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February 20, 2023

Trunk: “Chili’s 45th and Lamar”

By: Jack Anderson

Depending on the general reception of a sitting administration, President’s Day often presents the creative community with opportunities to shed some sociopolitical discourse. Today, that’s not quite the case. Instead we’re yielding the podium to a group whose last two albums were Trunk’s America and north american practice space. Yes, we’re talking about Trunk.

Look at their song titles or listen to their lyrics and you can tell right away that these five fellas are mainly just goofin’ around. But following Austin’s rich history of sarcastic hardcore punk acts like The Dicks, Big Boys and MDC, Trunk is actually really fun to listen to and honesty incredible live. Given, they only made their first public live performance last Fall at Infinite Hellscape Fest, but that set showed how much Trunk’s sound has matured since their 2017 debut GONE AREA. And although the lyrics and subject matter are about the same level of juvenility (unsurprising considering how old some of these songs are), we’re certainly not complaining about Trunk’s laissez-faire approach to songwriting, which channels the care-free eclecticism of Meat Puppets or The Minutemen.

On that note, today Trunk unfurled their latest studio offering, Buzzkill. Buzzkill is easily Trunk’s best record yet, both in terms of content and sonic fidelity. This cabinet of crazies is best enjoyed uninterrupted front-to-back, so we’ll get you started with Buzzkill‘s album opener that pays tribute to the Commander in Chief of chain restaurants, “Chili’s 45th and Lamar”.


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