, a band whose every move is worthy of your utmost attention. "For this record (their second for Siltbreeze), Thee Hanks opted to spend zero dollars and buried themselves deep inside their very own Shill Building studio for a good, long while. Sightings became scarce. Promises of "work" being "done" were made but who really knew what was going on? To be fair, The Shill has its fair share of distractions. Imagine Plato's Retreat, except like a basement in the Tenderloin. I think they only went outside for sandwiches from the East Coast West Deli on Polk Street, like that one time in the street when Bob McDonald told me about that Venom single he owns for the seventeenth time. Pffft... Bob, playboy, inventor (of "The Full Compliment") and as powerful and confounding a front-man as you're likely to find ambulating in today's scene. Hawnk Quatre (as they're called in France) is both an exercise and exorcism for this hardcore guy from Bum Kon all grown-up.
