If you like Fugazi, you’ll love Quite Good by Regal Cheer.
Putting two and a half stars on your own album cover, calling it Quite Good and then proceeding to blow the bloody doors off is a bold move. Like offering a polite shrug before nailing a stage dive, this album clocks in at under 20 minutes, as this Brighton-based punk two-piece waste absolutely none of your time with a breathless, rollicking burst of fed-upness. Their sound is raw, scrappy, unpredictable punk where every guitar riff fills the corners whilst the two of them just yell together, full throttle like early Against Me! or Hot Water Music, tearing out their guts with glee.
Lyrically Quite Good is an album about being stabbed in the front, hating your job and getting through it all with a kind of chaotic joy. It’s raw, jubilant, it’s over far too fast, and that’s kind of the point. Regal Cheer aren’t Quite Good, they’re fucking great. Only two of the twelve songs stretch past the two-minute mark, but they’re bursting with structural invention, with drums that punctuate and elevate rather than just keeping time, cutting in ahead of the beat and locking into glorious half-time breakdowns to make the lyrics hit even harder. The album feels ambitious despite its miniature runtime, and the themes are personal but deeply relatable British misery, all shit jobs and betrayals. They teeter between post-hardcore grit and punk immediacy, with feedback squalls, and choruses that feel like the walls caving in with no polish and tremendous craft. These are songs built for shouting in sweaty rooms, capturing the exhaustion of now without ever sounding tired. This isn’t punk in the mohawks-and-studded-belts sense, avoiding every tired cliché of the genre without ever sounding like they’re trying to be clever about it. There’s no joy in the lyrics, but there’s a a tangible love for the riffs and the beautiful racket of punk rock done right that celebrates the form, giving the record a sly optimism, and a grin behind the scream.