The Heartaches

The Heartaches are a five-piece street punk band from Belgium. Lunacy And Devastation is their first full-length, released in 2003. Prior to the album, they have also released a split CD with the Forgotten, and opened for acts like the Distillers, Dropkick Murphys, Sixer, the Forgotten, Foxy, the Living End, Bombshell Rocks, and Die Hunns, and last year supported on the Lars Frederiksen And The Bastards' European tour. Their main influences are Rancid, U.S. Bombs, the Clash, and Stiff Little Fingers.

The sound on this album is mostly fast, hard, raunchy and melodic with some great guitar riffs. Most of the songs are great anthems and invite the listener to sing along loud.

The album starts with a song called "S.O.L. (Shit Out Of Luck)," a fast, melodic song with a catchy guitar riff in the beginning and chorus which invites to sing along. It's certainly a good beginning for an excellent albumin, and in particular always gets the crowd moving when they play it at their shows. The album contains other fast songs like the opening track though, like "Hoboken Riot," "Let Me Be," "Heartattack Radio" (with great guitar work played by Kerry Martinez of the U.S. Bombs), "Never Come Back," and "Sin City."

There is also room for more emotional songs like "Dead Man’s Dairy" on which they slow down the tempo. This song is really great, with emotional lyrics about a kid who just don’t get it right and is tired of living. Another emotional song on which they slow down, but nevertheless is still powerful, is "5 cents In A Hat," about a man who lives on the street and has nothing.

One of the greatest powers to this album is the powerful and raunchy voice of the singer Leroy. He is also a great songwriter, political, poetic and sometimes very emotional. The lyrics mainly go about politics, feelings and growing up. The music is mainly written by guitarist Sammy, who is a great guitar player and contributes a lot of great, sometimes very catchy guitar riffs to the album. He also has a great voice, which comes to expression in the choruses and the parts that he sings, and certainly is a surplus to the music.

This album is a must to people who like fast, melodic street punk. I believe it can be ordered on interpunk for people who live in America.