Yummy!

Album Review

They never gained a real foothold in the United States and — given the immense cost of touring abroad — never fully attempted to stake that claim. Nonetheless, as evidenced by Yummy, Australia's Hard-Ons generated some of the most accomplished, if goofy, punk-pop of the '80s and '90s, bested perhaps only by their obvious antecedents, California's Descendents. Sure, the number of bands working in this basic milieu are legion, but few have such a rough, blistering take on melodic punk. Yummy is possibly the band's best, jettisoning the juvenilia that stained earlier albums like Dickcheese and Love Is a Battlefield. Guitarist Blackie Black's riffs and leads are superb, and they give the band definite metallic and hard rock overtones, something lacking in a band like, say, the Queers. Most tracks reside in mid-tempo melodics, paced and sequenced brilliantly. On successive albums, the Hard-Ons became increasingly enamored with metal, a sound they have used to great effect, but only when tempered with pop sensibilities. Consequently, Yummy represents the apex of the band's output.