School Jerks are so obviously influenced by the sounds that emanated from the East and West Coasts of the U.S.A. back in the early '80s that the approach favored is easily connected to bands such as the Circle Jerks, early Descendents and Damaged-era Black Flag, along with a host of groups from Washington D.C. as well as Boston, Mass. In taking those influences and molding them into a furious aural assault of its own, School Jerks have managed to maintain two feet firmly rooted in the past and in doing so provided a reminder to many people of how and why they first got into punk/hardcore-partly because it didn't seem beyond the realms of possibility that anyone could pick up an instrument and create mayhem.

I wouldn't even begin to consider what the majority of the lyrics are about here as the delivery is close to being 100 percent unintelligible, but to be honest I don't really care as it's the sense of frantic cohesion that grabs me from the opening track "Untitled," which seems a little bit all over the place with the "vocal" appearing to be voices in a bar or something similar and this doesn't really set the tone to be followed. However, a more "normal" blitz is provided when the second track "Why Ask Why?" kicks in. The structure that continues from there on in is generally one that those familiar with early '80s hardcore will recognize as adding nothing new to the genre but doing itself justice in keeping the flag flying.

This is music that in a nutshell, just rocks and does so in a short amount of time (think Group Sex in terms of the brevity): what's not to like about that when it's done as well as this? It's not breakneck pace but isn't slow, the production is a long way from providing a pristine sound and the guitar leads are almost scratched into the songs when they do appear: so it's all good.

As I've previously stated the best music of 2012 is coming out of Canada and here's another example of that, with School Jerks hailing from Toronto.