Yuppie Pricks

It doesn’t take a genius to get the motive behind Austin’s Yuppie Pricks: since punk rock has become yet another cliché, with its own uniform and rules, there isn’t much left to poke fun at. The only way to oppose the machine is to go full-force the other way. By that reasoning, the band utilize a phoney image of corporate greed and overindulgence to relay their abrasive four-chord sound. It’s supposed to make us laugh but all that really comes to mind is oddball ’90s band the Upper Crust, who made a running gag out of being a bunch of rich aristocrats playing metal. Yeah, that died quickly. Lyrically, Balls is rather banal, pointing out our obvious social ills, which is actually sad, given that musically Yuppie Pricks could have been the perfect modern-day replacement for the Dead Kennedys. However, once again, because they embrace kitsch over hard-edged substance, they relegate themselves to being a one-trick pony with more potential than delivery.