Punk kids will never tire of the split. I don’t know who decided to issue records featuring the output of two separate bands. But at least since the dawn of the `90s, scores of bands have tied the knot and consummated their relationships with mutual records. As with many such couplings, the relationship proves magically complimentary or disastrously diverging.

This brings us to the matrimony of Movement and Endgame. They’re good friends who have shared many a show together. Maybe you caught the two in a basement near you. So many bands like this with similar creeds will come and go, or at least we can only hope. They’re cut from a rough-hewn forward thinking cloth. They’re compassionate without being maudlin and angry without sounding petulant. What we have here are a bunch of normal kids banging out streamlined punk music for their friends with little regard for financial gain or status accrual.

Whenever I hear a band like Movement, I’m brought back to a youth spent in the late `90s of New Brunswick, NJ. Nearly every night of the week scores of local bands played in basements across the city. And many of them sounded like Movement: mid-tempo, gruffly shouted punk rock. I actually hear a lot of Gainesville in this band. Nearly every new record on No Idea feasts on this sound and style, which I suppose implies that Movement would find a welcome home on that Floridian label. The guitar playing in “…More Like Presidon’t” is rather skilled. The drumming and bassing throughout is impressive. Not too shabby.

Next up is fellow New Jersey rockers Endgame. The CD insert claims their tunes were recorded “very unfortunately,” at a particular studio. Listening to them you understand the disclaimer. I hope the band didn’t blow their collective college savings on the recording (especially for their parents’ sake). Beyond the limited production quality, Endgame blast out brief blasts of fast, melody-laden punk not far removed from mid-period Lifetime. They slow it down, which makes me think of early Lifetime, maybe even the classic and forgotten NJ band Strength 691. The singer can sing, the musicians can play. It’s DIY, well-intentioned and meant to mark a time and place for the existences of both bands.