Leatherface

It's been six years since these massively influential, highly underrated UK punks released Dog Disco, their seventh full-length studio album, and over 20 years since Cherry Knowle, their groundbreaking 1989 debut. A constant, crucial point of reference for any band featuring bearded guys who drink Pabst Blue Ribbon and wear long sleeve flannel to cover their old Alkaline Trio tattoos, Leatherface have put it all on the line with The Stormy Petrel, their stab at taking back a sound they invented two decades ago in Sunderland, UK. It's all here: the intricate palm-muted guitars, the painfully strained, soft-voiced, yet brutally harsh, vocal delivery that hides brilliant pop songwriting, and the drive and intensity that put Leatherface in rare company in modern punk rock. Fans of the band's landmark 1991 full-length, Mush, will find the same kind of understated brilliance here, from gripping opener "God is Dead" to the heart-warming affirmation/soul-crushing sadness of "Isn't Life Just Sweet." Look out, poseurs.