Don’t call it a pop-punk revival, but don’t think about it too much either.

If my maturity had a face that existed in the early 90s, this would more or less cover it.

PKEW PKEW PKEW (gunshots) may as well be time travellers. They’ve been playing the same rotation of content for more or less the past few years, but somehow their tracks feel like timeless pop-punk classics pulled straight from the soundtracks of edgy 90s skateparks and dropped smack-dab into southern Ontario. I’ve only ever had the privilege of seeing them once in concert, when opening for PUP in a particularly steamy Grad Club in Kingston, but their blatantly carefree immaturity won me over immediately. Pkew x3 clearly preferred sharing a good time with the crowd than wowing over critics and doubters — lyrics like “Let’s order a pizza, I’ve gotta eat something before I throw up” won’t enthral any cynics — but the show was a blast and I’ve been eagerly awaiting an official release from them ever since. Sure, they’ve got a myriad of song versions available on YouTube and BandCamp, but most of them are sweaty small-time concert renditions and when they were signed to Royal Mountain Records earlier this year, I had a feeling the real deal was coming.

PKEW PKEW PKEW is available for streaming on Spotify.

Much like their live shows, PKEW PKEW PKEW embodies the raw energy of pop-punk — unpretentious, unbridled, and at times uncontrollable, Pkew x3 is all about having plenty of fun. Overall the songs on the album are incredibly similar, but whether that irks or excites you completely depends on personal taste. Almost every single lyric is a gang vocal rife with tongue-in-cheek self-deprecation, shoved into tracks that are so damn fast, both tempo- and duration-wise, that you don’t really have the time to process what’s going on. Although, that being said, I would argue that’s kind of the point of this album: Pkew x3’s sound is all about cutting loose and letting yourself be taken away, and whether that involves switching off your mind or blacking out on booze to reach that end doesn’t make much a difference. Either way, the band does a good job of making that journey as accessible and enjoyable as possible — the songs are quick and uncomplicated, making picking up the lyrics and dancing along particularly easy. Although, keeping up with the pace might be a completely different story.

‘Mid 20’s Skateboarder’ and ‘Blood Clot’ — the first video (so far) from this particular PKEW PKEW PKEW release.

I personally found that the instrumentation on this album actually sets up a tidy allegory for the mentality, so bear with me on this one: there are flashes of guitar licks scattered all over PKEW PKEW PKEW, but most of the time the riffs devolve into power chords that blend in with the rest of the band’s sound and forego individuality for the sake of cohesiveness. In slower tracks like ‘Glory Days’ (as if this band is capable of that) there are honest-to-goodness lengthy guitar solos, but most of the time the strings sit back and let everybody else do the talking, quite literally — remember how I mentioned all of those gang vocals? It’s almost as if the guitars are saying, “fuck it, let’s not worry about this too much. Don’t try to be unique and stand out too much, just throw all that shit away and let’s join in the fun.” The lyrical content of the songs don’t stand out that much either — as a matter of fact they pretty much all boil down to loudly swearing, drinking, and skating — but there are spats of variety like the introspectiveness on the aforementioned ‘Glory Days’ and closing track ‘Kathie Lee + Hoda’. However, considering the 20-minute runtime and breakneck speed, I didn’t find the repetitiveness in the lyrics to be a bother and the musical content changes frequently enough to keep any semblance of boredom far, far away from this record.

‘Prequel To Asshole Pandemic’ — If you can’t tell what their brand of humour is like, just read the lyrics

If PUP’s sound is appropriately snot-nosed and immature, Pkew x3 is the Ritalin-fuelled skatepunk-obsessed little brother who somehow finds a way to take everything way too far, gorging himself and puking at every opportunity in a gloriously infectious mess that you can’t help joining in on certain weekends. It’s juvenile and dumb and pretty much valueless, but much bigger bands have made much bigger careers on far less and Pkew x3 has the grace to acknowledge the ridiculousness of their chosen genre within their tunes. The origin story-esque ‘Prequel to Asshole Pandemic’ proclaims, “We’ll sing about beer and football”, and the band has the good sense to stick to what they know rather than trying to branch out into something unnecessarily grander. The group’s central dogma can be summarized in lyrics off ‘Kathie Lee + Hoda’: “The debt and depression, decisions I’ve made, fuck it, I’ll worry about that shit some other day” — while this kind of music may not be for everybody, the sincere execution of pop-punk by Pkew Pkew Pkew in the name of dumb fun is easily receivable and well done.

Verdict: If loud and fast turns you away then so will this, but if you pine for the nostalgia of simpler days and Tony Hawk video games then this album will strike a chord with you.